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Comment by mcculley | Hacker News Reader

In the article there is a quote, “There is no personal data more sensitive than our DNA.“

This seems a bogus assertion to me. I can imagine many diagnostic health test results that would be more sensitive to leak than DNA (e.g., STD and drug tests).

DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway.

Having published my own results (https://enki.org/2017/10/17/publishing-my-genome/), I really don’t buy into the idea that DNA is the most personal data that can be leaked.

(Nevertheless, there should be more obvious warnings to customers about how their data will be monetized.)

Edit: I think I failed to make clear that while I agree that DNA is "personal" data, I don't think it is the most "sensitive" personal data. If I had an identical twin and he released his DNA, I would not care. If I had syphilis and my test results were leaked, I would be upset about that.

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> DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway.

This same argument be made to justify any erosion of personal privacy. With the level of technical sophistication western society has now, just about any invasion of privacy is too cheap to meter. Take IoT for instance. Just because it's possible for large corporations to infringe upon the privacy of individuals for pennies doesn't mean that we should just go ahead and accept it.

It does not matter how we feel about it. Every license plate scanner, every Ring doorbell, every security camera I walk by is potentially selling data.

It does, if people actually cared they'd be rioting in the streets, maybe burn down some corporate headquarters

Would burning down a building make it illegal to sell photos taken in public places?

Well getting millions of people out to protest should, otherwise do we have a democracy?

Bruning down building is more of a bug than a feature.

People do care about privacy. But, they don't have any power. Many people have to go to work, and they don't have time to fiddle in rioting etc. And, there is high chance that these people will be called terrorist for rioting such things. In fact some will even claim they are destroying property, and they should be incarcerated. And, there can be cases like rats in the group are taking advantage of protest. We can see this with BLM where few people deceived entire world by committing shenanigans in name of doing deeds.

Also, if people riot, there is no way to be sure that a positive thing will happen. We can clearly see this from Arab Spring. Many people thought there would be liberation, but what we got in return? Dictators got removed, just to be replaced by another dictator. In fact, it backfired and now autocrats have more power than past. Those days are gone where we ended horrific things like slavery and liberated the world with democracy. We have become too greedy with the capitalist society, as indicated by covid scenario. Sorry, for digressing.

That’s what the French aristocracy thought about their masses too. The masses then executed the French aristocracy.

Would such executions lead to laws prohibiting the sale of photos taken in public? Would that be a better outcome?

This question is entirely irrelevant, yet you seem fixated on it.

Maybe I am not spelling it out enough.

We have certain freedoms (e.g., speech) combined with a (relatively) free market. This opens opportunities for capitalists to monetize data they collect.

Even without monetization, some data is made public that some would prefer to keep private (e.g., a journalist can publish a photo of a politician on a boat with his mistress).

I don't see how we can put the genie back in the bottle so long as we have free speech and free markets. I think the PRC could, for example, restrict distribution of DNA data if it wanted to. I would prefer not to live under such an authoritarian regime.

I am asking if executing people to get more privacy is a desired outcome over adapting to a world where things we formerly thought of as private are just well known.

It’s not so much the loss of privacy, as the inevitable, violent exploitation of the weak that it does, will, and is meant to enable.

I think we are in agreement that corporations, governments, religions, etc. will use personal data to harm people. I am less convinced that DNA is the most "sensitive" personal data.

Also, sure, one can debate whether the masses were right to execute the aristocracy… but surely we can all agree that the aristocracy were lethally wrong that the masses didn’t matter.

I hope for their sake that the capitalists realize this before it’s too late for everyone.

That's why selling it should be heavily punished.

I am interested in how you would punish such vendors. What would make a piece of data illegal?

Same that makes some drugs illegal?

I am looking for specifics. Would photographers no longer be able to take photos of people in public and sell them? Would it be illegal for one to sell web server log files? Would Google Analytics become illegal?

Would the owner of a security camera have requirements on how they handle their data?

I am interested in how free speech and free markets enable the interesting effects we are now seeing. Maybe the answer is that there should be stricter controls on everything. That does not seem very likely to me.

> Would photographers no longer be able to take photos of people in public and sell them?

That's a grey area. I think it should be illegal if the goal of the photos is to track a person, and legal if the goal is to document a scene. And yes, that's a classification that we can do. We can apply the same rule to the people buying the photos, so it's illegal to go around buying photos about the movement of somebody even if no photographer did anything illegal.

> Would Google Analytics become illegal?

If they sell personal data? Without a doubt. Currently, AFAIK, they don't.

> Would the owner of a security camera have requirements on how they handle their data?

Yes, he can't sell it.

> We can apply the same rule to the people buying the photos, so it's illegal to go around buying photos about the movement of somebody even if no photographer did anything illegal.

I am trying to imagine the state capable of enforcing such a law. I don’t think that is where anyone wants to live.

> > Would Google Analytics become illegal?

> If they sell personal data? Without a doubt. Currently, AFAIK, they don't.

Google can obviously construct a dossier on a person from his analytics cookie. It’s okay for Google to have this data so long as they do not sell it, just sell access to it to advertisers or release it to governments?

Is it legal to own heroin, not sell it to anyone, but have guests over and offer them some (for a payment)?

> DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway.

That still doesn't imply that DNA will be shared freely. On the contrary, it is important that we ensure that people retain control over their own genetic information.

How do you propose that people “retain control”? We leave copies of our DNA everywhere. Even if I were very careful, my relatives and potential descendants can leak enough information to piece my DNA together.

> "DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway"

Filming porn is going to be so cheap it's going to happen to everyone anyway

I think of this every time someone tells me they used AirBnB.

Imagine you're 38 years old, you go like a normal person to a normal persons job interview.

Now your new employer obviously doesn't have access to your DNA, but he has an active subscription to "NaturalCheck(tm)whatever" which does have access to most people's DNAs.

Sorry, we can't hire you, your NaturalCheck came back as red.

You call NaturalCheck, after getting tossed through 2-3 support staff you finally learn your dna has some markers for some kind of cancer. Welcome to a new world.

P.S. If you think this is unrealistic: Credit check? Credit score? I see people have no problem with this stuff...

"Under Title II of GINA, it is illegal to discriminate against employees or applicants because of genetic information." (https://www.eeoc.gov/genetic-information-discrimination)

Potential employers also have photos of me that indicate my skin color. We have laws against discrimination over some attributes.

That's what "poor culture fit" is for.

Technically illegal and enforcably illegal are not the same. People with pregnancies or disabilities get fired all the time; as long as they're not putting "we're firing you for getting prengant" in writing somewhere, chances are they get away with it.

That criminals can commit crimes does not change the fact that this personal data will be easily found. I am still unconvinced that it is the most "sensitive" personal data.

Over speeding is also illegal. Yet, we see a lot of people committing it.

Same here, they will say they care about equal rights, but in reality they oust pregnant ladies, old peoples etc..

Potential future employers will easily get a copy of my DNA if they want one. I am not arguing that discrimination is wrong. I am arguing that DNA is not the most "sensitive" personal data.

> Potential future employers will easily get a copy of my DNA if they want one.

They should be forbidden from doing so. Not forbidden from using it for discrimination; forbidden from obtaining or posessing or sequencing an employee's DNA without their express consent, even via a third party.

> I am arguing that DNA is not the most "sensitive" personal data.

"The most" is debatable, and to some extent a matter of opinion. "One of the most" is hard to argue. It's highly personal information.

>> I am arguing that DNA is not the most "sensitive" personal data.

>"The most" is debatable, and to some extent a matter of opinion. "One of the most" is hard to argue. It's highly personal information.

Agreed. I am arguing with the statement as written in the article.

>> Potential future employers will easily get a copy of my DNA if they want one.

>They should be forbidden from doing so. Not forbidden from using it for discrimination; forbidden from obtaining or posessing or sequencing an employee's DNA without their express consent, even via a third party.

I am imagining that sequencing will be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will be like Facebook glasses (or whatever they are called now). Restaurants will sequence food to ensure provenance and quality. Environments will be sampling the air looking for viruses. Toilets will sequence whatever goes into them to find pathogens, both at the service of their owners and their users. I am not saying this is good. I am saying it is inevitable. Not tomorrow, but it's coming. Given that, I consider the personal data I have choice over to be more sensitive.

There are many thing that are illegal on paper, but are done every day in practice, especially with anti-discrimination laws. You need to be very blatant about your discrimination.

We all know that illegal discrimination happens. I was replying to the notion that this is a "new world". We have been living in that world for quite a while now. (That law was passed in 2008.)

Can STD and drug tests be disambiguated back to the person without attached PII? It seems that DNA is inherently the most personal data imaginable.

Those swabs have identity attached to them already.

> In the article there is a quote, “There is no personal data more sensitive than our DNA.“

> This seems a bogus assertion to me. I can imagine many diagnostic health test results that would be more sensitive to leak than DNA (e.g., STD and drug tests).

> DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway.

> Having published my own results (https://enki.org/2017/10/17/publishing-my-genome/), I really don’t buy into the idea that DNA is the most personal data that can be leaked.

> (Nevertheless, there should be more obvious warnings to customers about how their data will be monetized.)

> In the article there is a quote, “There is no personal data more sensitive than our DNA.“

> This seems a bogus assertion to me. I can imagine many diagnostic health test results that would be more sensitive to leak than DNA (e.g., STD and drug tests).

It's still PHI, and in this case subject to at least the Data Protection Act. The walk-in centers at Gatwick and Heathrow may have tested non-UK citizens. If so, they may run into compliance issues with GDPR or other privacy regs. Not sure how that plays out.

Guess I'll have to wait for the investigation results....

> Having published my own results (https://enki.org/2017/10/17/publishing-my-genome/), I really don’t buy into the idea that DNA is the most personal data that can be leaked.

Being as (at least in the US) DNA is used as evidence to conclusively identify (or exclude) those accused of crime (i.e. rape kits, etc) I'd say that a court of law would consider it to be essentially personal info.

I agree it is "personal data". I disagree that it is "more sensitive" than other data.

When Edgar Sengier amassed Shinkolobwe Uranium prior to the Manhattan project, was the sensitivity less because the bomb did not yet exist?

I agree that value is added merely by aggregation. Nevertheless, my diagnostic health test results are more sensitive to me than my DNA is. I imagine this is so for the vast majority.

My comment is less about the aggregation and more about the future. Right now diagnostic health test results are a larger concern for you, but that is likely going to change as technology advances sufficiently to take advantage of massive DNA surveillance. Let's say for instance that your DNA could be used to essentially derive your health results today and accurately predict outcomes into the future, surely that must be a concern for you since you are explicitly concerned about health test results. Maybe its not even the DNA on the swabs that gives it away, but instead something else in your mucous?

I welcome knowledge that would more accurately predict adverse outcomes.

> I imagine this is so for the vast majority.

Even if that is true, societies should still take extra care to protect the interests of minorities, since they typically suffer disproportionate consequences from human rights abuses.

To give a hypothetical example, if someone had Jewish ancestry and also a diagnosis that they had diabetes, I would guess that they'd want the first piece of information to have more protection than the second.

Of course the situation may be different in different countries and for different people (who I am not qualified to speak on behalf of), but I'm just cautioning against seeing DNA as being somehow "neutral".

This made me think. Yes, I see how in scenarios where there is tribalism-induced discrimination, one would carefully guard ancestry that is not obvious. I still object to the blanket assertion that it is the most sensitive data. I would agree if it were caveated: "For many, there is no personal data more sensitive than our DNA."

> "For many, there is no personal data more sensitive than our DNA."

I think that's a reasonable framing. Would you perhaps also accept the claim that "DNA is the most personal data that can be known about someone"?

It's true in the reductive sense that a person is made of cells and the information content of those cells is their DNA, but it's also true in the more nuanced sense that millions of people might share the same diagnosis as you (or even the same shameful secret), but no one who has ever lived, or will ever live, shares your DNA (unless you have an identical twin, or get cloned).

No, I would not accept it. For me, personally, my choices and outcomes are more personal than the immutable attributes I was born with. My browser history is more sensitive to me than my DNA.

I am intrigued that someone might genuinely think otherwise. Would anyone rather have their browser history published over their DNA?

You're probably right that most people think of their browser history as more secret or sensitive than their DNA, and maybe we're just disagreeing over semantics here, but "personal" can have a significantly different connotation.

One way to look at it is that someone's choices (and the pages they've visited) are things in their past, and even a medical diagnosis could be old news if they've since been cured. Their unique DNA signature, on the other hand, has been with them since before they were born, and will remain with them, largely unchanged, for the rest of their life, and even some time beyond. (Their DNA may also have a big effect on when they die, and the sort of life they live while they are alive too).

That's why DNA feels to me like it's an intrinsic part of someone's personhood, in a way that "They visited Hacker News yesterday" doesn't.

For now. But 20 years down the line, it may be possible to create personalized poisons etc. And you cannot change your DNA like you can your password.

That said, I am not sure how this can be prevented either. We leave traces of our DNA everywhere.

Yeah but it's little different when they have to target you and different' when someone on the internet can remotely kill you by programming a (biological) virus.

A super-inefficient personalized poison.

How do you know that?

For some people, a tiny amount of peanuts is deadly. The rest of us can gorge on them without any ill effects whatsoever.

Perhaps there many other such substances that cause a runaway reaction in a tiny minority of people. We do not know.

> DNA sequencing is eventually going to be so cheap and ubiquitous that it will happen to everyone anyway.

Photography is so cheap and ubiquitous that it happens to everyone anyway. That still doesn't mean it's OK for you to sell photos of me in a private setting without my permission.

It's nice that you've chosen to publish your own genome but I bet you'd feel a little different if someone else had published it without your consent.

In private? Mostly not. But with some exceptions (basically for marketing or advertising purposes--unless it's allowed by the Ts & Cs of some event which is common) any photo taken in public (basically outside your home) is fair game.

ADDED: For those disagreeing: In general, I'll generally respect your wishes if you don't want your photo taken. But (in the US) if you're in a public place, you have no legal recourse (outside of some specific commercial uses). And that's how things are and will continue to be.

https://www.longmores.law/articles/data-protection-issues-fo... (2014)

First of all, that's the UK.

Secondly, there is a lot of hand waving on that page. The bottom line is that if I take a picture of you in a public space like a park and publish it without a misleading caption on my blog, you have no real recourse (although the reality is that if it was just there for no particular purpose and you asked me to take it down after the fact I probably would).

You can still legislate access pretty easily. Cameras are ubiquitous and you still are not allowed to take pictures of anyone in any situation.

Please elaborate. I do not understand what you mean about the photos and I do not see how legislation would be easy where there is free speech combined with free markets.

As always, it'll probably not affect most people, but some people will have very interesting markers/indicators on their DNA that might be worth protecting more than an STD or drug test.

drug test? how about dna markers that say you are likely to have a drug problem?

My 23andMe results show that I have the rs2472297 marker associated with slightly increased caffeine consumption. I also have the Irish ancestry associated with alcoholism that has been a problem in my family. I still consider my current diagnostic health test results to be more "sensitive" than the personal data I inherited and have no control over.

fyi, 23andme decodes less than 1% of your genome. Full decoding is getting cheaper every year. New genetic papers come out every week. Even if you think it isn't that big of a deal at the moment, who knows what will be able to be inferred from a full genome in 10 years from now.

I realize that. I don’t think my stance will change. The DNA I was born with is less important and sensitive to me than my decisions and outcomes.

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