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The article is an interesting example of hyperbole, truth and mis-understanding. I wonder if the author even read Ancestry's privacy policy? I did, and its not bad as such things go. Our biggest risk is this:
Of course, this would apply even without the statement in their privacy terms.
The bigger problem to me is that Sacramento police opened a can of worms with their actions, noble as the results may be. The ones that will suffer the most are not the Ancestrys, but the sites that offer public access, like the police used.
It's also probable that such police actions will continue to be rare, and genealogists will be more wary of sharing. How many police forces can invest the man(people?) hours this took for one case? Not many I'd guess. How many genealogists will cooperate with law enforcement in the future, recognizing the questionable ethics (do police even have ethics?) of creating a misleading DNA account?
I have very little trust or respect for anything the Sacramento Bee publishes any way. Way too biased and left-leaning.
I feel it is a bit of a scam. I am really tired of every black person saying, "I am 30% Swedish," or white people saying, "I am 30% African." I do not trust the info because so much of it also contradicts family members intel.
These DNA tests have been a real blessing for many people. Many don't know or realize just how many unidentified orphans were liberated from concentration camps or found in hiding at the end of WWII. There were also the children born in Lebensborn homes or raised in orphanages where they were beaten and brutally punished until they forgot their real identities and only used the one that was forced on them to "Germanize" them. These were children with no memory/kowledge of who their parents were, what their birth names were, or when they were born. DNA has allowed them to rebuild their lost history and connect with long-lost family.
It isn't a scam. The DNA matching works, I found people I had no idea I was related to. And yes, I have the primary source records to back up the DNA results that my family tree was wrong; somebody's daddy wasn't their daddy.
The ethnicity reports are estimates based on existing knowledge. They may or may not be accurate for everyone. Best advice is to take the percents with the grain of salt.
I haven't had any bad experiences or security concerns. I did stop adding fuel to 23andme's genetic research operation but that was another issue. I felt they were not properly focused on the customer base and the reason why people subscribe. The recent addition of the "dots" according to clusters of people in different countries is an example of them supplying data but not information.
The electronic medical records that my doctor keeps that may someday be hacked.
What they do with your blood after they pull it out of your arm when you have lab work done.
How everything we do on the internet is tracked.
How they can track our location with our cell phones and modern cars.
How they use debit/credit cards to track what we buy.
If people were really as concerned as some in this thread claim to be they'd be living off the grid, would not be accessing the internet, and would not be posting in this thread.
The article is an interesting example of hyperbole, truth and mis-understanding. I wonder if the author even read Ancestry's privacy policy? I did, and its not bad as such things go. Our biggest risk is this:
Of course, this would apply even without the statement in their privacy terms.
The bigger problem to me is that Sacramento police opened a can of worms with their actions, noble as the results may be. The ones that will suffer the most are not the Ancestrys, but the sites that offer public access, like the police used.
It's also probable that such police actions will continue to be rare, and genealogists will be more wary of sharing. How many police forces can invest the man(people?) hours this took for one case? Not many I'd guess. How many genealogists will cooperate with law enforcement in the future, recognizing the questionable ethics (do police even have ethics?) of creating a misleading DNA account?
DNA Doe posted that while people initially removed info from GEDmatch, they've since gotten even more uploads
Gedmatch's Curtis Rogers regarding how the site has fared since the Golden State Killer news: "On the day it was announced that GEDmatch apparently played a role in the capture, Friday 27 April, there was a net loss of kits removed versus DNA kits added. On all other days there has been a net gain and things are pretty much normal now
Quote:
Originally Posted by writerwife
I don't trust them. Never have, never will. Even if I could trust them... I don't trust what some other entity might do with that.
I don't even trust that they aren't collecting dna profiles on newborns yet or soon. With or without our knowledge.
Some states are collecting newborn DNA. I've been trying to find out if NJ is doing it too
Quote:
Originally Posted by gvillager
Yeah, I'm concerned.
But I'm just as concerned about the following:
The electronic medical records that my doctor keeps that may someday be hacked.
What they do with your blood after they pull it out of your arm when you have lab work done.
How everything we do on the internet is tracked.
How they can track our location with our cell phones and modern cars.
How they use debit/credit cards to track what we buy.
If people were really as concerned as some in this thread claim to be they'd be living off the grid, would not be accessing the internet, and would not be posting in this thread.
I've been trying to put together a thread about newborn heel sticks. You really have to read the article. It's very hard to pick 10% to copy
The Newborn Genetic Screening test is required in all 50 states, and is widely believed to be a miracle of modern medicine. What people don't know is that some states keep the blood samples on file and let outside researchers buy them.
Nearly every baby born in the United States gets a heel prick shortly after birth. Their newborn blood fills six spots on a special filter paper card. It is used to test baby for dozens of congenital disorders that, if treated early enough, could prevent severe disabilities and even death.
In California, they not only store them since 1983; they also sell them (minus patient information) to outside researchers for $20 to $40 per spot..
Nearly every baby born in the United States gets a heel prick shortly after birth. Their newborn blood fills six spots on a special filter paper card. It is used to test baby for dozens of congenital disorders that, if treated early enough, could prevent severe disabilities and even death.
It's estimated that newborn screening leads to a potentially life-saving early diagnosis each year for 5,000 to 6,000 children nationwide.
The California Department of Public Health reports that from 2015-2017 alone, the Newborn Screening test diagnosed 2,498 babies with a "serious congenital disorder that, if left untreated could have caused irreparable harm or death."
But, unless you or your child is diagnosed with one of these disorders, the test is often lost in the fog of childbirth.
Your rights after the test
The lab generally only needs a few of the blood spots for the baby's own potentially lifesaving genetic test. They use to collect five blood spots total from each child in California, they've now increased that to six.
Some states destroy the blood spots after a year, 12 states store them for at least 21 years.
California, however, is one of a handful of states that stores the remaining blood spots for research indefinitely in a state-run biobank.
According to the Department of Public Health, more than 9.5 million blood spot samples have been collected since 2000 alone. The state of California has stored blood spots since 1983.
In the case of the Genetic Screening Pamphlet, the moms agreed they wouldn't have thought it was relevant to read after the fact unless their child was actually diagnosed.
And they're not alone. We conducted an exclusive Survey USA news poll of parents with kids born in California over the past five years.
While a majority of parents reported that they did know about the life-saving test, three-quarters said they didn't know the state would store the leftover blood spots indefinitely for research, and two-thirds weren't sure they ever got the newborn screening information.
While a majority of parents reported that they did know about the life-saving test, three-quarters said they didn't know the state would store the leftover blood spots indefinitely for research, and two-thirds weren't sure they ever got the newborn screening information.
When we read the six moms that portion of page 13 that disclosed the blood spots could be used for outside research, they noted that it's not clear the blood spots are stored indefinitely, available to law enforcement, nor that using blood spots for "department approved studies" means giving them to outside researchers." P.13 states:
"Are the stored blood spots used for anything else? Yes. California law requires the NBS program to use or provide newborn screening specimens for department approved studies of diseases in women and children, such as research related to identify-ing and preventing disease."
While the state says it "distributes more than 700,000 copies of the booklets to health providers each year," it admits that it doesn't track whether doctors are giving them out. It also does not confirm parents are informed of their rights to opt out of storage before storing or selling the child's DNA.
^ interesting, especially since it's sometimes possible to re-identify de-identified DNA samples. I know this because I dealt with the problem professionally. And of all places, California, home of the DNA police!
The article is an interesting example of hyperbole, truth and mis-understanding. I wonder if the author even read Ancestry's privacy policy? I did, and its not bad as such things go. Our biggest risk is this:
Of course, this would apply even without the statement in their privacy terms.
The bigger problem to me is that Sacramento police opened a can of worms with their actions, noble as the results may be. The ones that will suffer the most are not the Ancestrys, but the sites that offer public access, like the police used.
It's also probable that such police actions will continue to be rare, and genealogists will be more wary of sharing. How many police forces can invest the man(people?) hours this took for one case? Not many I'd guess. How many genealogists will cooperate with law enforcement in the future, recognizing the questionable ethics (do police even have ethics?) of creating a misleading DNA account?
DNA Doe posted that while people initially removed info from GEDmatch, they've since gotten more uploads
Gedmatch's Curtis Rogers regarding how the site has fared since the Golden State Killer news: "On the day it was announced that GEDmatch apparently played a role in the capture, Friday 27 April, there was a net loss of kits removed versus DNA kits added. On all other days there has been a net gain and things are pretty much normal now
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