Privacy loophole found in genetic databases
This is the latest in a series of findings over the past five years that have highlighted privacy vulnerabilities in public databases containing genetic data. The US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, reacted to the study by removing some data from public view. Some geneticists however question that step, although they acknowledged that the research community must respond to the genetic privacy issue.
âI donât think removing data from the public domain is any kind of answer,â says computational biologist Eric Schadt at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York city, who was not involved in the latest study. âRather, we should be up front with participants that we canât protect their privacy completely, and we should ensure that the most appropriate legislation is in place to protect participants from being exploited in any way.â
mental health