It’s the same as infosec in general. Most people don’t know about the risks, and anyway are bad at quantifying tail risk.
My wife also did 23andme some years ago, through which she discovered she had Factor V Leiden—a fact which became extremely important very soon after her discovering it, leading directly to changes in her treatment and how closely they monitored her for blood clots (she had a PFO and some other stuff going on that was already compounding her risk of clotting and stroke), and very possibly may have saved her life.
I’m supposed to go in and delete every trace of it out of fear of what the down-on-their-luck company might, or simply could, do?
While I know that my experience might be rare, I would regardless suggest that you reserve your skepticism, because you aren’t really in a position to assess who did or did not derive a justifiable amount of value from it or how informed of a human being they are
I'm just another random anecdote, but I also found I had Factor V Leiden through 23 and me. Also, I'm gay, and for a long time was the only gay person I knew in my extended family. Through 23 and me I discovered a 2nd cousin who also is gay, and I met him in real life and it was an incredibly meaningful and important experience in my life.
Yeah, these experiences may or may not be rare. I was positing that they might be rare mostly to try to meet the person I was responded to halfway and because I don't actually have evidence one way or the other
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/dna-tests...
Non-heterosexual behaviour can be observed in most social amniotes, even those without fingerprints. Genetically-identical twins do not have identical sexual proclivities. There's no a priori reason to believe there's even a "gay gene" to find.
So at most a perfect genetic test could give a percentage chance of someone being gay/straight.
I guess that's pretty much what you said.
I don't tell anyone now to use 23andMe specifically, but the warnings and risks being discussed here apply to existing customers, to people who have already done it, and I am just speaking as one of those people.
But certain general ancestral data can be deduced from variations in your DNA that are observed in some known current/historical population. I.e, I share much in common with people sampled from Scotland -> I must be Scottish.
It's either matching to specific people in the service's reference group who have declared that they are Scottish, or it's trying to guess based on the mix of ancestral populations 2000+ years ago ("western hunter gatherer", "early Neolithic farmer" etc.)
23andme had little data on my fathers side so it split my mothers side into my family tree at the great grandfather level. I spent awhile tracing people only to discover my father and mother side seemed to be related. After going on Ancestry I was able to figure the mistake.
Myheritage had European links. 23andme North American links. Ancestry had everything. The genetic time period they match against are different. 23andme matches against 100ad while ancestry 1200ad. So if you are Celtic perhaps your people were in Spain in 100ad but in Ireland or Scotland by 1200. Using different services gives you a fuller picture and understanding of human migration and your migration. The difference from 23andme telling you you are broadly northwestern european vs Cornish/Welsh/Scottish is huge but illustrates what you match against really changes your identity.
These tests do not do a full detailed analysis if you want that you need to find a clinic and pay thousands of dollars. For what they do tell you I wouldn't be afraid for the entire world to see.
Discovering who you are, where you came from, discovering who your relates are, what your last name is, where people with your genes live now, the backstory on how your wave of immigration came and where they settled and why has been worth it.
The information exposed by 21andme was profile and ethnicity information. I'm okay with any of that becoming public, the public part of a facebook profile shares personal data. Actually I wish more people would ask me about my ethnicity data. I think it would make a great addition as a facebook profile section and if facebook still allowed developers to create profile addons I would create one.
As an aside does anyone remember catbook addon?
You are probably aware that at least two European countries no longer collect this information, and the reasons for introducing this policy?
https://qz.com/2029525/the-20-countries-that-dont-collect-ra...
My guess would be to protect European identity from the reality. Europe has a different level of acceptance of foreigners and a history to protect. I can accept their compromise because of their political situations.
In Canada it's promoted. In the US it gets combined into American identity and promoted in Europe it's hidden.
You being a sample of one doesn't give you any position either, but I won't be suggesting reserving your enthusiasm.
Speeding is a choice, one that's extremely easy to change, and it ultimately an exceedingly trivial matter.
You are born with your genetics, and you can’t change them. You are them. They will likely impact how and you die. All you can do is be aware of them so you can try to be proactive.
So there’s really no comparison between that and voluntarily driving a car too fast
If that’s genuinely how it worked, where the more health problems you are at risk for, the more money you have to pay, this would result in the people who already have the shittiest stuff to deal with in their lives having that compounded by also having to pay more than everybody else.
Not sure what more needs to be said, but if there is anyone out there who is unconvinced, I probably won’t be inviting them to dinner parties anytime soon
If someone has a higher probability of getting sick / dieing / getting in a wreck then the risk is different and should be priced accordingly. If you don’t, you’re not taking about insurance anymore. You’re talking about a wealth transfer system where good drivers subsidize the bad.
There's no divine directive that states that risk sharing must be done by voluntarily joining a pool run by a private entity that's priced uniquely per individual. That's merely one way to go about it.
To be fair it's the only sensible way for a private entity to go about it in the absence of legislation that prevents others from being more efficient. In the case of the US specifically, as long as everyone is forced to play by the same "inefficient" rules the free market will continue to work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driv...
Did I get that right? If so, is there an ongoing value you want to maintain, or it more out of respect for the organization that provided you value in the past?
1. I'm simply not that important. There are millions of other people who have given this data to 23 and me and the like, and I'm just some rando peon - nobody is going to be specifically searching for my DNA.
2. The "worst case scenarios", e.g. getting health insurance denied because you have some gene, still seem implausible to me. Granted, there is a ton of stuff I thought would be implausible 5-10 years ago that is now happening, but something like this feels like it would be pushed back against from all sides of the political spectrum, even in our highly polarized world.
3. I haven't murdered anyone, so I'm not worried about getting caught up in a DNA dragnet. Sure, there can be false positives, but to get on in life you pretty much have to ignore events with low statistical probability (or otherwise nobody would even get in a car on the road, and that has a much higher statistical probability of doing you harm).
Even moreso if they're one that would be a physical threat like you're suggesting?
There is always the risk of a society or government changing that definition after they have the data and it’s too late to go back.
I'm just saying I'd like the state to have to work hard to put people away. The law can just as easily be wielded to harm people. I don't see much sign the american public agrees with me, and politicians certainly don't agree. Even mr "it's a witch hunt" trump is only anti-LEO when it comes to his own crimes. But I'd rather have some low background level of crime than the sinking feeling that we're imprisoning a lot of innocent people, as unpopular a sentiment it might be to some in this country.
Besides, if the government doesn't take care of society, higher crime is inevitable.
While they may still be useful, they have an image of infallibility that doesn't line up with reality.
Their use as evidence has been challenged by academics, judges and the
media. There are no uniform standards for point-counting methods, and
academics have argued that the error rate in matching fingerprints has
not been adequately studied and that fingerprint evidence has no secure
statistical foundation. Research has been conducted into whether experts
can objectively focus on feature information in fingerprints without
being misled by extraneous information, such as context.
1. If I had a family member who was a serial murderer or rapist a la the Golden State Killer, I would want him apprehended.
2. "the criminal might well learn/suspect that they have been compromised through you?" That doesn't seem reasonably plausible enough to me to care. What, cousin Billy Bob is going to come hold me hostage because he knows I used 23 and me at some point? Really??
But you are apprehended instead and are responsible for now coming up with an alibi.
What if an unknown biological relative of mine happens to be a billionaire and gifts me $10M like he does for all his other relatives?
We're halfway there, data mining by insurances already is the norm in car insurance. We should have fought back hard back in the day this was proposed.
> I haven't murdered anyone, so I'm not worried about getting caught up in a DNA dragnet. Sure, there can be false positives, but to get on in life you pretty much have to ignore events with low statistical probability
Even if you haven't murdered anyone or intend to to so - your genetic data is useful in the pig dragnet. Your genetic data may be what provides the pigs with a link to your nephew who moonlights as a graffiti sprayer... and yes, the German pigs are doing DNA checks on graffiti sprayers, they have been doing so for over two decades [1].
[1] https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article398332/Graffiti-Erstma...
At the moment pigs can break the law and abuse their authority any way they please with barely any chance of getting even a slap on the wrist - and even if they kill someone, chances are high they'll either get off entirely on "reasonable fear" or they'll get pardoned.
Again, if your goal is to convince people (or at least have a constructive dialogue) why they should care about genetic privacy, all you have done for your average person is convince them even more that your opinion should be discounted.
One can argue that these people may not have understood that a transaction was occurring. I would argue that this is beside the point. Their intuition is hard to discredit in the face of their lived experience. Aside from the marketing spam, most people are probably right in thinking that they've been better off with Google/<alternative> than without.
We can pontificate that people should know more about what they agreed to, and so on, if only they knew better, etc. But this rings hollow and very hypothetical to the vast majority of us. It's worrisome in thought exercises, but not validated in real life.
Perhaps this could be solved with a class action law suit, that would make it illegal for private entities to own the data post fact, combined with how it was marketed, etc. I’ve seen interest rates for credits reverted this way and credits reduced, for similar reasons. But again, it’s a trade off here too :)
Most people haven't died or had their bank account drained due to bad opsec, so I'm guessing they are accurately assessing the risk as "could be worse". There are so many things that could kill you day to day that people rightly don't care about your pet issue.
Most people I talk to about this, tech and non-tech folk have an attitude with a.mix of "you can't escape this anyway, so might as well embrace it" and "misuse scenarios you are describing are pretty far-fetched".
Hi Laszlo, I'm making the trip on Friday, we can meet at 10 and you can put the stuff in my purse, it should be fine. Don't forget the jewels, that's the only reason I'm doing this.