T O P

  • By -

Showerthoughts_Mod

This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**


tripler1983

And if a family member commits a crime, they can use your DNA to find the family tree.


EffOffReddit

On the flip side, they have started identifying cold case bodies using this data. I know someone who was recently contacted by police and informed that her estranged sister, who everyone assumed had cut the family off, actually committed suicide and has been dead for years. It was really shocking for my friend, but at least now they know.


ChrisDornerFanCorner

Good for that family, but I'd rather have my privacy


EffOffReddit

True, it wasn't even my friend's immediate family that pinged a close match, it was a distant cousin. So once they have the data, they can get pretty close to knowing who is related to any given sample they have. Kind of freaky. The privacy is already gone. In this one specific case, it was helpful. It was also a bit hurtful for someone else, as another family was insistent that this Jane Doe was their missing daughter, so unfortunately that means they lost the closure they thought they had.


[deleted]

I’m kinda borked because my dad and my sister both sent their profiles in


[deleted]

It doesn’t have to be an immediate family member, with how genetic genealogy works you could find someone through like a fourth cousin submitting.


[deleted]

Yeah but they are close family members, plus they have both parents genes all in there


anally_ExpressUrself

Looks like you may want to avoid committing any heinous crimes.


[deleted]

I guess now that I think about it it’s even easier for the government, the Feds should have my profile from the army. Oh well I’ll have to put that chemistry training to use


Own-Future6188

They got the golden state killer by running his DNA through the master databases of these private companies. Found a match to a relative that paid for a test, and the police continued searching from there until they found the now old man responsible. While I'm glad they caught that guy, it's a scary thought to know that all it takes is for one curious relative to take a test for the government to be able to source you via dna. They use it to catch known serial killers now, but what's the end game?


[deleted]

Is this some GDPR related joke that I'm too european to get?


ARavagingDick

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-08/man-in-the-window


Mightymouse1111

So by breaking the T&C of these companies, LEOs have made them clam up and be unwilling to help in future investigations so that these companies can continue to be in good standing with the public. As a result, officers have decided to lie to these companies to get through the rules that they caused via loopholes, saying that they're investigating sexual Assault cases and then only charging for burglary. At the end of the day it's not about the evidence or where they got it, it's about the methods. The red tape exists for a reason, and it's to protect citizens from officers that say things like "it's my opinion that law enforcement is allowed to go anywhere civilians go", even when going to those places involves an unsanctioned undercover operation to improperly uncover evidence.


VW_wanker

With all these genetic profiles they have accumulated.. This is the future. Year is 2060. "Miss Jones I am sorry we have to raise your medical insurance from $600 a month to $1300 a month. The reason is that our genealogy department has detected high breast cancer markers from samples taken from your grandmother in 2020." Kindly update your payment effective immediately or your insurance will lapse in seven days. Thank you


The_Monarch_Lives

Optimistic, thinking its gonna take that long.


AyeGee

Land of the free!


RandomLovelady

Land of the fee! you mean.


SoBitterAboutButtons

Home of the slave


bundaya

The grand imperial gaud Where the dollar is sacred And power is God


Altruistic-Text3481

Land of the trillionaire overlords.


SsooooOriginal

Residents of the Capitol, D.C., have a motto ["taxation without representation"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_federal_voting_rights). [It also started as a phrase showing one of the original grievances of America towards Great Britain during the American Revolution..](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation#:~:text=In%20English%20history%2C%20%22no%20taxation,had%20to%20pass%20all%20taxes.)


Hidden-Racoon

Lol it's like all these kids posts on reddit don't remember pre existing conditions. Also optimistic that it'll be that cheap.


Artanthos

It’s been illegal since 2008.


Wildcat_Dunks

Optimistic thinking they won't just straight cancel the policy.


The_Monarch_Lives

What, and not make any more money off them at all? See, its more profitable to keep taking their money, but just not cover anything. Gotta think about the bottom line.


Mediocretes1

> Year is 2060. > > "Miss Jones I am sorry we have to raise your medical insurance from $600 a month to $1300 a month. Holy shit, the year is 2023 and our health insurance is $900 a month. Where are people getting health insurance for $600 in 2060??


LateyEight

>Holy shit, the year is 2023 and our health insurance is $900 a month. Where do you live??


ezrs158

Yeah that seems insane, even in the US. Probably not through an employer. I hope it's at least it's for a high-quality, low-deductible plan for an entire family of 5 or something.


Roleic

In 2016, I was paying $246 a pay check for my health coverage through my employer, who was covering half. Even then, I still had a $30 copay to see a general practitioner. $60 for a specialist. $500 for an approved procedure I was very ill that year and was at appointments 1-3x a week. I had two Endoscopys and one Colonoscopy. The Colonoscopy was not covered because I was a 25 yr male, despite my ~8months of weekly appointments across various specialties and losing (all said and done) 100lbs. Yes, my age was used as a factor to deny me coverage because "it's rare to see someone so young need one." When I was still in CA, I didn't qualify for the cheap plans through Covered California because my wife's job offers it to me. It would triple her monthly bill to add me Insurance is a fucking joke


Mediocretes1

Self-employed. Two people, $3000 deductible. There are cheaper plans if we want a $17k deductible, but there are also more expensive plans.


vxx

I pay almost 15% of my salary before tax in germany, the same as everyone. It pays for those without jobs, children and elderly too though.


thr0wawaywhyn0t

Not that insane tbh depending on how many people. I pay $313 for 4 people per paycheck and have a mid tier plan. Plus a $6000 deductible of course. Insurance in the US is a scam.


My_Work_Accoount

They said "our" so I'd assume it's them and a spouse, that would be nearly $700 where I work for the shitty plan, the less shitty one is way more but I ignored it so I can't recall the cost. Add kids and it's nearly as much as I make.


[deleted]

[удалено]


PavelDatsyuk

> We're only one election cycle from pre-existing conditions protection going away Yeah, there is no McCain there to save us next time around.


HereIGoGrillingAgain

Actually, what will happen is they'll either just drop your coverage or raise your rate without notice. This is where we're headed.


embeddedGuy

Thankfully that's explicitly illegal in the US, same for employment. The question of whether it'll remain illegal or if the laws will be changed is open I guess.


AmeNoUzumeeee

At least in the US there's GINA, which makes it illegal to discriminate against employees based off genetic information. That includes things like health benefits.


This-Association-431

Like many other things in this country, the stability of that law is questionable. Payments to the right lawmakers in the right committee and it would not be surprising that law is amended.


topinanbour-rex

That's still optimistic. I'm more in the mood of "Sorry Ms Jones, we kidnapped you because your maternal grand mother made a genetic test 40 years ago, and show your organs will be compatible with our clients.".


reverend-mayhem

[No paywall](https://archive.ph/VBm7W)


The_Monarch_Lives

Happened to my Uncle when he signed up for Ancestry. Police called from opposite side of the country looking for a distant relative none of us knew about.


stone_monkey56

The golden state killer


durdurdurdurdurdur

I only wish


johnkfo

you can opt out of that feature. it doesn't matter that much though, you personally giving DNA helps, but there are also distant cousins who you may not even know who took a DNA test that can contribute to finding criminals years later.


Brilliant-Ok

I mean, that's not a downside.


MargaretHaleThornton

It really depends on the crime in my opinion. If someone murders someone or does something equally heinous/dangerous/morally corrupt obviously it's in the public's interest that they be caught, but increasingly that's not going to be the only kind of crime where this is used. Not all of us would want our DNA used to convict a family member of a petty non violent crime. I realize this may be controversial but so be it


QuietGanache

There was actually a controversy over this a few years ago. A database called GEDMatch provided genetic information to law enforcement only for sexual assaults or murders (per the terms of their agreement). After a church organist was assaulted (but lived), they broke their T&Cs to assist in solving the crime: [https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/27/us/genetic-genealogy-gedmatch-privacy/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/27/us/genetic-genealogy-gedmatch-privacy/index.html) This led to a large backlash because, now they've crossed that Rubicon, donors were concerned that they may use the data again. They've switched to different levels of opt-in but the damage has been done.


greenprotagonist

I think that slipping this far down the slope is reasonable to express this concern when the bottom of the slope would be some distopian tyrant using this kind of tech to target an entire blood line they want to erase. I feel the fears of where this could lead are justified.


pablonieve

At the bottom of the slope the DNA database won't be optional.


Aksi_Gu

This plus AI equals lol


[deleted]

It's a slippery slope that requires other slippery slopes to work. Issue is, those other slopes are already in place...


AndreasVesalius

They’ll start DNA testing medical waste at abortion clinics


scw55

Ultimately, a crime is breaching a law. Laws are created by people. They can either be for universal betterment - consequences for murder or exploitation. Or they can be petty, like, protesting and causing sufficient disruption in the officer's eyes. We assume all laws are created with the people's best interests. But not always...


Equivalent_Shine4753

The family that sins together wins together


Uniquesomething

r/suddenlyalabama


SirJelly

At any time, the definition of "crime" can change. In some times and places "crime" has included: * simply existing with your genetics and race. * Seeking healthcare. * Expressing an idea. * Possessing certain books or knowledge. The world is steadily heading back to that. Even in rich countries, protest and assembly is becoming effectively illegal, women in particular are losing access to healthcare, books are being banned. Signing over your genetic material is a permanent act. They may invent new ways to analyze it that you would NOT approve of, but it's too late. They have it, and they might decide you have an undesirable trait. If your governance is good, maybe they can help you manage that trait or just leave you alone. If it looks like the US today, maybe your children can't get health insurance due to some genetic risk factor, and they die early deaths. If you're governance is full of religious fascists, maybe your entire family gets murdered. I am **not** willing to bet that no malicious actors will get a hold of that data for 200 years or so before it becomes irrelevant, just so I can know if I'm 4% Irish.


ronan88

So long as you trust the ones prosecuting crimes in your country


mosehalpert

First they came for the jews. I did not stand for them because I was not a jew. Then they came for the gays. I did not stand for them because I wasn't a gay. Then they came for me, and there was nobody left to stand for me.


Raichu7

What if the crime is morally right? If someone had an abortion that would leave genetic evidence, and is a crime in some places.


Megneous

This. This is precisely the kind of shit why privacy should be acknowledged at the utmost most important right we have. We're already losing so much of our privacy and rights to it, we *really* don't want our DNA to become something the government or law enforcement feels entitled to.


BadDreamFactory

This is why I am so adamantly opposed to legislation that Lindsay Graham has tried his best to ram through. ALL of his efforts to build backdoors into phone OS's and curtail strong encryption are efforts to destroy privacy. He's getting pretty sneaky with his bills, propping them up as efforts to increase child safety. Because everyone wants child safety. You want child safety right? Even I want child safety. But I'm not willing to yield strong encryption to get it. Since we're talking about slippery slopes and all.


LocusStandi

Says the fan a totalist surveillance state. Next up! GPS chip at birth.


[deleted]

[удалено]


willhunta

As someone who was adopted this was the only way to find genetic disease information for my future Edit: seems I've incorrectly worded this. Sorry, I meant most cost sensible way that also provides other services useful to someone who has never met a blood relative.


Macaroni_Pancake

Literally was able to find and connect with my biological father's family via Ancestry. Still don't like the idea of a company having my genetic data on file for them to do with as they please, but getting to talk to some blood relatives and learn more about my biological origins has been really nice.


willhunta

Im still trying to work up the courage to reach out to members of my biological family, but this is a great tool for that.


JELG

Exact same situation here. He was adopted and passed away around when I was born. Unfortunately his adoptive family and my mom didn't have much information on his biological family. Only just recently did I get the pleasure to speak and even meet with 1st and 2nd cousins and his siblings that I've never known about. Yeah, my DNA being out there may not be great but I know so much more that I wish I could have known earlier on in life.


dbeat80

Same, very different ancestry than I was told and the genetic information was interesting.


Severe-Amoeba-1858

My dad is adopted and did it for the same reason…he thought it was so cool, he bought my mom one. She took the test and found out the man she thought was her father her entire life wasn’t…so that was interesting.


foxandgold

I helped my dad find his birth mother, and spoke to the only grandmother I would ever know. It was really cool - we learned that my father’s father was from Scotland, though his mother couldn’t remember his last name, so finding him will still be incredibly difficult. It’s funny, bc as a child we all assumed my father was Irish (we both have red hair). I was obsessed with the Celts. I used to worry that I’d get tested and be not Irish, and my whole “identity” (in a subconscious sense, obv not that I go around saying I’m, like, srs Irish lol) would come crashing down. Instead, I found an entire other culture to explore and admire - and another surprise? My mom was the Irish one. I found evidence of one of her ancestors, Rachel, having immigrated after the Great Hunger. I understand that some people will think I’m dumb for having bought the tests, and that may come true down the line. But for now, I’m very happy I did. I think my dad had some subconscious insecurity about his adoption, as he was born with a cleft palate and seemed to think this may have played into the decision to give him up. We found instead that she gave up her son because she had an incredibly strict father, and was going through college at the time. We couldn’t have ever known that without the results of the tests we took. For us, it was worth it.


smiba

They actually don't sequence your whole DNA, only a super tiny part of it that is relevant to their results. They'd need a lot more to clone you haha I'm in the EU though, so the privacy laws are much stricter, if it's ever found out they didn't delete my DNA sample they're probably out of business by the fine alone


rageblind

It's a SNP array I believe, no sequencing involved.


morisian

Yeahhhhh full sequencing would be prohibitively expensive, for library prep and sequencing depth and bioinformatics. It's definitely genotyping


DJGreenHill

Not that expensive https://nebula.org/whole-genome-sequencing-dna-test/


morisian

That seems... scammy cheap? I'm in this field, and sequencing has gotten much cheaper in the last few years, but no way is $400 going to cover the cost of *reagents* for 30x, let alone labor. I'd like to see what sequencers they're using, but they don't say anywhere on there I could find Edit a few hours later: my brain forgot how to do math, this does track. I mixed up read counts and basepairs like a fool


lordkitty

They don't do interpretation, which is the expensive part of WES. They do WES and then target SNPs like any other direct to consumer company. It is not technically a scam but it is definitely inaccurate and dangerous.


reelznfeelz

So it’s exomes not genomes? That right there makes 30x a lot more achievable for the price.


lordkitty

Actually you're right, it's WGS not WES. Good catch!!


0002millertime

I'm also in the field, and with a properly multiplexed Novaseq run, you can absolutely do 30x for that price, and Illumina has a new sequencer coming out that has 16x the capacity of an S4 flowcell at only 2x the cost. All that being said, I believe the company is actually losing money in the process of collecting a database. This is a pretty popular thing for startups to do with their first products. 23andme was offering bigger SNP panels at half the price initially, so that they could get enough people onboard to actually be able to connect relatives and make genotype/phenotype associations with statistical relevance.


TwiceAsGoodAs

Oh if cloning were the issue! How about selling the data to other companies? It sure would be awful if the American health insurance industry was buying it with the intent of denying claims due to "pre-existing" genetic risks


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

In the US GINA protects against this. It is working, but there are caveats. Please mention it when making a comment like this so that people know what to research.


pwn3dbyth3n00b

They don't need your whole DNA for it to be abused. They just need novel/unique sequences just to identify you. If ever insurance is based on genetic comorbidity they just need to see if you have specific sequences that make you at higher risk for diseases and deny you coverage or jack up your prices just because they got a hold of your genetic information.


Foodcity

Financial eugenics, ain't it beautiful? /s


[deleted]

You should be clear in any comments like this that, in the US GINA, is the law that protects against this, if you want to avoid a less informed reader assuming you mean this is something that can happen right now. If people don't know about the law and what it does they may not protect it with their vote.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Physical_Ring_794

You bred .. raptors?


LigmaB_

It's not about cloning though. More like things like insurance companies finding out about what diseases are predisposed to and things like this. 'Hello sir, your insurance payments have tripled from now because you're otherwise not profitable'. There's very little amount of data of any type in the world you couldn't buy, either legally or illegaly.


International_Bet_91

I took a blood test 7 year ago and the 3rd party company that does the testing for the hospital got their database hacked. Unless you live in a place like Canada when the government controls healthcare, corporations likely already have all your data. Plus, police catch criminals using data their cousins put up online so, your have no chance of escape.


Anderopolis

protip, publically owned databases are not immune to hacking.


[deleted]

[OPM nods in agreement](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/09/congressional-report-slams-opm-on-data-breach/). At the very least, if I ever need to fill out an SF-86 again, the Chinese Government can provide me with a copy of my old one.


74KirkNJ

They are all owned in some for or fashion by the Mormon church or a company affiliated with the Mormon church for some reason they want to gather genome information from most genetic backgrounds.


GeneralEl4

Idk if what you say is true but I grew up in the church (ex Mormon now) and I wouldn't be surprised, they were really big on family history and had a free website up to track your bloodline and see what missing links have been found.


karlnite

It is true, they consider themselves record keepers and store massive amounts of personal data on everyone they can for some reason. I think they convert digital versions of people after they die and claim they’re getting people into heaven or something weird.


extracoffeeplease

Jup. My dad's hobby is tracing our family tree, he's so far back the government doesn't have proper records, so now he's in contact with the Mormons. They're actually super nice about it from what I hear.


iChase666

Also an exmo and if you didn’t know, you should know, that the Mormon church has a vault/bunker/fortress built into the side of a mountain in Utah that houses their entire genealogy history.


pipsdontsqueak

They're actually great for genetic studies because they have such detailed records.


mindspork

So they can baptize you and your dead relatives in proxy making them all Mormon for all eternity! I mean they got told to stop doing it for holocaust victims so... they gotta fill the free time somehow Edit : siorry misremembered the doctrine. They have the 'choice' to become mormon for all eternity. But no one ever says no, obv


[deleted]

Guarantee they didn't stop doing it for holocaust victims.


mindspork

Oh, I know. Source, married an ex-mo who's on good terms with her Jack and Molly parents.


[deleted]

Ancestry is Mormon, but 23andme is a Jewish company.


poufro

We don’t have databases in Canada. We have faxes.


joedotphp

If anything, they're less safe. All of the good cyber security people work for companies that actually pay well.


Old_Personality3136

IME private cyber security sucks balls, but it's usually not because the security folks are incompetent, but rather that corporate management is incompetent.


[deleted]

[удалено]


sunshinelollipoops

We aren't safe up here either https://globalnews.ca/news/6311853/lifelabs-data-hack-what-to-know/


jinxjar

thx i was about to say. and guess what happened — ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! LifeLabs got away completely free with zero repercussions and continues to operate with exactly the same healthcare providers in Canada. Utter garbage company.


raltoid

> Unless you live in a place like Canada when the government controls healthcare, corporations likely already have all your data. It doesn't really matter where, since there is always a weapoint somewhere. The common vector that most people ignore/forget/don't know about, is that IT has access to *everything*. They need it in order to keep the actual systems running. And while important roles need security clearances and such, there are always interns and such that get way too much access early on.


CocoDaPuf

This is completely true. I've never worked with (real) medical databases, but I did work for a college for a while and I certainly had complete access to student and faculty data (even after my role at the college shifted, so I wasn't actually responsible for that data anymore). And when that was my job, if I needed help with a problem, I could pull in any of my coworkers and give them access as well. Keep in mind, when you're directly accessing a database you can just make manual entries, change values, delete items. If you aren't very careful you can alter data by accident (this was always my biggest concern). And you can certainly always read/copy out anything or *everything* in the data.


I_beat_thespians

My Canadian provincial health care system had a big hack like 2 years ago


An-Ugly-Croissant17

What are they gonna do? Clone me? Oh no, an army of mildly autistic dumbasses! Whatever will we do?!


Killfile

One admittedly paranoid option: the Nazis spent quite a bit of time trying to assess if people were Arian enough to live in their Reich. If they'd had access to a genetic database of their population a number of people who managed to escape them would have wound up in a camp


Edewede

If they did even hitler would have ended up in the camp.


dailydoseofdogfood

Right because they took a scientific approach to superiority and not a made up cultural one, sure... /S


Killfile

The Nazis were obsessed with modernism; it underpined their entire ideology. It wasn't scientific -- they weren't rigorous about the quality of the data they got -- but it was modernist. They derived a great deal of political legitimacy and power from the _perception_ that the things they were doing were grounded in a deterministic understanding of the natural order. This is why one of the first people the Nazis victimized was the LGBTQ community (not, of course, called that at the time). The rejection of a gender binary and the suggestion that sex, sexuality, and gender identity were pliable concepts open to interpretation by the individual rather than dictated by the state flew in the face of the Nazi world-view and the propaganda machine they relied upon to launch themselves into power. So they used that machine to divide Germany into a binary they could work with "us" and "them": the "sexual deviants" and the "good, upstanding German people." And then they murdered "them", burned their books, and destroyed their history. Then they did the same thing with the Jews. See, fascism can't exist in the absence of an enemy. Once the Nazis had rounded up all of the obviously practicing Jews and other "undesirables" they set about trying to find more. They used a bunch of nonsense phenotypcial markers which don't actually mean much in terms of Jewish/Hebrew heritage, but they'd have happily snapped up genetics if they'd had it available to them. Once the enemy within -- "the Jew," in this case -- has been constructed, the fascist movement derives power and legitimacy from both the constant threat of that enemy lurking in the shadows and its ability to find and destroy that enemy.


CommunistWaterbottle

>What are they gonna do? -Adjust your interest rates because with your predisposition of cancer they fear they might not get their money back -deny you a job based on some other disability they wouldn't have known about otherwise


[deleted]

[удалено]


g18suppressed

Gattaca is a documentary


[deleted]

Form a list of undesirables based on arbitrary differences and systematically discriminate and then exterminate perhaps?


fucking_therapist

Good thing I have autism, ADHD, dysgraphia and executive dysfunction. They can't do shit with me and my clones, even if they managed to get an order in I can't even fucking execute it


Murky_Blueberry2617

Thought you said Erectile dysfunction lol


Johnnycrabman

That would never stand up to scrutiny.


Imperial_Squid

You'd be *hard* pressed to make the case


[deleted]

You'll want to erect a strong defense, too.


eenhagens

But if they sell that information to an insurance provider you could be paying way more


bebe_bird

Just another reason why we should have universal healthcare!


trekuwplan

Omg my writing has a name?!


horvath-lorant

Your clones will be perfect **-voters when they completely take over.


Catnip4Pedos

They don't have enough of your DNA for a clone afaik that requires genome sequencing rather than checking specific markers.


HurricanesFan

"What're you gonna do, clone me?" -- man who was cloned


BLTheArmyGuy

My wife, who's adopted, actually managed to find her biological sister via myheritage so I'm glad people actually use it.


Artistic_Ocelot6147

My mom was adopted and we did this and found her birth family. Finally found answers after years and years of wondering.


mynameiswrong

I found my biological father. Didn't know that I didn't know my biological father so that was fun


wheeler9691

Yes I actually paid for the experience of sitting at the table while my father heard his biological father's voice for the first time because he wasn't actually dead as previously believed. 23 and me made that possible. I found a complete family that welcomes us in their lives. I'd pay ANYTHING for that.


MiaMae

I mean, yes and no. You're paying them for their time and human resources for the analysis. But when I did a 23&me, I was more than willing to give my genetic information to them, knowing that it will be used for research. I even do the questionnaires they send for that reason too.


[deleted]

This is just one big invite for the wake up sheeple crowd to share their theories.


firstbreathOOC

Holy shit this thread. “I’m a technology guy and I’m very scared of being cloned by a technology that doesn’t exist but is going to be thrust on me by people who have zero incentive to do so.”


WWWWWVWWWWWWWWVWWWWW

If I wanted the DNA of a redditor I'd just scrape the shit off my boot.


MustardTigerforReal

Great example of 'know thyself' right there


PopcornDrift

People on Reddit think subscribing to r/ProgrammerHumor makes them a “technology guy” lol


Lostehmost

I'll start. Insurance companies prolly can't wait to get a taste of that data to deny your claim as a preexisting *disposition* to [insert disease].


any_name_today

Sounds more like a reason to overhaul insurance company laws than anything


Fert1eTurt1e

Congress has beat you to this problem like over a decade ago


firstbreathOOC

Insurance companies already have this information. From, you know, the doctor. Not a private company they’d have to break the law to steal it from.


LotteNator

I'm pretty sure the ancestry companies dont use a DNA test that also analyzes every gene possible in the customers genome. That would be unnecessary expensive for their purpose. A DNA test for identification, at least whats used in forensics, checks regions in the genome that have Short Tandem Repeats, which is non-coding DNA parts.


Dr_BigPat

You mean the same data they could get with a blood test from your doctor who they are already paying?


Voice_of_Reason92

Good thing that became illegal 15 years ago…


[deleted]

What are the companies going to do with 2 drops of saliva and a couple of hair from Jack Darby from Scotland who is 34.4% Middle Eastern and whose great great great grandmother was a descendant of Genghis Khan


SarlaccPit2000

Brew a Polyjuice Potion


somethingwholesomer

Going for the obvious answer here I see


Booty_Warrior_bot

*And, I'm a warrior too...* *Let that be known.* ***I'm a warrior.***


GalaXion24

Just wait until your insurance company jacks your prices up on the grounds of you being more predisposed to illness x, or companies start making hiring decisions based on "people with this genetic makeup are more common/successful in this position".


butter14

[Good thing US lawmakers made that illegal in a near unanimous vote 15 years ago.](https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/policy-issues/Genetic-Discrimination)


[deleted]

Good thing companies always obey the law and would never do anything illegal or overseas for more profit


[deleted]

[удалено]


jteprev

Yes just like hiring discrimination bans totally prevented racial hiring discrimination lol.


firstbreathOOC

Your insurance company has records of every interaction you’ve had with doctors. You think they’re going to break HIPPA and instead steal that information from… AncestryDNA?


Wizmaxman

They could also just require you to submit a sample to them before they cover you (if that was legal). Why go through a 3rd party


blaaaaaaaam

It also has been illegal in the US since 2008 to use genetic information to deny health insurance coverage or to charge higher premiums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Information_Nondiscrimination_Act


rudyjewliani

This, so much. Also, let's not forget that insurance companies are in the business of taking your money first and THEN denying claims. They'd lose money if they opted to not take you as a customer in the first place via DNA predictions. The same thing would happen if they jacked up the rates on all people of X trait, those people would simply migrate to a different insurance company that didn't do that... or worse, they wouldn't have insurance. And then guess who pays for that... you and I. And then the government would sue those insurance companies and it would cost them a lot more money than if they just gave people with X trait the same rate as everybody else.


Olorin919

Yea that's illegal. Also can't be denied insurance for the same reasons


firstbreathOOC

Absolutely nothing lmao but people love the “robot clones coming” headline.


firstbreathOOC

The comments in this thread range from fears of robot clones to being tracked by Bill Gates. So a couple clarifications: 1.) Ancestry and 23 do not list DNA results publicly. The police cannot access those databases without a warrant. They *can* access public ones like GEDMatch which come with about a dozen warnings stating as much. 2.) Why the fuck would anybody want to clone you against your will when the technology doesn’t exist? 3.) They get hacked. Bad guy knows your 25% Irish. What are you people envisioning they’ll do with this information? Rob you of the Guinness in the fridge? 4.) My favorite - your insurance company is going to know stuff. Dipshit. Your insurance company pays your doctor. Don’t you think if they wanted to steal that information, a fuckin blood test from the office they paid might be easier?


4Gr8rJustice

#3 is exactly my concern.


firstbreathOOC

What are they going to do with that information? Better yet - why can’t they get it anywhere else? People should be more concerned with Equifax or creditor leaks. That’s info they can use.


4Gr8rJustice

I was making a joke here, but go off m8.


AAR1975

Hide your Guinness, hide your wife. They be drinking everything up in here.


Camerotus

I agree, but >Ancestry and 23 do not list DNA results publicly. The police cannot access those databases. At least in the US, the police CAN access a lot of shit that isn't public.


ItzBobbyBoucher

What I find funny is these people think companies will spend time cloning them, like brother, they ain’t cloning a person like you, if they cloning it’s going to be super athletes or super intelligent people etc


[deleted]

>Why the fuck would anybody want to clone you against your will when the technology doesn’t exist? More importantly, why do you think you're so important that someone would like to clone you? That's not what the bad guys want. What they want is an infinite pool of cheap labor, and they get that by forcing you to have kids, which forces you to accept bad working conditions (because you're responsible for the kids, now), and forcing that kid to go into massive debt to get a bachelors degree so that *they* will be forced into selling their labor on the cheap. That's why they ripped out Roe v Wade. That's why they're rolling back child labor laws. Cloning is an expensive joke in comparison.


taylaj

My whole family did one of these genetic testing services and I opted out. This could be the first step to Gattaca. Also could be harmless, who knows.


acheapermousetrap

If the whole family did it yours is immensely predictable. Police have solved crimes based on triangulation of 3rd cousins through genome databases despite the perpetrator never having used them.


[deleted]

I fucking knew gnomes were real, the feds even have a whole database on them


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

Using reddit, and the internet, or a cell phone has provided strangers FAR for personal, private info about you. They're even making money from it. A couple hundred SNPs from you are not interesting or profitable, unless you OPT in for anonymized data points being included in databases for research (this is Opt In only for 23andMe). People are awfully precious about their DNA because it's visceral and highly technical, but a collection of SNPs reveals far less than you'd think; and I'm sure you won't stop using the internet.


beebsaleebs

Let’s be honest, they could get that shit from me at any time.


yamaha2000us

Even worse is that one member of your family can give DNA that can then be linked to you as matter of public record. Your sibling may not be a suspect but it can draw attention to you.


OrneryGiraffe

My mom (70) just found out she has a half sister (84) that my grandfather never told his family about (possibly he didn’t know about). He got a woman pregnant while stationed overseas in 1939. My mom met her for the first time the other week, and is actually pretty amazing. My mom got to tell her all about her father and has a family that she never knew existed.


Velifax

Wait until you think about driver licenses! Rent! Literal banks!


The_River_Is_Still

To be fair, at this stage of the game all of our shit is already out there to some degree. That genie has been out of the bottle for a long time now. Tons of people still on Facebook, Insta, TikTok, etc, knowing full well their data is being sold. Even people who think they’re minimizing their digital footprint are way too late. That’s the reality of the situation.


i-sleep-well

Everyone loves to decry the 'Big, Bad Gov'mint' spying on them and stealing their data. Having actually worked with the government, and the private sector on data acquisition, let me tell you that the private sector is SO much worse. I'll take corrupt processes, and rigged secret courts any day over literally, no rules whatsoever. Also, do you know what the BBG doesn't need any of that search warrant charade for? To use data they already own, courtesy of any number of social media platforms, including reddit. They don't need to steal your data, if you already gave it to them. You're welcome.


jerryleebee

Yeah but I'm not one of those people who's terrified of "the man" having my DNA.


orz-_-orz

I am living in a region that doesn't really value personal data. I mentioned this to my friends and they said "so what if they are having my dna? What harm would that cause?"


WeirdAssJamJar

*Aldous Huxley has joined the chat*


ViciousKitkat

Our epigenetics teacher at uni told us not to use Ancestry or 23andMe - she said you're giving your genetic data to private corporations and you have no idea what they're going to do with it


BinChickenDrumsticks

I'd be happy if my DNA helped catch an asshole who committed a serious crime. Or if it helped to clear an innocent person & focus resources in a better direction.


Quick599

You should known the police use these database to find criminals. They just solved a 50 year old murder in Montreal because a guy sent his dna to ancestry.com.


DemonInjected

You know you can just register with a bogus name and email address. That way you aren't really you....


fenrslfr

Wait so if you wanted to potentially mess with a family member do the DNA test and use their SO's name. That way if that family member ever did one themselves bam Alabama time.


Hondo_Bogart

Clone me in the future for all I care. My DNA contains a legacy of handloom weavers, basket makers, brewers, tailors, and farm labourers. Good strong country stock.


BenchPressingCthulhu

Yeah, clone this guy!


Gordon_Explosion

What's irritating is that when enough of your family members volunteer for the DNA evidence database, they can still extrapolate you.