To be paranoid about DNA?

[GoldfishParade]

I really want to do the Ancestry DNA testing in the hope of finding my sister.

But there's a small part of me thats paranoid about a company having my DNA, I'm not sure why. Paranoid about surreal possibilities like someone using it to frame me for a crime 😂

What do you think?

The chances are remote.

I’d focus instead on the possibility of disappointment, OP. Prepare not to find her, and bear in mind the scenario that she may be on there but uninterested in a relationship with you for whatever reason. Best of luck - I really hope things work for you.

@GreenClock
Thank you! I know I need to prepare for disappointment. On the plus side I would be curious to see any information at all, so even if I don't find her, I'll have learnt something!

Dunno if that helps but having a copy of your dna and manufacturing it are two vastly different things. When you apply for a biometric passport the government has your fingerprints, that does not mean they would be able to manufacture some to plant on a crime scene.

@malysh wellll I guess if we're being super paranoid, with DNA sequencing you could technically make up an in vitro sample of someones DNA from the sequencing data stored..

OP it's absolutely fine if that's what you want to do :)

Actually, I think that is a very sensible question to ask.

This article is a good place to start:

www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/smarter-living/how-to-protect-your-dna-data.html

@Malysh

The police might not be able to but I'm assuming some evil tech genius working for the company that handles fingerprinting tech for the police could!

Obviously in my catastrophising scenario I would have somehow unwittingly done wrong by this evil genius and s/he will then have orchestrated to get themselves hired by the company to do just this 😁

@orangenasturtium
Thanks for sharing that link, very interesting:
"Law enforcement famously used crime-scene DNA that was shared with a genealogical research site totrack down a suspect in the Golden State killer case, even though he never used a DNA test himself, demonstrating that even anonymized data can be used to identify people."

Framing you for a crime: so unlikely you needn't worry.

Using your DNA to create a health and behavioural profile of you, and selling information to insurance companies: already happening.

Have a look in Ancestry's T&C. I'm too tired to dig out the links just now, but I read them quite recently. I think key words are "health" "behavioural" "medical".

IIRC They also don't consider information about dead people to be sensitive personal data, and can therefore freely process & sell data derived from all the family trees people upload. Since your ancestors' data IS your data when it comes to DNA, re probability you will have a particular health issues, this can become your problem.

I have been told by a genetic counsellor that the medical information is sold to insurance companies. It probably won’t affect my generation, but my kids and grandkids may not be able to get insurance or potentially even jobs based on this data. You get the ancestry info attached to the dna data collected, but have no access to the medical data or what’s done with it. It’s very dodgy.

I did ancestry DNA. I found a half sister on my dads side, born the year my parents got married. My mum was not happy!!