> “If FamilyTreeDNA can help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families, then we feel the company has a moral responsibility to do so.”
The FBI (and a variety of other organizations) can and will use the information for any and all purposes imaginable, and a number that are unimaginable.
As a family member of someone who sends in a FamilyTreeDNA kit, you're powerless to opt out. An implicit, traceable link to your own DNA suddenly enters the system against your will, and you have no recourse. Suddenly you become part of this this experiment in mass surveillance.
The people of rich democracies are way too trusting of their governments and don't read enough history. Saying that this service will be used to " help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families" is naive at best and something monstrous at worst.
Some uses are easy to predict. Genocide, for example. Others, no so much.
- Imagine a Bird-type gig economy in which thousands of cash-strapped people are hired (possibly by FamilyTreeDNA under contract from the FBI) to swab public places and objects for DNA, while the company compiles the results into a massive internet of DNA things. Now imagine that database being linked to a face-recognition system using public cameras.
- Imagine being turned down for a job because someone happened to get a peek at your FamilyTReeDNA profile and noticed a marker for mental illness.
- Imagine being sent to prison because some jackass politician starts believing in criminal DNA markers and you fit the bill.
I'll give credit to Bennett Greenspan for this. He knows how to wrap a massive invasion of privacy in the sweet-smelling blanket of saving us all from the criminal boogeyman.
Gattaca was prescient. It was a glimpse of what our future will look like if things continue this way unchecked. While those of us paying attention will find it terrifying, the majority won't notice or be bothered by it I fear.
The vast majority have been convinced that the "I've got nothing to hide" defense protects them. It works with surveillance, and it'll work with this too. They've already given up liberty to purchase some temporary security; Franklin would be upset.
Is it temporary safety though? A large enough DNA database might nearly eliminate serial rapists. That's one hell of an immediate (and permanent) benefit to trade off against some theoretical downside.
Well, the data might not eliminate them, rather quickly identify them for "special tasks", like when machiavellian directors intentionally seek bully managers to control their unit with fear. Identifying someone who has certain negative traits might fast-track them to positions of power.
Not sure how that follows, that requires the victims to come forward, be taken serious by the police, and the whole process to progress through the justice system in time for their second crime.
Not to mention the first rape wouldn't be avoided anyway, so it's a quite small security it buys.
How many serial rapists can there be, anyway? Of those, how many of them raped multiple people, instead of the same victim several times, who was too traumatized to go to the police? How many are family members?
The other—less terrifying—lesson of Gattaca was that adversity (by not being dealt a great hand) can lead to drive and innovation that surpasses the naturally gifted.
>Saying that this service will be used to " help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families" is naive at best and something monstrous at worst.
It will because it has been used to do just that.
> Genocide, for example
It's not like humans have had difficulty committing genocide in the past without DNA databases. The Rwandan genocide, for example, was done primarily with machetes and coordinated by radio. Similarly the rest of your hypothetical situations can be done without DNA testing if society wished to act in that manner. I don't see much weight in your scenarios at least compared with actual murderers and rapists going to jail.
The FBI (and a variety of other organizations) can and will use the information for any and all purposes imaginable, and a number that are unimaginable.
As a family member of someone who sends in a FamilyTreeDNA kit, you're powerless to opt out. An implicit, traceable link to your own DNA suddenly enters the system against your will, and you have no recourse. Suddenly you become part of this this experiment in mass surveillance.
The people of rich democracies are way too trusting of their governments and don't read enough history. Saying that this service will be used to " help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families" is naive at best and something monstrous at worst.
Some uses are easy to predict. Genocide, for example. Others, no so much.
- Imagine a Bird-type gig economy in which thousands of cash-strapped people are hired (possibly by FamilyTreeDNA under contract from the FBI) to swab public places and objects for DNA, while the company compiles the results into a massive internet of DNA things. Now imagine that database being linked to a face-recognition system using public cameras.
- Imagine being turned down for a job because someone happened to get a peek at your FamilyTReeDNA profile and noticed a marker for mental illness.
- Imagine being sent to prison because some jackass politician starts believing in criminal DNA markers and you fit the bill.
I'll give credit to Bennett Greenspan for this. He knows how to wrap a massive invasion of privacy in the sweet-smelling blanket of saving us all from the criminal boogeyman.