General Discussion

Demovictory9

(32,456 posts) Fri Oct 12, 2018, 06:52 AM Oct 2018

So many people have had their DNA sequenced that they've put other people's privacy in jeopardy

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-dna-genealogy-privacy-20181012-story.html

Everyone’s DNA sequence is unique. But for those who wish to maintain their genetic privacy, it may not be unique enough.

A new study argues that more than half of Americans could be identified by name if all you had to start with was a sample of their DNA and a few basic facts, such as where they live and how about how old they might be.

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To test the growing power of these sites, researchers led by Columbia University computer scientist Yaniv Erlich set out to see whether they could find a person’s name — and thus, his identity — if all they had to go on was a piece of his DNA and a small amount of biographical information.

They started with a full DNA sequence from a person whose genetic information was published anonymously as part of an unrelated scientific study. (They had actually identified this woman in a previous study, but for the purposes of this work, they pretended they didn’t know who she was.)

Erlich and his collaborators uploaded her genetic code to GEDmatch and ran a search to see if she had any relations on the site.They found two: one in North Dakota and one in Wyoming.

The researchers could tell they were all related because they shared a number of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. These are single letters in specific spots among the roughly 3 billion A’s, Cs, Ts and Gs that make up the human genome.The more SNPs people share, the more closely related they are.

By comparing the DNA of all three relatives, Erlich’s team was able to find a common ancestral couple that were the Utah woman’s great-grandparents.

Next, the researchers scoured genealogical websites and other sources for additional descendants of that long-ago couple. They found 10 children and hundreds of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Then they started culling their massive list of descendants. They eliminated all the men from the sample, then those who were not alive when the Utah woman’s DNA was sequenced. The authors also knew that their subject was married and how many children she had, which helped them zero in on their target.

After a long day of painstaking work, they researchers were able to correctly name the owner of the DNA sample.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-dna-genealogy-privacy-20181012-story.html