Maybe a naive question, but Is there a service like 23 and me but that doesn’t collect/keep my genetic information ? @nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Nope. And everyone knew what 23 and Me was doing and did it anyway.
It’s absolutely abusive that in order to get your genetic background you have to be willing for the government to have your DNA.
What are the potential downsides of the government having your DNA? I don’t think I can think of any for real
I mean other than getting in the fingerprint registry if you’re trying to commit a crime I guess
Both of the responses to your comment are batshit lol.
I don’t like the idea of the government having my dna, but does anyone have a genuine (non irrational) reason it would be bad?
The US alone has a rich history of repression (Wikipedia even has a sub-subcategory specifically for ethnic cleansing) and it’s common knowledge those DNA databases have been used by US police to track people down so it’s really not difficult to link those two concepts. These are concrete examples of things the US government does or has done, not some hypothetical scenario.
And that’s all assuming the data is only accessible to governments that have to pretend to care about their citizens, not the for-profit companies and malicious actors that currently do have access to that data.
You’re absolutely right, I can’t think of a single point in history where there was mass persecution of any particular group by a government which might have been far more efficient of they had a handy database of every citizens DNA. Just never happens, not once in all of history. There’s definitely no shining example less than a century ago.
Copy pasting my other comment
One day some insurance company will decide to pull out your protections because, turns out, you have X% chances to get a cancer by your 40. Then all other insurance companies do the same. Then, one of them accepts you, but you gotta pay N% more for the same coverage
It’s not even gouvernement, it’s other companies. One day some insurance company will decide to pull out your protections because, turns out, you have X% chances to get a cancer by your 40. Then all other insurance companies do the same. Then, one of them accepts you, but you gotta pay N% more for the same coverage
Recently I listened to a Crime Junkie episode where they recommended you send your DNA in for genetic genealogy so that if a John Doe or Jane Doe turns up they can be identified and I was like lmfao no thanks why would I do that when I know they’re gonna send it everywhere, to advertisers, to law enforcement,… and I have no way of controlling it. People really don’t give a fuck about their privacy. Honestly, it boggles me.
No. Every DNA collecting agent in the U.S. easily shares it’s data base.
Seems to me the hard part is getting the customers to pay the “full” price of getting the genetic sequencing done. 23andme’s prices to get tested is rather expensive (> $130 the last time I checked) but they are also getting paid for providing some of that data for various “studies”. So they are getting paid to collect and keep the genetic data, so the consumer price of testing ($130) is subsidized by the other revenue channel (i.e. selling access to the data).
I don’t know how much it costs to get your genes sequenced, but it’s probably more than $130 per sample.
I see it like ads… as much as everyone wants to complain about watching ads, the alternative is to pay the full price for the service you are consuming. Most of the services we consume are - after all - profit-making companies, and even the ones that aren’t have bills that need paying.
@raydogg@lemmy.world the difference is that you can’t change your genetic information. It is more like your SSN.
