Re:23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related
by marchenko on Friday December 14, 2018 @05:02AM
(#18679731)
Thus comment and the parent are spot-on. The main protection against the adversarial use of genetic databin the US, GINA, is currently facing several challenges, mostly through the backdoor of opt-in employee wellness plans.
Additionally, while the SNP- format generic data provided by 23andMe is of marginal medical use to the average consumer, it is very valuable to insurance companies and others constructing population-level actuarial models, where a very tiny increased probability of developing a condition is enough to justify increased rates.
And finally, as these relative-discovery stories suggest, there really is no such thing as anonymized genetic data above a panel of a few SNPs. This data is part of the inherence class of factors in multifactor authentication, and can even be derived from pooled anonymized data by a motivated party.
Additionally, while the SNP- format generic data provided by 23andMe is of marginal medical use to the average consumer, it is very valuable to insurance companies and others constructing population-level actuarial models, where a very tiny increased probability of developing a condition is enough to justify increased rates.
And finally, as these relative-discovery stories suggest, there really is no such thing as anonymized genetic data above a panel of a few SNPs. This data is part of the inherence class of factors in multifactor authentication, and can even be derived from pooled anonymized data by a motivated party.