Your Private DNA Test May Not Be Private After All

Through DNA, finding your ancestry can be a fun and enlightening moment, but for some it’s turned into a living nightmare. Since 2000, when commercial DNA tests were first offered, they’ve grown enormously popular. Databases of Ancestry.com and 23andMe have over 7 million customers combined. There’s a ton of DNA out there and law enforcement is finding it very helpful as an additional resource. And while the commercial DNA testing companies claim not to share their data, in this day and age with data being such a hot commodity, can we trust them? If you decide to partake in finding out your heredity just remember that as difficult as it is to get a new social security number if that is stolen, it’s impossible to get new DNA...at least for now.

Since most customers assume their DNA stays private, it has some wondering what exactly they’ve gotten themselves into. Ancestry.com and 23andMe customers believe that providing DNA information to anyone else is an invasion of privacy and something they didn’t sign up for when they decided to discover their heredity. However, there have been cases where law enforcement has used it. And if police can use it to help them solve crimes, who else might be asking for it? Is it possible these companies that have stored the most private data in existence about millions of people may decide to sell it to the highest bidder? Or what about cybercriminals? If they can breach some of the largest organizations in the world that spend millions on cybersecurity defense, is it unreasonable to think they may be able to breach a company storing your DNA data?

In recent years, law enforcement began using commercial DNA data banks. It’s been helpful, but it’s also backfired big time. Just ask filmmaker Michael Usry Jr. of New Orleans, LA. He would end up as a co-conspirator in a 1996 horrific murder in Idaho Falls, ID because of DNA. It happened eighteen years after the crime, and police knew the DNA wasn’t even his own. In the 1980’s, his father Michael Usry Sr. had volunteered his DNA to the Mormon Church in Idaho Falls for a genealogy project. Unknown to Usry Sr., years later 23andMe purchased the DNA database from the project. Little did he realize his donation to the church would come back later to haunt him and his son. And he likely never in his wildest dreams expected his DNA to be sold.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do about it other than just not play. If you don’t want your DNA sold or provided to anyone or don't want to risk it being stolen or accessed in a data breach, just don’t provide it to someone else voluntarily. The same is true for playing online. If you don’t like the idea of your data being sold, your only option is to not participate. That’s difficult to do this day and age, so what you can do is be smart about it. Don’t over-share on social media or don’t use those services at all. This is a choice you can make. Social media is not mandatory. However, if you choose to get involved, limit what information you share, what you like or follow, and comments you make. All this information is collected for some purpose and once it’s on the Internet, you lose control of it.

While using genomic information to solve crimes is not necessarily a bad thing, it may be different when talking about the almighty Dollar. Commercial DNA testing companies claim they don’t readily hand the information over to anyone, but ultimately they do when presented with a court order. And when money talks, as we have seen recently with Facebook, it indeed talks loudly. Although that’s likely the furthest thought for someone exploring his family tree through DNA, misuse is a shocking reality.

Stickley on Security