Not saying that building databases of DNA is a good idea, but DNA is basically public information. Everyone whose hands you shake (nowadays quite rare) gets copies of it. The Amazon package you get has genes of every human who touched it. If you send it back, you are sending Amazon your genes. The only issue is the sequencing and the consent to use it for purposes like "improving our services" aka improving the ads targeting or insurances (once the DNA company is bought by an insurance). Consent is arguably less of an issue for hackers.
It is a bit like face recognition databases. In principle, the data is already public-enough. In practice, building these databases enables qualitatively higher levels of surveillance.
How, exactly? It's not like I can use wide-area instrumentation to locate you via your genome. You can imagine how to do it with cameras and faces, but I just don't see the method for DNA.
Imagine the BLM protests (since that will probably be popular with the HN crowd).
There’s video footage of a guy in a mask spitting on the ground after throwing a rock. He’s wearing a mask.
His second cousin did 23 and me.
Actually, statistically many of his second cousins did 23 and me.
Therefore we know who he is.
If only one second cousin did 23 and me, we’ve narrowed the suspects to, perhaps, a few hundred. Filter by apparent height, gender and you have a very narrow set of suspects.
Definitely agree. The point I'm trying to make is that DNA is a bit more "private" than your face, as there is a nontrivial cost to sequence it, but in general it's the same level. One day we'll be able to read thoughts and I'm pretty sure that some folks will build thought databases and people might even share their thoughts with the public... and ad companies will love it because they love checking the reactions of people to ads.
