In the film, discrimination by genetics is, strictly speaking, against the law, but a matter of course because of how easy it is to get a sample and sequence someone. Humans are judged based on what's in their genes, not who they are.
The synthetic, designed humans are classified as "valid", while those born naturally are "invalids" or "de-gene-erates".
It would be quite easy for people of all walks of life to become second-class citizens due to information in their genomes if things do not change quickly.
Having the information collected into a central location (the insurance companies) would make it easier for a large number of these requests to be filed, rather than needing to track down individual services for each investigation.
So now, tomorrow, or into the far future the two piece of information cannot be re-associated because there's nothing to map them. The information about the link is lost.
It is like asking "Can a lossy MP3 be restored to the lossless version if technology improves enough?" Nope. The information is simply gone. Same is true here, the associated link is just gone.
DNA can be used to uncover your last name and ethnicity, estimate your height, hair color, eye color and more, so anonymization is not as simple as removing a name.
It cannot be used to uncover your last name without sampling from several generational family members (and for them to be de-anonymised). Simply having a range of heights, hair color, eye color, is not enough to identify a unique individual.
The mechanism you're claiming could exist seems to be based on already having de-anonymised sequenced DNA for most of the population. But if you had that you could infer someone's DNA profile without having to actually sequence (or more to the point, de-anonymised it) making the entire activity pointless.
Essentially your entire argument is: If we already have your sequenced DNA (or could easily infer it) then de-anonymising you is easy. Which is both true but completely pointless.
The entire discussion is predicated on 23AndMe or Ancestry
* not pivoting their business model and selling the unanonymized data to the highest bidder.
* not being forced to reveal the unanonymized data to the authorities.
* not revealing unanonymized data to hackers
Regarding the statement in the article about anonymization, you are correct. These data are not anonymized, your name is just removed from the file. This does not truly anonymize the data, for reasons you outlined.
Interesting quote from Linda Avey, the co-founder of 23andMe: “It’s a fallacy to think that genomic data can be fully anonymized”[1]. I disagree, and think that eventually we will be able to anonymize your genome in a test-tube, so that the data is secure before it ever touches a computer.
0: https://geneinfosec.com 1: https://undark.org/article/dna-ancestry-sharing-privacy-23an...
Similarly the blood pressure data in my withings app or activity data in my Fitbit app is not covered by HIPAA.
[0] https://slate.com/technology/2017/12/direct-to-consumer-gene...
This is how it works in other areas, like car insurance; with an absence of data, your policy is roughly based on the average individual, but as you gain more years of driving experience (good or bad), they factor that in. Bad drivers who get in more accidents pay more because their behavior is riskier and costs more. (the big difference being, in this case, genetic risk is predetermined and not something you can easily change through behaviur modification).
It really needs to be covered by the government, like police and fire. Universal health coverage makes sense as a public good. It doesn't really make sense as an insurance product.
Fool me once.
While your gut feeling is likely correct, they could implement a system has reduced benefits for people deemed to costly to support. Or prioritize treatment of critical problems and not count preexisting conditions as critical.
It is much more likely that everyone would be covered in the same exact way in my opinion though.