genomeboy.com

Two caveats on the PGP consent form: our genomes could be used to a) claim [our] relatedness to infamous villains and (b) make synthetic DNA and plant it at a crime scene. I was reminded of these by Ari Shapiro’s excellent series on NPR, The Ethics of DNA Use. Some money excerpts from Part I:

Law-enforcement groups like to say that giving police a DNA sample is no different from giving police your fingerprint, but Tania Simoncelli of the ACLU says DNA is far more personal than a fingerprint. A DNA sample “contains a great deal of information. It could be about susceptibility to disease, as well as your family history,” Simoncelli says. “This is private, personal information about you that goes far beyond just your identification.”

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Courts have said little about how much of a right people have to keep…genetic material private…”Traditionally, the law has been that if you abandon your DNA, you lose it,” says Barry Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project.

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The Washington Supreme Court ruled six to three that “police are allowed to use some deception, including ruses, for the purpose of investigating criminal activity.”

“No recognized privacy interest exists in voluntarily discarded saliva,” the court found.

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But let’s not forget to give props to phenotypes:

…[A]s Harvard professor and DNA expert David Lazer points out, police can learn at least as much about us through other means as they can through our DNA.

“One could build a very detailed profile of every single individual based on the information they make freely available through credit card use, through cell phone use, through paying taxes and the like,” Lazer says. “It’s very difficult to hide in this life that we live in the grid.”