Researchers consider genetic data privacy issues

A sophisticated new approach to using single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, to identify people has raised concerns over the privacy of people who volunteer for genetic research. Algorithms using tens of thousands of these SNPs can be used to identify where a person was based on a mere touch--an important advance in forensic science. But the same approach can evidently be used to identify who participated in a genetic research project and who may have a certain disease that's being investigated. And that revelation forced some researchers to pull genetic data off of their Web sites. Scientific journals are also considering the potential for abuse.

- read the story from New Scientist

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