In Iceland, Tap Cellphones To Avoid Incest

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 18, 2013 @04:29AM from the please-don't-repurpose-this-app dept.

Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Students at the University of Iceland have written an Android app that helps you avoid dating your cousins. The app accesses the Icelandic national genealogical database that contains information on all living citizens and their ancestors going back 1,100 years. Tapping two phones together will bring up an alert if you share a common grandparent." Just one of the consequences of having a population small enough (and well documented enough) to have a well-known genetic makeup.

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Re:Don't you know who your cousins are? by Aguazul2 · 2013-04-18 04:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

In Iceland AFAIK people are called "Bob son of George" or "Mary daughter of John", so there aren't any surnames to make it obvious. It makes me wonder how the database can uniquely identify you, though. (I wonder at what stage in the dating/relationship procedure the phone tapping takes place -- you don't want to leave it too late, nor be in a rush and tap too early...)