Genetic privacy eroding fast with growth of ancestry databases
by Michael Cook | 13 Oct 2018 |
Back in April came the stunning news that a 30-year-old cold case may have been solved in California using “forensic geneology”. A man believed to be the Golden State Killer, who was responsible for at least 12 murders and more than 50 rapes between 1976 and 1986, was arrested after investigators used publicly available ancestry databases to track him down. His own profile had not been posted, but profiles of some of his relatives had been.
As a statistical geneticist has noted: “You are a beacon who illuminates 300 people around you.”
From April to August, the use of the technique has exploded. More than a dozen cases have been solved, even though a number of bioethicists expressed serious reservations about the possibility of invasion of genetic privacy.
But two papers published this week in Science and Cell suggest that the technique will become much more powerful very quickly. The team responsible for the paper in Science estimated that at the moment “about 60% of the searches for individuals of European-descent will result in a third cousin or closer match, which can allow their identification using demographic identifiers.” But it will become even more accurate. They add: “Moreover, the technique could implicate nearly any US-individual of European-descent in the near future.”
They also demonstrate that it is possible to identify the participants in a sequencing project if the data is publicly available
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Being a good editor requires a certain personality type: someone persnickety, obsessive, hawk-eyed and meticulous. Not being that sort of person myself, I can still appreciate their virtues. A good editor fusses about capitalisation, proper usage, consistent spelling, and the Oxford comma and loses sleep over knaves who cannot distinguish between “discrete” and “discreet”.
But there is one point on which the good editor and I agree: the enormity of writing “normalcy” when one means “normality”. I recently read in a not-to-be-named journal, “As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged...” No. No. No. No. The word is “normality”.
The virus of “normalcy” has spread like a particularly pernicious strain of influenza through the media. A quick Google search brings up: “Nikki Haley's Departure Is Shocking Because Of Its Normalcy” and “Anger Recedes as Normalcy, Good Humor Mark Kavanaugh’s First Day on Supreme Court”.
Do you know who put “normalcy” on the map, so to speak? Warren G. Harding, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson in the White House. In 1920 the slogan of his campaign was “a return to normalcy”. The word should have died with his reputation as the worst of American presidents.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. And please don’t get me started on the misuse of “enormity” for “enormousness”.
But there is one point on which the good editor and I agree: the enormity of writing “normalcy” when one means “normality”. I recently read in a not-to-be-named journal, “As the boundaries between human and ‘the other’, technological, biological and environmental, are eroded and perceptions of normalcy are challenged...” No. No. No. No. The word is “normality”.
The virus of “normalcy” has spread like a particularly pernicious strain of influenza through the media. A quick Google search brings up: “Nikki Haley's Departure Is Shocking Because Of Its Normalcy” and “Anger Recedes as Normalcy, Good Humor Mark Kavanaugh’s First Day on Supreme Court”.
Do you know who put “normalcy” on the map, so to speak? Warren G. Harding, who succeeded Woodrow Wilson in the White House. In 1920 the slogan of his campaign was “a return to normalcy”. The word should have died with his reputation as the worst of American presidents.
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. And please don’t get me started on the misuse of “enormity” for “enormousness”.
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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