Aggregated News
Keeping track of what we reveal about ourselves each day—through email and text messages, Amazon purchases and Facebook "likes"—is hard enough.
Imagine a future when Big Data has access not only to your shopping habits, but also to your DNA and other deeply personal data collected about our bodies and behavior—and about the inner workings of our proteins and cells. What will the government and others do with that data? And will we be unaware of how it's being used—or abused—until a future Edward Snowden emerges to tell us?
Consider this scenario: A few years from now the National Security Agency hires a young analyst trained in cyber-genetics. She is assigned to comb through millions of DNA profiles in search of markers that might identify terrorists and spies and other persons of interest. It's simple enough, since almost every American and billions of other people have deposited their complete genomes—every A, C, T and G in their cells—into one of the huge new digital health networks, the new Googles and Verizons of medical data.
Sequencing a person's entire DNA profile...
Imagine a future when Big Data has access not only to your shopping habits, but also to your DNA and other deeply personal data collected about our bodies and behavior—and about the inner workings of our proteins and cells. What will the government and others do with that data? And will we be unaware of how it's being used—or abused—until a future Edward Snowden emerges to tell us?
Consider this scenario: A few years from now the National Security Agency hires a young analyst trained in cyber-genetics. She is assigned to comb through millions of DNA profiles in search of markers that might identify terrorists and spies and other persons of interest. It's simple enough, since almost every American and billions of other people have deposited their complete genomes—every A, C, T and G in their cells—into one of the huge new digital health networks, the new Googles and Verizons of medical data.
Sequencing a person's entire DNA profile...