Personal Genomics: The Next Breach of Your Privacy and Security
By: Ishaan Gollamudi
Tags: Biology, Future, Pharmaceutical, Monitoring, Genetics

At this point, massive corporations collecting personal data about users has become commonplace; not accepted, but many find themselves too dependent on the services such corporations provide to take any action against them, a veritable toxic relationship. But there may be another source of data that is coming to be assiduously mined, one that may serve to not only inform corporations about your preferences and future medical requirements, but your entire family’s as well, and in many cases, the owners of that data don’t give a second thought; many aren’t even aware it is being used like this. So, what is the data source of the future?

Your DNA.

Many have considered, at some point, sending a sample to a company like 23andMe, satiating the curiosity about one’s (hopefully exotic) heritage. Some have allowed their genomes to be used for scientific purposes, whilst others have even posted them on websites like GitHub and Facebook for all to see. At face value, it doesn’t seem to be particularly compromising; a string of 4 letters arranged in random sequence can’t possibly encode something as complex as the human individual, and yet it does. This flippant attitude is ideal for large corporations, for it indicates that they have either been successful in quieting the knowledge that they are selling your genomic data, or that the public is not sufficiently well-informed to consider it an issue, and with today’s state of media, with shadowy ad campaigns around every corner, both are equally likely.

But if we are to deal with the fact that such corporations are selling your data, the connections must be made apparent. Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline announced in 2018 that it would be acquiring a $300 million stake in 23andMe, officially for access to their genetic database to search for drug targets. But having access to such a database, and the vast potential within, is not likely just for drug targets, although that would be profitable. Think of targeted ads; ads for products you may have explicitly expressed desire for by searching for them on the internet, or implicitly suggested by buying similar or related products. If one had access to a database that recorded someone’s entire catalog of preferences, which have been established to be hereditary, imagine the level of specificity one could introduce into their ads, directly targeting specific individuals and likely their close relatives too, to an unimaginable degree. In effect, companies with access to this data know what you want before you want it.

This is not just limited to preferences, for even predispositions for certain diseases can be detected, such as cancer and diabetes. Already we have seen the discovery of mutated forms of the BRCA 1 gene that increase the risk of multiple different types of cancer, from ovarian to pancreatic. With modern technology, that could be taken to a massive scale; every allele determining whether or not one could develop a disorder as they age. The effect it would have on health insurance could be unprecedented; denial of coverage because of the sum effect of your genes, your life could be entirely explicitly dominated by your genes, more than it already is at least.

Clearly, some sort of measures of protection must be put in place. It has been a long-time belief of mine that the Internet has become this sort of discombobulating plane of conflicting values because it developed too fast. In nearly 31 years, a whole new world has been developed, far faster than could be regulated by governments that could perhaps properly handle issues like censorship and fake news if given more time. We now have a similar new frontier, one that is already being used by authoritarian regimes like China to monitor their citizens. To refrain from engaging in the floccinaucinihilipilification of such regimes, it must be said that this new frontier should have a heavy governmental presence, so as to ensure that massive corporations cannot abuse citizens for their own profits. Unfortunately, it would appear that the world of politics is in as great of a disarray as the Internet, and so hope must be held out, but kept in check.