You want to know your ancestry … but is it worth sharing your genetic code with the world?
There’s big business in genealogy. Whether it’s a family tree that goes straight up and down like a mighty oak, or stretches east and west into dozens of brambles, people want to know their genetic makeup. Family history site Ancestry.com boasts 20 million members. 23andMe has a database of over 5 million members, and MyHeritage has approximately 2.5 million. That’s more than 27.5 million people, and that’s only counting three brands out of 50+ on the market. MIT Technology Review estimates that if the current level of public interest continues, commercial genetic databases will hold the info of 100 million people by 2021.
Because our genetic codes reveal so much, the associated risks and rewards are tremendous. Discovering our ancestry is only one revelation offered by today’s genealogy services. We can also choose to find family, learn which traits we’ve inherited, and discover if we’re predisposed to Alzheimer’s, gene mutations that can lead to cancer, diabetes, and more. In exchange for $100-$200 and some saliva, we get a more detailed picture of who we are – and open a Pandora’s box of self-discovery.
The risks arise when we look at the security these companies are using. Our genetic data is valuable to organizations including law enforcement, pharmaceutical labs, and app developers.
Law enforcement — Investigative genealogy can solve cases, such as the infamous Golden State Killer case, which went unsolved for decades until the risking privacy genetic testing avast
