How Hackers Could Unlock Your Genetic Secrets

Researchers have shown that it's possible to link your identity to supposedly secret genetic information about your predisposition to diseases, merely by analyzing family-tree databases and other publicly available information. The security-cracking trick relies on the availability of genetic information linked to surnames in a variety of public family-tree databases.

Yaniv Erlich, a genetic researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, recently revealed the method he used. However, he is not advocating a clampdown on the availability of genetic information. Indeed, he believes we should share even more such data. Erlich said, "We found the gene for two devastating pediatric disorders by analyzing the data in public databases. Using these databases, we gave hope to these families and to other parents. We don't want to take away these databases..."

Saving lives by analyzing public databases sounds like a great idea to me!

You can read much more in an article by Alan Boyle, Science Editor, on the NBC News web site at http://goo.gl/pj63R.

My thanks to the several newsletter readers who told me about this article.