An old friend and myself have had some extremely heated debates about whether the genomic sequence data his company collects from people and sells to everyone is biomedical data. I say that it is and is covered under HIPAA. He claims that is absurd and unreasonable and that genome sequences are simply not personal private medical data regulated under HIPAA. Many others in these debates have also disagreed with me and rebuked me claiming that even complete genomic data is not covered under HIPAA and is simply not personal medical information. I don't recall ever having a single supporter in my claim that a person's genome is private medical data.

Yet perhaps some of these happy to hate on me in the past and denounce my unreasonable opinion that genomes are medical data would now criticize me for monitoring conditions and levels of gases in my own private home as well as that of waste disposed of. Courts have repeatedly ruled that in disposing of cellular materials such as blood and sperm one gives up any rights to privacy. These materials can be collected from trash without a warrant. The reasonable expectation of privacy simply does not apply to things one has thrown away.

> I don't recall ever having a single supporter in my claim that a person's genome is private medical data.

Huh. In Canada, that's a settled question. It is, at least with regard to e.g. a medical record that contains genetic information. We're also looking at laws which prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information.

Though more directly to what you're talking about, I think it is in fact legal for a private citizen to collect discarded biological material from a person and sequence it. A company would be prohibited, however. I am not a lawyer, though.

> The reasonable expectation of privacy simply does not apply to things one has thrown away.

That can be fixed by statute. While the law is similar here in that items discarded are no longer protected by the constitution regarding search and seizure, statute prohibits a company, for example, from collecting banking information from discarded paperwork in the recycling.