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Apple's Plans For Your DNA
An anonymous reader writes: MIT's Technology Review breaks news that Apple is working with scientists to create apps that collect and evaluate users' DNA. "The apps are based on ResearchKit, a software platform Apple introduced in March that helps hospitals or scientists run medical studies on iPhones by collecting data from the devices' sensors or through surveys." A source says Apple's plan is to enable users to easily share their DNA information with medical workers and researchers performing studies. "To join one of the studies, a person would agree to have a gene test carried out—for instance, by returning a "spit kit" to a laboratory approved by Apple. The first such labs are said to be the advanced gene-sequencing centers operated by UCSF and Mount Sinai."
"By using this application you agree to grant all rights to the usage of your DNA to Apple, inc, including, but not limited to, creating an army of clones in your image."
What can I say?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
...will be based on a database containing only rich hipsters?
seeing the likely phenotypes of potential children?
Cue legions of anti-Apple posters and general conspiracy nuts ranting and raving that soon you won't be allowed to use an iPhone without having a sample of your DNA on file with Apple.
In reality, what this will do is enable amazing new kinds of distributed research. I'm not a scientist myself, but I do work for a bunch of them, and having the capability of taking a DNA sample on an iPhone would be an amazing new way to enhance the kinds of research available—both by scientists with an iPhone gathering data easily, and by soliciting (with appropriate legal consent forms and suchlike) DNA samples from a wide variety of research participants across the US and the world.
But nope, the important thing is APPLE EVUL! THEY GUNNA TAKE OUR DNAS!
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I give out my DNA all the time. As long as I don't have to pay child support, I am not concerned.
I can't wait for this info to wind up, either due to hackers, or other means in a public database:
1: Insurance companies will love it -- they now have more reasons to hike premiums or drop people.
2: It will be used by some companies as yet another quiet filter, ensuring some people's resumes always hit the round file.
3: It will enable Gattaca-like discrimination.
4: It will be used by some governments for mass arrests and genocide, similar to countries in the Middle East currently using DNA to test potential government officials for Jewish ancestry, and deny them that job if they test positive.
5: It will be used to deny services. Someone's family has a tendency for depression? No gun, knife, or camping equipment for them.
6: It will be used for more discrimination, especially with the advances in facial recognition. People can be booted to the back of the bus even if they don't look African American.
7: It can be used as a means of extending someone's criminal sentence (their genes show they have a tendency to being a felon, so lock them up.) Or just as a probable cause for searches.
When people's DNA winds up in a searchable database... I can't wait to be told that I'm not wanted at a local eatery because I had a native American ancestor 300 years ago.
anything you say or do (or spit) will be used against you without approval by a court of law.
your life insurance just went up (or was canceled), gee I wonder why?
you medical coverage is going up $$, or was terminated, what a coincidence!
next product at Apple R&D is the iAnalProbe, lube not included!
because what could possibly go wrong, the info could never ever be mis-used or stolen.....
You can't actually take the sample on the phone - the idea is that you can get your DNA sampled, then the results get stored on your phone - which you can if you wish share that anyone who would like to have it after that, if you choose.
So it's pretty close in terms of value (because if a lot of people do this a lot of researchers could get quick access to DNA data instead of having to do it once per test). But it's not as widespread as direct collection would be.
I don't think I'd want my phone actually being the DNA collection point anyway as it would think I was some kind of human/cat hybrid.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh, man, that would make for an awesome dating app! Swipe right, and it renders your potential children.
This sounds like a HIPAA violation and apple may be for a big issue.
I bet they will patent all our genomes and then we'll be screwed: of course you can have children without paying us, as long as they are not rectangular with rounded corners and do not contain these 20 amino-acids in our list...
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Now the real reason for the iWatch comes to light, and why it won't work with tattoos. Can't contaminate the 1-point font, EULA-permitted DNA samples with ink, after all.
...to be used by Apple for violating their copyright on my DNA by, you know, being alive.
When is Apple Records going to sue again for violation of its trademark? Apple (Cupertino) is dipping ever more into the music distribution business.
Now we'll be able to use science to segment everyone into strata according to their usefulness to mankind!
I already know what Tim Cook wants to do with my DNA.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Perhaps they're getting their foot in the door regarding DNA identification, if (when?) they managed to get their mitts on a tiny device that can sequence DNA from breath/spit etc., they'll only need to combine that with their DNA database they've been collecting for years to create a commodity worth billions they'll be able to oursource to security companies for a tidy profit.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Last time I set it up, Android Play didn't need a CC. (Or maybe I set one up and then deleted it to make sure I never accidentally bought anything.)
I am, however, starting to consider getting a "throwaway CC" like I use throwaway email addresses. Enough places want a CC, and I would be nice to have an account where I know that ANY charges on it are unwanted (and should be challenged/reversed).
This is a bad idea, a really bad idea.
... I think the water temp just crept up a few more degrees. And the frogs just keep smiling.
I got into programming just as the web was really taking off (~25 yrs ago maybe), and I had such high hopes of what it would bring 'regular' people. Now, it's filled with ads, trolls, extreme corporatism, the commonditization of 'us' (our habits, our data, our everything), and just plain old crap (Kartrashians etc).
I think social media has turned us into oh-so-willing data givers, we're just happy to share freaking everything, for a coupon, a 'Like', or a thumbs up. Corporations couldn't be happier. My DNA info with Apple? FUCK THAT, I don't care how they spin it.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
So then they can store it in a database and, the next time you jaywalk, the hair you dropped will implicate you in a crime.
great
I might even buy the idevice if I get to spit on it to login
...I obey the laws of physics....
Seriously? Something that's been billed as 'the next big thing in remote diagnosis' and we're fucking freaking out over it potentially sampling DNA?
Let's go full-on batshit crazy and take the obvious truth of what is CURRENTLY happening:
Since government off-and-on relies on polygraph which is sketchy science . . .
And the NSA has admitted to gathering metadata . . .
OH FUCK, they are CURRENTLY monitoring everyone's pulse to see if they're telling the truth when someone tweets that they just got some. We're all going to be outed as liars that only got an accidental boob brush.
God people are idiots.
Obviously, the debug port is so that their new wrist strap can take skin samples and sequence your DNA right in the strap/watch!
It adds a new "layer" of "security" as well. :D
Just think, eventually doctor's might be able to tell you how a drug will work with you and not play the odds guessing.
... does this company take me for?
Jack D. Ripper is concerned
A statue of Steve Jobs with a wash mechanism to rinse off, contain and label each spit sample.
I know plenty of people who'd line up for it.
Do they want urine samples, too?
That's not creepy at all, Apple.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
For now, they're just going to go with the current test which is if you buy an Apple product, you don't have any sort of advanced brain genes of any kind.
Remember when they tried to revive Cobra Commander by stealing DNA?
I already spill enough DNA on my phone when I take long "bathroom breaks" at work anyways. I wonder if they can somehow roll STD testing into it, too.
In the future the human race will be divided into Apples and oranges. The masses will be the oranges, while the Apples will be the genetically sequenced elite with access to not just the latest medical technology but the biometric clearance to become part of the ruling technocratic class.