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Are any of the DNA testing companies trustworthy? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

So obviously we're all on Lemmy for a complicated combination of reasons, but we all likely share some common ground, namely...

need for privacy
need to own/control/access the data we produce
healthy skepticism about the trustworthiness of for-profit corporations, in general

So if we don't want meta to know even innocuous things; like how many times/when we message our grandma, and we don't google to know when we're searching for remedies to a rash, and we don't want reddit to... Well we just don't want reddit - we don't want them to profit from or weaponize that data against us in a myriad ways.

We also don't want them artificially removing features and creating tiered layers of service/value hidden behind a paywall (I understand this is very present in the some of the commercially available DNA services).

So that brings me to DNA testing services. Since they started to emerge in the mainstream they were immediately an interesting, exciting novelty and I also knew it was data I wouldn't feel safe trusting with a for-profit org - with broken systems like law enforcement and health insurers on speed dial and just salivating for the goodies they collect.

So all that considered, any groups that provide this type of service that you do trust/use, and why?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (20 children)

Most companies don't cooperate with law enforcement, it's only Gedmatch who do currently and you need to personally opt in to that because they originally gave free access and there was a legal challenge. None will give info to health insurance companies, privacy laws in most places wouldn't allow that. All of them have to let you delete your info whenever you want.

However if you don't trust for profit orgs then you're out of luck. Many of them are run by the LDS though, and their goal is to get your family tree so that they can baptise your dead relatives, so like, kinda harmless as far as corporate strategy goes.

I've had mine done and nobody has made an evil clone to frame me for killing the king yet, so it's not too bad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They might not now but who’s to say what happens in 10-50 years. You should assume that law enforcement (and other malicious actors) will have your genetic info.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If it happened you could delete your data. I think it's unlikely though, as a for profit company they'd close down pretty quickly if they allowed it and people stopped buying.

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