Genealogical Databases Getting Harder to Access

Mark Baard points to a story running at biomedcentral.com titled "Gain for science is history buffs' loss", summarizing "Privacy laws enacted by Iceland's Parliament in light of DeCode's research now apply to genealogies, restricting who can access information that was once public."

Comments

Re:A solution...

[Simon Field]

So, you're going to make it against the law for me to publish my family tree?

Knowing my father died of some genetic disorder does not tell you anything about my brother, or even if I have a brother.

Geneologies have never been considered private until now. Should we try to put all of the published ones in a locked box somewhere?

One answer to insurance companies dropping coverage is to get rid of insurance companies. Let there be one pool of health risk that we all pay into, and that has universal coverage.

Besides, in protecting the privacy of one person, you may be dooming others to die of some genetic disorder they could have guarded against if they had only known. If my doctor knows I have an increased risk for heart disease, he will advise me differently than if he were ignorant of that information.

The problem is not that my genes might become public. The problem is that someone might do something I don't like because of what they saw in my genome. Let's fix that problem, and then there won't be a need for secrecy.

As for lobbyists, people who let insurance money dictate who they vote for deserve the government they get.