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Privacy Concerns Over DNA Tests That Help Discover Your Roots
NBC DFW ^ | Jun 16, 2017

Posted on 06/17/2017 5:35:52 PM PDT by nickcarraway

For generations, cross-referencing tombstones at the cemetery and vital records was required to unlock your lineage.

But now, you can easily uncover some of the mystery of your family tree with DNA.

Consumers like Larry Guernsey are giving the service as gifts.

"I thought it would be a good Christmas present," Guernsey said.

The $99 DNA test uses a saliva sample to trace family history.

Here's how one company that provides the service, Ancestry, says it works:

"A simple test can reveal an estimate of your ethnic mix… like if you're Irish or Scandinavian, or both."

For Guernsey his curiosity twisted to suspicion once he read the fine print. To proceed, he'd have to give ancestry a "perpetual, royalty-free worldwide transferable license" to use his DNA.

"That entire phrase: 'perpetual royalty-free worldwide transferable,' it sounds like they have left it open to do anything they want with it," Guernsey said.

He was concerned the "transferable license" could put his family's DNA in the hands of an insurance company that could later deny coverage.

"That's not a crazy worry," said Stanford University law professor Hank Greely.

Greely teaches and writes books about the intersection of bio-tech and the law. Greely says medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies routinely need DNA data to develop new products, and companies that have big DNA databases, like Ancestry, sell it to them.

"Some of them get a fair amount of their revenue by selling the analysis of your DNA," Greely said.

NBC 5 Responds asked Ancestry for an interview, but it declined.

In a statement the company said:

"The decisions we make are guided by the basic belief that our customers' data belongs to them."

They went on to say, "We provide every customer options to choose how we may use their DNA data when they sign up .. .We will not share DNA data with third party marketers, employers or insurance companies." Ancestry's website currently tells users they have a choice to later "delete your DNA test results" or "destroy your physical DNA saliva sample."

Ancestry also says it stores your "DNA sample without your name."

Those statements are posted to its privacy page.

However, they're not in the contract you sign.

"If it bothers you, if it offends, if you're worried about what might be in there, then you shouldn't sign this contract," Greeley said.

Guernsey didn't, and he canceled his order.

So now, the steps to tracing the Guernsey family tree might include an old-fashioned graveyard walk.

Greely noted that DNA tests for genealogy are fairly cheap, perhaps, for a reason – the fact that the data is really being sold again down the line.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Hobbies
KEYWORDS: dna; dnaprivacy; genealogy; helixmakemineadouble; privacvy; privacy
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1 posted on 06/17/2017 5:35:52 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

I’m an American. I don’t need any DNA test to tell me that.


2 posted on 06/17/2017 5:38:25 PM PDT by AlaskaErik (I served and protected my country for 31 years. Progressives spent that time trying to destroy it.)
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To: nickcarraway

His loss.

Paranoia is epidemic.


3 posted on 06/17/2017 5:39:04 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: nickcarraway

The last time I was in my Dr. had a nurse do a DNA swab. I do not see him again until July. I didn’t sign anything but it will be interesting to see what the test shows.


4 posted on 06/17/2017 5:39:31 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: nickcarraway

What was your first clue?


5 posted on 06/17/2017 5:41:19 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
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To: nickcarraway

....meanwhile Odungo could wiretap at will
and that never caused a wrinkle with the media


6 posted on 06/17/2017 5:45:05 PM PDT by Doogle (( USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated)))
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To: ifinnegan

So are lawyers.

There is a reason those statements to make you feel secure are on a meaningless internet privacy page and not in the contract you sign.


7 posted on 06/17/2017 5:45:10 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I did this. They were so completely wrong about my ancestry it was nuts...I mean completely wrong based upon what I already knew about my ancestors.


8 posted on 06/17/2017 5:48:37 PM PDT by freepertoo
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To: nickcarraway

Almost half Scandinavian, Eastern European, about 18% Greek/Italian and 2% North African.


9 posted on 06/17/2017 5:51:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: freepertoo

That sucks. I am sure you were hoping to fill in some areas you did not know about yet.


10 posted on 06/17/2017 5:52:28 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: nickcarraway
"I don't know nothin' 'bout no NDA"

OJ Simpson juror.

11 posted on 06/17/2017 5:53:01 PM PDT by Yogafist
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To: nickcarraway

NSA probably owns Ancestry. Com.


12 posted on 06/17/2017 5:53:23 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Willie Sutton went into robbing banks and Hillary Clinton went into politics)
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To: nickcarraway

I had a cousin who did one but not sure who did it.

Anyway he said it basically just confirmed what he already knew. Basically near 100% from British Isles.


13 posted on 06/17/2017 5:57:12 PM PDT by yarddog (Romans 8:38-39, For I am persuaded.)
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To: Jeremiah Jr; left that other site
But now, you can easily uncover some of the mystery of your family tree with DNA.

That's right. Simple arithmetic.

די־אן־איי = 86 = Elohim אלהים = Adonai אדני (65) + Ehyeh אהיה (21)

די־אן־איי. (See first sentence on the Hebrew wiki page.)

[dalet (434) + yud (20)] + [alef (111) + nun (106)] + [alef (111) + yud (20) + yud (20)] = 822 = 411 x 2

And that's exactly what DNA is, information encoded on a double helix. The principle in the Bible WRT doubled information (and doubled verbs) is one of surety, validation.

The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David and is the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy.

Tree of Jesse - אילן ישי

= 411

It's always something...

14 posted on 06/17/2017 6:09:44 PM PDT by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: Jeremiah Jr; left that other site; Phinneous
And I should have mentioned that with

Adonai אדני (65) + Ehyeh אהיה (21),

The only difference in these two names of God and the letters that spell out DNA, is that there is a yud (in the A of DNA) verses the two heis in Ehyeh.

Of course there is a blueprint for that, right at the top of the family tree:

Sarai שרי became Sarah שרה, and Avram אברם became Avraham אברהם. The yud of Sarah became two heis which were then given out, one to each of them.

15 posted on 06/17/2017 6:21:24 PM PDT by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: Lurkina.n.Learnin

The LDS church owns Ancestry.com


16 posted on 06/17/2017 6:24:59 PM PDT by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
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To: nickcarraway

TRANSLATION: “We are selling your DNA profile to CODIS.”


17 posted on 06/17/2017 6:36:30 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Some people consider government to be a necessary evil, others their personal Ponzi scheme.)
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To: clee1

Please tell me that s not true. I hate it when one of my conspiracy theories is in fact fact!


18 posted on 06/17/2017 6:37:48 PM PDT by blu (If you don't read the story at the link, don't comment. Your ignorance will be on display-except Laz)
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To: freepertoo

Maybe you were swapped at birth? ;-P


19 posted on 06/17/2017 6:38:01 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Some people consider government to be a necessary evil, others their personal Ponzi scheme.)
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To: Yogafist

OJ Simpson juror.
= = =

That only proves that OJ had blood.


20 posted on 06/17/2017 6:47:56 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (Brought to you from Turtle Island, otherwise known as 'So-Called North America')
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