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I have to say, I really applaud the investigators for thinking outside the box on this one. Why limit the DNA check to the FBi's database? This could have some interesting implications.

3 comments

  • MacTexas

    MacTexas 5 years, 11 months ago

    I'm wondering how his 4th Amendment rights were not violated? I thought one of the "selling" points of the Ancestry DNA was your DNA was kept private and only you were entitled to the results.

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    • brian

      brian 5 years, 11 months ago

      It's an interesting question. I know that on some services you can "opt in" to sharing your results across the system. Basically this means they hit you with a "would you like to share your results and learn even MORE about your family" or something like that while you are going through the process. The idea being you could find more info and more people you are related to by putting your information into the larger pool. It's kind of like an upsell on your DNA. So, they must have put the DNA into the system and then elected to share it to widen the net.

      You have to wonder if they put the DNA into one of these services thinking "this will give us a profile of him" then figured out they could opt in and get even more data about him.

      This is a weird legal grey area. I mean, it's great they found the guy or whatever but my gosh, this could easily be abused. It also makes you feel like never doing that DNA testing thing ever.

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