The worst thing is that, you can’t even really opt out.
My parents tried to gift me a kit for xmas one year, "hey we think this is fun, might be useful to know if you're prone to eyeball cancer or whatever." I explained all the privacy issues and politely declined. But of course they and my sister had already gone ahead and done it, so now my family’s genetic fingerprints are in their databases, nothing to be done about it.
This is how the "Golden State Killer" was nabbed, which is obviously an example of this kind of thing being put to good use… I hope I don't have to argue against the dumb old "people who are innocent have nothing to hide" discussion here
It very much was. His relatives, not knowing who he was, voluntarily uploaded their data to GEDmatch. Those fingerprints were used to identify him. Did you think he voluntarily uploaded his DNA on a lark?
His distant relatives did, like second or third cousins. The point of GEDmatch is to connect you with other potential DNA matches in their database. That is not the point of whatever service your family presumably used, and their data is not used in this manner. Apples and Oranges.
Okay, I think maybe we’re trying to making different points here. You are saying that the policies of GEDmatch are different than those of 23andMe and… I don't know who else is in this industry… mormonhumangenome.com or whatever
The point I was trying to make is that not registering with one — any — of these databases is completely pointless because the nature of the information is such that you can be fingerprinted if your siblings decide to play.
My parents tried to gift me a kit for xmas one year, "hey we think this is fun, might be useful to know if you're prone to eyeball cancer or whatever." I explained all the privacy issues and politely declined. But of course they and my sister had already gone ahead and done it, so now my family’s genetic fingerprints are in their databases, nothing to be done about it.
This is how the "Golden State Killer" was nabbed, which is obviously an example of this kind of thing being put to good use… I hope I don't have to argue against the dumb old "people who are innocent have nothing to hide" discussion here