All rights reserved. This does not necessarily mean the public is unconcerned about genetic privacy. More likely it means that the public is still uninformed about the risks associated with genetic testing, and has not thought at all about the risks involved in storing identifiable DNA samples. A diary is perhaps the most personal and private document an individual can create. It contains a person's innermost thoughts and perceptions, and is usually hidden and locked to assure its secrecy.
Diaries describe the past.
Unlike ordinary diaries that are created by the writer, the information contained in one's DNA, which is stable and can be stored for long periods of time, is in code and is largely unknown to the person. Most of the code cannot now be broken, but parts are being deciphered almost daily. As decoding techniques get better, and if one's DNA is deciphered without permission, another person could learn intimate details of the individual's likely health future that even the individual does not know. Thus even if one concludes that genetic information that can currently be derived from DNA analysis is like other sensitive medical information, the DNA sample itself, with its ability to yield far more information in the future, remains unique. Deciphering an individual's genetic code also provides the reader of that code with probabilistic health information about that individual's family, especially close relatives like parents, siblings, and children.