I don't understand your point. It's possible to not want your nude photos public while also being comfortable submitting your DNA to a government database.
I personally probably wouldn't submit my DNA without a particular reason, but I don't see what's the contradiction here?
You can absolutely expect certain kinds of privacy in a public space. (Like with up-skirt photos, for instance?) The question that needs to be resolved is if collecting DNA violates people's privacy in an unreasonable manner. I think this really falls back on the question of what harm you can do to someone with their DNA.
The EFF apparently feels that you could do quite a bit of harm with it, if not today, then very soon. To me, it seems just about as bad as stalking someone.
> people upload their DNA to for the sole purpose of being findable by their DNA.
It's for the sole purpose of being findable by people with similar DNA to you. Its purpose is not to allow anyone to look you up by your DNA like you are implying here.
I'd happily put my DNA on public record if it promotes scientific research. I honestly don't understand the privacy concerns here for the lawful citizen.
I would never upload my DNA profile, but I have relatives who do. So I am not broadcasting the info, but other family members may.
I am generally alright with law enforcement using public information like this, but it could be used against me without me ever making said data public. So I find your argument invalid.
I'm curious how you draw the line between what information is okay for them to have, vs what isn't? Why is it bad for them to have your DNA, but not bad for them to have your photo from your drivers license/passport? Is it possibly because you were born and raised in a society where one was common and the other was not?
And what does accountability have to do with this? Whether the government has accress to DNA markers is orthogonal to them being held accountable for their actions
There's a big difference between your own DNA being publicly hosted and identified, and some DNA that is pretty similar to yours but not the same as yours being posted and identified to someone that is not you.
Why should you have a right to block the later from happening? It's not your own personal information.
I’d ask similarly, when you enter the public sphere, does that give me the right to collect DNA samples you’ve “voluntarily” dropped on the floor, like in police shows? You abandon your privacy when you voluntarily expose yourself to the public, right?
I think the public is divided on the issue and have no consensus nor common language for matters of privacy.
Perhaps I'm being naieve but I don't want my DNA in any database without my expressed consent or criminal conviction.
DNA is inherently personal, and while its true you leave your DNA in almost as many places as your fingerprints (skin flakes, stray hairs, et al) DNA can tell you much more about someone's medical conditions than their fingerprint can.
I'm interested in personal medical devices, but not if that means leaking my medical info to the companies selling said devices. That info is personal and private and is nobodies business except mine and my doctors.
> people upload their DNA to for the sole purpose of being findable by their DNA
They are not making just themselves findable by DNA. They are making their extended family findable by DNA, and I don't imagine they have gotten the whole family's consent before doing so.
I don't believe making my genome available, which contains similarity to my relatives, is a breach of their privacy.
I think part of my point is that DNA, by its nature, simply cannot remain confidential, and that thinking we can keep it that way is just going to lead to inevitable disappointment.
Given the number of people who voluntarily submit DNA to ancestry and other analysis sites, it really doesn't have much practical impact if governments collect it. Even without yours, they have enough of your relatives' to identify you. I have the same knee-jerk reaction as everyone else to government encroaching on privacy, but in the end we've all long since voluntarily given up any semblance of privacy. We're all carrying tracking devices and filling our homes with microphones and our families have given away our DNA for us. Privacy doesn't exist.
I think the difference is much smaller than you think. If someone finds male DNA and my uncle has used this service, and a public photo with my eyes and hair clearly visible in the background on his Facebook page, then suddenly it’s almost as if I registered my DNA in a public registry. It’s the metadata problem all over again, it just takes one or two more public data points to deanonymize it entirely.
But wouldn't this conflict to the (natural?) right of an individual to publish their own data? Do I need a permission from all my family tree to be allowed to publish the contents of my DNA?
When it comes to DNA we are already nude. You will have better luck keeping your face private and going about a normal life than hiding your genome from the world. The former can be accomplished with a mask. The latter requires living in a plastic bubble and never sharing the genomic information of anyone.
I do not want to live in a world where everyone must be masked, and although the utility of sharing information about DNA is of a different kind I will also be profoundly sad if we are too afraid of the bogeyman to let other people know what we are made of.
Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because there is literally not one case where DNA information alone has resulted in harm. I challenge you to provide an example. Digitized DNA sequence information from tens of millions of people is floating around in the world. If this were as dangerous as some people make it out to be I would expect there to have been many problems already.
(The example that I have heard is when someone learns their biological parents are not who they think they are. Although this may be troubling I find it absurd that someone should have the right to delude or be deluded about their genetic background. At worst it can pose a dangerous liability as someone lacks information about diseases that may affect them or their offspring.)
I personally probably wouldn't submit my DNA without a particular reason, but I don't see what's the contradiction here?
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