This is part 1 of a science fiction/technology/know your rights series of blog
posts. The following is a true story. For this post I want you to use
your creativity and write a paragraph about what you think happens to
Sarah next. It can be anything you want based upon the information you
now have about Sarah.
Sarah hovered over the mailbox, envelope in hand. She knew as soon
as she mailed off her DNA sample, there’d be no turning back. She ran
through the information she looked up on 23andMe’s website one more
time: the privacy policy, the research parameters, the option to learn
about potential health risks, the warning that the findings could have a
dramatic impact on her life.
She paused, instinctively retracting her arm from the mailbox
opening. Would she live to regret this choice? What could she learn
about her family, herself that she may not want to know? How safe did
she really feel giving her genetic information away to be studied,
shared with others, or even experimented with?
Thinking back to her sign-up experience, Sarah suddenly worried about
the massive amount of personally identifiable information she already
handed over to the company. With a background in IT, she knew what a
juicy target hers and other customers’ data would be for a potential
hacker. Realistically, how safe was her data from a potential breach?
She tried to recall the specifics of the EULA (end-user license agreement), but the wall of legalese
text melted before her memory.
Pivoting on her heel, Sarah began to turn away from the mailbox when
she remembered just why she wanted to sign up for genetic testing in the
first place. She was compelled to learn about her own health history
after finding out she had a rare genetic disorder, Ehlers-Danlos
syndrome, and wanted to present her DNA for the purpose of further
research. In addition, she was on a mission to find her mother’s father.
She had a vague idea of who he was, but no clue how to track him down,
and believed DNA testing could lead her in the right direction.
Sarah closed her eyes and pictured her mother’s face when she told
her she found her dad. With renewed conviction, she dropped the envelope
in the mailbox. It was done.
What happens n3xt?
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/101/2018/11/dna-testing-kit-companies-really-data/
A couple of months later Sarah received a letter back from 23andme. Sarah looked at the letter knowing once she opened this letter that her life would change forever. Inside the letter will tell her everything about her future and stuff that might come true. Inside it could tell her who she is related too and what diseases are present in her family that she might have as she gets older.
ReplyDeleteDeciding to take the risk without thinking about it for another second she rips open the letter and starts to read it. Inside the letter tells her all the information about where she comes from and what diseases might affect her in her later years. But she didn’t care about that what she really wanted to find out is where her mother’s father is. With a little more searching through the dozens of papers she finds him. Tommy Smith was his name and he lived two towns over. With this information, Sarah didn’t know what to do. Should she tell her mom or should she just go out and find him herself. Making up her mind and she was going to go find him.
Sarah was sitting at home working on a project from work with her team when she got a new email.
ReplyDeleteIt was from 23andMe. She quietly gasped.
Sarah was quick to open up the email and read her results. They had sent her a detailed report of her family's origin that included places she hadn't even heard of or had visited in her life! She was ecstatic, well, not about the possible genetic diseases but of the possibility that she got some information on her mother’s father. Scrolling further down, she hoped to find something that would clue her in to her grandfather’s location and was pleasantly surprised when not one, not two but three results as a relative! She was very excited to meet them but frowned at the sudden possibilities.
What if they weren’t who they said they were? What if they had stolen the DNA and she got catfished?(could that even happen?)
No, she thought to herself. She was going to see this through. Her mom deserved it. She deserved it. She was going to find her relatives even if it was going to be the last thing she’d ever do.