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Who owns your DNA? Privacy concerns in genetic testing services (incogni.com)
7 points by ozornin on Jan 20, 2025 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments


The lack of control I would have over the data trail is why I've never used any of these services. Since I've never used them, I'm not really sure what's under the hood in terms of user experience and underlying technology.

So here's an uninformed question:

Is there a hope in hell we could ever have "air-gapped" genetic testing at home?


Is there a hope in hell we could ever have "air-gapped" genetic testing at home?

That's something I have also wanted for a long time. I fought the military on collecting my DNA long ago. There was a discussion a long while back and it turned out this is possible but still a hardcore hobby. It's a bit of equipment and work, not something as simple and affordable as a handheld automotive diagnostic tool yet. I would be surprised if a company even made such a thing given how all the corpo's want everyone's data.

One brief thread [1] but I am trying to find the bigger one where a member of HN listed much of the hardware that would be required.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932008


I'm glad I read Next by Michael Crichton, or I might never have heard the story of Henrietta Lacks.

Not that I've had the need luckily but I've been wary of having so much as a blood test since then.


If I can't download my Proton mail data without jumping through hoops no way someone is gonna make it easy to get something valuable like DNA (even a useless one like mine lol)




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