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Comment by click170 | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps I'm being naieve but I don't want my DNA in any database without my expressed consent or criminal conviction.

DNA is inherently personal, and while its true you leave your DNA in almost as many places as your fingerprints (skin flakes, stray hairs, et al) DNA can tell you much more about someone's medical conditions than their fingerprint can.

I'm interested in personal medical devices, but not if that means leaking my medical info to the companies selling said devices. That info is personal and private and is nobodies business except mine and my doctors.

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Your genetic information can not be used to discriminate against you.

"The President has signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) that will protect Americans against discrimination based on their genetic information when it comes to health insurance and employment."

http://www.genome.gov/24519851

It's illegal in the movie Gattaca too. :D

At some point anyone can use it to construct a model of you (face shape reconstruction is now, litter in Hong Kong and your face may show up on a billboard). We have just scratched the surface in regards to what can be known about someone if you have their genetic code. Or what can be done... like make people specific bio-weapons. I wonder how fast individuals will be able edit their own DNA on the fly to moot some of this.

That's almost as science fiction as there being an "intelligence" gene.

Genetics is only one factor of your appearance - believe it or not, your environment, lifestyle, and upbringing factor in heavily.

First google hit for "face generation from dna"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/science/building-face-and-...

You're right of course, there is a lot more to appearance than genetics, but these approximations do exist now, and will get better. jakeogh's litter example is closer to reality than he probably intended, which just shows how fast this technology is coming along.

> Nonetheless, the police in Columbia, S.C., last month released a sketch of a possible suspect. Rather than an artist’s rendering based on witness descriptions, the face was generated by a computer relying solely on DNA found at the scene of the crime.

It's reality. I should have included the link. http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1804420/hong-kong-litt...

The point about genes vs environment/expression is right on, I assumed it was common knowledge and therefore implied.

Laws can be changed. So can governments. Once your DNA is in a database, there's no getting it back.

I wouldn't even consider that my doctors' business. It's your business, full stop. Your doctor is a contractor whose job it is to help you interpret the results, same as a medical device.

I wonder if they'll try to reassure people that they've "anonymized" your DNA.

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