These days almost everybody who wants to dig up information types a couple of keywords in Google search and voila! But what if one wants to learn about his/her information he/she was not aware of? Now you can - a web startup 23andMe promises to help you for less than $100. In fact, they state this on the site front page "Get to know you. Health and ancestry start here." But do not worry - this is not one of the legitimate or shady sites that collects unknown to you court, police and other public and not so public records and then sells them to you. Neither be alarmed by the company's Mission Statement -- "23andMe's mission is to be the world's trusted source of personal genetic information." In fact, 23andMe will need your cooperation, i.e. your spit or saliva that you will mail them in the kit the company will provide to you as part of the test.
So what does the company have to do with Google? Well, in fact, a lot. Let's not focus too much on the facts that
Google Ventures is one of the company investors and company CEO,
Anne Wojcicki, is wife of Google founder, Sergey Brin. The major similarity is that
23andme after decoding your genome will search it for known genetic abnormalities (currently totaling 240+) or DNA patterns associated with some diseases, potential medical conditions or ancestry. According to the National Human Genome Institute
"A Guide to Your Genome" there are 20,500 genes in human genome. The number of combinations even bigger -- as we know there are more than 6 billion people living today. Thus, it is not exactly a trivial matter to do the search of possible abnormalities and/or matching of your genome.
In addition to the genetic test company will conveniently store your genetic profile that you always can access through the web. Aside from any potential breaches of security into corporate database by hackers, blackmailers, and other "unfriendly" parties that could be interested in your genetic information there are more legitimate organizations such as NSA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies that most likely can get (if not already got) access to the data without your permission or warrant. Of course, that would be a classified information, so you will never know the source of it. Today, they have to get a court warrant to obtain your DNA sample and decode your genome, but if you voluntarily provided stored it on the web why law enforcement agencies would needed a warrant? If they can listen our conversations, read our e-mails and screen our financial transactions without specific warrant order, why cannot they "lift" some genetic information that we submitted for "cloud" storing? In the Cloud all information is foggy.
There are even more legal problems with the internet service that analyses human genome. How would the company know that genetic material was submitted legally and obtained voluntarily or, for that matter, even belong to a person who send it? It opens door for all kind of abuse and misuse of genetic information for various unlawful purposes. It is not all,
23andme claims to be
The largest DNA ancestry service in the world comprising
400,000 genotyped members, so
"you'll experience more matches, more data, and more discoveries". Regarding this we have two questions - did these members granted anyone right to match their genome with someone else? Is anyone who sends his/her sample to
23andme automatically gets into their searchable and matchable database? Usually, such matching test require explicit consent of all parties involved or a court order. Otherwise we will open Pandora box of legal actions associated with parenting and inheritance rights, for example.
Yet, apparently these are not the only considerations that should bother government and all of us as well. You might have been distracted by Thanksgiving and holiday shopping, but couple of days ago an interesting article
The F.D.A. vs. Personal Genetic Testing was posted on New Yorker magazine website. It all started with
FDA letter to the company published five days before posting of the article.
According to the
Washington Post article "about half a million people have used the company’s DNA kit". We will not rehash FDA concerns and company's response to them well covered in the New Yorker and other publications. One conclusion is clear -- do not rush to become a guinea pig for a technology company and be concerned with numerous implications that technology innovations might have for you.