Comment on 23andMe tells victims it's their fault that their data was breached | TechCrunch
jimbo@lemmy.world 5 months agoWhy anyone would care is beyond me. Explain what someone’s realistically going to do with your DNA data.
The biggest worry is that the data might be right and might be used by an insurance provider to deny a person’s cover
Though that’s not a realistic problem. The various DNA ancestry companies’ privacy policies prevent them sharing with insurance companies.
The biggest worry is that the data might be right and might be used by an insurance provider to deny a person’s coverage
Ok, but if that’s something insurance companies want to do, they’re not going to be stopped because you didn’t send a DNA sample to 23andMe, nor are they going to have to go scrape up questionable data off the black market. They’ll simply offer people some discount for sending in a DNA sample or even make it a requirement for coverage.
Explain what someone’s realistically going to do with your DNA data.
You are obviously oblivious to how mass-surveillance works, and how much it can destroy our freedoms. Services like 23AndMe keep a database over all the DNA they have received. This database is often shared with governments, and can be used to create relationship maps - who is what to whom. This information can be and is being weaponized against us on a daily basis.
In what ways is it actively being weaponized? Examples, sources?
Services like 23AndMe keep a database over all the DNA they have received.
Yes, it’s how they provide the service.
This database is often shared with governments, and can be used to create relationship maps - who is what to whom.
Your evidence for this claim?
This information can be and is being weaponized against us on a daily basis.
How? By who? What’s your evidence?
I’m betting you have no evidence and will simply appeal to some instance where some company sold some data to the government in a situation that isn’t at all analogous.
The evidence is literally publicly available. It takes mere seconds to find court records and articles online. But it is just easier for you to sit there and scream “what is your evidence?” as some headless chicken, right?
I’m not going to try and guess what you think the evidence is. If it’s as readily available as you claim, it should be trivial for you go find it and show me. The fact that you haven’t yet is telling about how honest you’re actually being.
If I am an insurance company, and I have data that says you are carrying a gene that is correlated with colon cancer, I can either raise the fuck out of your rates because youre a risky client who might cost me a lot of money in colon cancer treatments, or when you do get colon cancer I could refuse to cover it because I have a contract clause you didnt read that says if youre genetically correlated thats functionally a pre-existing condition and thus isnt a part of your coverage.
If I am a med company, and I know what your genes correlate with known treatable genetic diseases that become fatal or more serious to people like you with those genes, I can raise the price of your medication. You have to pay, because you will die if you dont, so I can ask for any price.
If I am a texas politician, who is already threatening hospitals across the nation illegally for your private medical data, I am salivating trying to get your dna. Correlate any gene, or suite of genes, with a population of people you do not like, and you can target them through this. “Prove” a genetic superiority to defend and promote eugenic ideals, while targeting your racial scapegoat at a genetic level. Look like one race? Well your blood says youre not pure, so youre next too.
These are only the obvious problems.
If I am an insurance company, and I have data that says you are carrying a gene that is correlated with colon cancer…
You think an insurance company would leave money on the table if they thought your DNA could save them a few bucks? They’d either offer discounts to people for submitting DNA samples or require DNA samples as a condition of coverage.
If I am a med company, and I know what your genes correlate with known treatable genetic diseases …
Med companies don’t need your DNA to know that they can charge more life-saving medication. They just need you to know that you have a particular condition and then make sure you know about their medication. If the disease in question is fatal, like your example, it actually seems like a win for the person in question that there’s a cure for their condition.
If I am a texas politician, who is already threatening hospitals across the nation illegally for your private medical data, I am salivating trying to get your dna…
Ah yes, the Texas politician who is going to let the lack of DNA data stand in the way of his eugenic designs. Okay. Totally realistic.
These are only the obvious problems.
They’re all bad examples that don’t at all depend on your willingness to give up your DNA information.
The insurance company doesnt want or need to give you discounts. They are buying this data from companies like 23andme, after the professionals have indexed and prorated it. Telling the customer risks scandal, and buying from youmeans they need to process it in house. This back door pre analyzed data sharing keeps you in the dark, and your money in their pocket.
Med companies do not use this to develop the medication, they use it to change the price of existing meds based on your need. Diseases and disorders are not equally lethal. They are buying this data to get the information on how badly you need the drug, and alter the price accordingly.
They arent going to let anything stand in the way of their plans, they are already illegally collecting this information. More data makes this easier for them.
Sell to insurance companies. Genetic predisposition towards certain illnesses? That’s a premium.
Sell to insurance companies. Genetic predisposition towards certain illnesses? That’s a premium.
If that’s something that those companies were interested in doing, why wouldn’t they just require people applying for coverage to submit a DNA sample? That would be way easier, more reliable, and less shady compared to trying to piece together profiles based on data being sold on the black market.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
This is always the most short-sighted kind of comment on the internet, I don’t assume you’re ignorant, I assume you’re selfish - Do you not see a responsibility to future generations in any of your actions or are you just here to “get yours” and check out?
While there are real and immediate dangers today, our responsibility in this moment is to be a firm NO so that these things don’t find their extremes in our lifetime or beyond. You’re the frog in the pot of cold water, but the burner is turned on beneath you.
“What the fuck are you guys talking about man? being all hysterical and shit? The water is comfortable right now, even a bit cold”
Llewellyn@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Anyone can obtain your DNA by picking a single hair of yours. It’s an open secret.
frezik@midwest.social 5 months ago
And there would likely be legal ramifications if they actually used that information in a way that harmed me. That’s not so clear when you gave it up willingly.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And anyone can hate a group of people, the difference between that hate staying small, isolated and relatively contained is organization and systemization - so for example, IBM catalogues and analyzes data for the nazis and you then get an amplification of strength of that hatred that effectively results in the holocaust (instead of something that would have maybe been more like Putin’s limp, flailing invasion of Ukraine).
Yes I can pull a single hair from your head, but if I create a machine where you and 50 million of your friends send me that hair, pay me for the privilege and I then sell the data or it gets breached, that’s where we start to get into the danger zone.
Those of you here being contrarians for the sake of it are on the wrong side of history. Learn a book, shitheads.
jimbo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not on this matter. Simply asserting that danger exists is not the same as demonstrating it, and you’re doing a lot of asserting and zero demonstrating.
Such as? You’re pretty light on details there.
Why does that require a “firm NO”? Plenty of actually dangerous things have been handled via regulation rather than a “firm NO”.
Bad news: the frogs jump out. You’ve also completely failed to demonstrate that we are frogs and there is a pot of water.
Snapz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You’re very confidently ignorant. I’m glad this is only an internet conversation and it can just full stop here - I do feel bad for the people that have to suffer you daily in real life though.
jimbo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Funny you calling me ignorant in response to a post where I asked you twice to explain more. That you resorted to insults instead of explaining your thinking says a lot more about you than it does me.