Perhaps the man who has everything would prefer not to become your science experiment. You may be tempted by special offers around holidays such as this one, offering 30% off genetic tests for Father’s Day: “What do you share with Dad? This Father’s Day, celebrate your DNA connection with Dad”. We may be leaving Europe, but Europe will never leave us.” An ad by AncestryDNA capitalized on “Brexit” and British identity politics, with the slogan, “The average British person’s data is 60% European. In 2016 alone, spent $109 million on ads.
DNA companies hand out free kits at sporting events, and create DNA specific music playlists on Spotify. Millions are spent on targeted ads to lure you.The likelihood that anonymous donations will remain anonymous decreases with every test taken, which could dissuade donors and negatively affect some families. Anonymous sperm and egg donors could become a thing of the past.A fertility watchdog in the United Kingdom called for DNA testing companies to warn consumers of the risks of uncovering traumatic family secrets or disease risks. You may discover things you weren’t prepared to find out. By putting your own DNA in the hands of companies your ( known or unknown) relatives could be identifiable to others, possibly against their wishes. You will jeopardize the anonymity of family members.You could jump through hoops to attempt to mask your name and location, but your DNA is an unique marker of your identity that could be mishandled no matter what. White nationalists have flocked to commercial DNA companies to vie for the highest race-purity points on extremist websites. As Sarah Zhang wrote in 2016, “DNA is not your culture and it certainly isn’t guaranteed to tell you anything about the places, history and cultures that shaped you.” Your DNA says nothing about your culture.Because more people of European descent have taken tests so far, assessments of where your ancestors lived are usually less detailed outside of Europe. DNA is analyzed in comparison to samples already on file. Heritage tests are less precise if you don’t have European roots.
As Arwa Mahdawi wrote after taking the test, “Nothing I learned was worth the price-tag and privacy risks involved.” One company, Orig3n, misidentified a Labrador Retriever dog’s DNA sample as being human in 2018. Some outputs on personal health and nutrition have been discredited by scientists. The Forensic Genetics Policy Initiative – Country Wiki Should you give them all three?, McClatchy, 2018 How DNA Testing Botched My Family’s Heritage, and Probably Yours, Too, Gizmodo, 2018Īncestry wants your spit, your DNA and your trust. But before you give in to your curiosity, here are 23 reasons not to reveal your DNA – one for each pair of the chromosomes in a human cell. OK, so test results can also lead to important discoveries about your personal health, and can also be shared for non-profit biomedical research in the public interest. In terms of internet health, it’s part of a worrying trend of corporations to acquire personal data about people and act in their own best interests, not yours. They often also claim rights to your genetic data and sell access to their databases to big pharmaceutical and medtech companies.
Industry giants, 23andMe, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA market their services online, share test results on websites, and even offer tutorials on how to search for relatives in phone directories, or share results in social media.