"Genome Hackers Show No One’s DNA Is Anonymous Anymore" Topic

In 2013, a young computational biologist named Yaniv Erlich shocked the research world by showing it was possible to unmask the identities of people listed in anonymous genetic databases using only an Internet connection. Policymakers responded by restricting access to pools of anonymized biomedical genetic data. An NIH official said at the time, "The chances of this happening for most people are small, but they're not zero."

Fast-forward five years and the amount of DNA information housed in digital data stores has exploded, with no signs of slowing down. Consumer companies like 23andMe and Ancestry have so far created genetic profiles for more than 12 million people, according to recent industry estimates. Customers who download their own information can then choose to add it to public genealogy websites like GEDmatch, which gained national notoriety earlier this year for its role in leading police to a suspect in the Golden State Killer case.

Those interlocking family trees, connecting people through bits of DNA, have now grown so big that they can be used to find more than half the US population. In fact, according to new research led by Erlich, published today in Science, more than 60 percent of Americans with European ancestry can be identified through their DNA using open genetic genealogy databases, regardless of whether they've ever sent in a spit kit.

"The takeaway is it doesn't matter if you've been tested or not tested," says Erlich, who is now the chief science officer at MyHeritage, the third largest consumer genetic provider behind 23andMe and Ancestry. "You can be identified because the databases already cover such large fractions of the US, at least for European ancestry."

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As an asside, this computational breakthrough will have interesting effects as the consequences ricochet thought the courts and society.

Cheers,
Martin from Canada

Very soon a dead close relative can link you to a crime.
Given the propensity of jurors to swallow "Billion to one odds!", I have misgivings.

"Expert witnesses"

It's not really a computational breakthrough, it's a change in access to data.

Very soon a dead close relative can link you to a crime.

Very soon in the past, you mean.

It's not a matter of odds, either. The existence of a familial relationship between two (male) DNA samples is concrete scientific analytic work.

Whether or not a DNA sample correlating to a relative of someone who can be uniquely identified is sufficient to contribute to a conviction is an evidentiary matter.

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(LOL. If I had been the one to post that article, some people would not have hesitated for one second to say that this was simply more "conspiracy talk")

Yep, DNA science and law have both been used and abused for decades. The genie is often let out of the bottle long before the potential ethical, moral and social ramifications can be examined. So they are either incapable of seeing the potential ramifications or they feel it is someone else's job to "deal with it". Or both.

Who knows? Maybe soon people will be selling DNA of celebrities on ebay*. :)

Or there will be those who will claim to be heirs and beneficiaries to fame and fortune, but will say that no one (not even courts) has a right to request a sample of their DNA if they don't feel like submitting to the test.

Or both could be true, seeing as how consistency does not seem to be an important matter these days as one would hope or expect in this day and age.

DNA "chimeras" have also gotten into serious legal limbos, and even lost custody of children.

So, the real winners in the release of the DNA genies are the lawyers, and those who use these crises as convenient opportunities for more funding.

Yet I remember how, not too long ago, questioning the DNA understanding current at that time was treated as though one were challenging the entire scientific community or going against some absolute science. Deniers or skeptics weren't well-received.

Dan
YouTube link
* It might even be a thing already, and so could be human cloning, in DNA black market circles.

I was pleased with 23 and Me. I have over 950 members on 23 and Me that have my DNA. And are related to me. Even if just a tiny bit.

However, like all new tech, e.g. the internet and the law, it may take time to catch up. I think DNA testing will be/is the same. But, I do see many positives from DNA testing.

But just like e.g. cloning, there has to be some regulation. I.e. it is illegal to clone a human. But I don't think any of us will be too surprised if someone will … if it have not happened already.

DNA scientists told us humans and chimps shared 98% of their DNA with each other. Then a few years later, they walked that back and now it's more like 85%.

Sloppy lab work leads to bad science.

I wait for the result that says 98% of Americans share the same DNA as DNA lab technicians.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

DNA scientists told us humans and chimps shared 98% of their DNA with each other. Then a few years later, they walked that back and now it's more like 85%

Mike, do you have a citation for that?

That's news to the Smithsonian:

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and The American Museum of Natural History:

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Here's a good explanation from Quora:

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Or, you might be confusing the date that Humans split from Chimps and Bonobos from the last common ancestor. Due to better analysis of the relative DNA sequences this date was pushed back to 7 million years ago. That occurred only a few years back.

I wait for the result that says 98% of Americans share the same DNA as DNA lab technicians.

It's actually 99.9%

I was pleased with 23 and Me. I have over 950 members on 23 and Me that have my DNA. And are related to me. Even if just a tiny bit.

Well any human is about 99.9% identical with any other human chosen at random. Ya, so we are all related. Mitochodrial Eve existed only about 200,000 years ago.

As far as "23 and Me" I'm skeptical about what they tell you. If you find you are 23% Italian, what is the error rate? How realistic is that number? Also, what are the "Italian" genes and how do they differ from the "French" or "Spanish" genes?

Here is a good critique:

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The link's info is one reason I've never submitted
a spitkit for analysis to Ancestry (or anyone else).

YouTube link

It's been interesting finding my birthparents (I was adopted). My mother's family was mostly welcoming. My father's family mostly doesn't want to communicate.

Well, it seems like the biggest mandatory DNA database has apparently already started.

It apparently began as a measure to keep track of Uighur travelers in remote areas of China.

Dan
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TMP link

Dan, CODIS is the biggest DNA database with almost 10 million profiles. Don't you watch CSI?