Putting any personal data on line is problematic. Putting your DNA online is foolish.
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It is a choice. One that millions have decided to make.
There are many reasons why individual may submit their DNA to Ancestry, but again that is their choice.
Governments and organizations have been gathering information about individuals since humans learn to write.
Most everything about you is recorded somewhere
Birth certificate
Death certificate
Marriage License
Divorce
Drivers license
School Yearbooks
Church records
Newspaper articles
Library card
Customer cards
Credit cards
and the list goes on.
The only difference is today computer’s exist.
Here is a scary thought for you. Even if you do not join any social network site online, but your friends and family have, then you have a folder with your name on it somewhere.
These are all just tools. As with any tools they can be used for good or bad, but if you think you can escape by not sending a DNA sample to Ancestry then you are mistaken.
A cousin you don’t even know sends in a sample and the DNA information is linked to them in their tree and by extension everyone else in their tree. So like it or not, your DNA (or a variation of it) may already be within Ancestry’s data base
I have no illusions about privacy. I’m just against freely handing my info over to them - and paying to do it. Insurance companies are the next frontier of misuse of DNA. Law enforcement has already gone there. Sadly the law has not kept up with the technology. Willfully submitting a DNA sample to a private company that doesn’t have even HIPPA controls on the data, when their Ts&Cs allow them to do anything they want with it is a mistake.
Just because millions have done it doesn’t make it a wise thing to do...
“Here is a scary thought for you. Even if you do not join any social network site online, but your friends and family have, then you have a folder with your name on it somewhere”
In the late 90s I’d already been on the internet for years and I would search for my name and find past posts on newsboards.
My wife had put nothing on the internet, but when I searched for her I found her whole family tree. Apparently a cousin had put the family tree online, including her and me, her husband.
Needless to say, she was surprised.