19.01.2013 - 21:59 [ NBC ]

Scientists demonstrate how hackers could unlock your genetic secrets

Researchers have shown that it‘s possible to link your identity to supposedly secret genetic information about your predisposition to diseases, merely by analyzing family-tree databases and other publicly available information.

„It was quite surprising,“ said Yaniv Erlich, a genetic researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. „When we got the first family, I was surprised. … It‘s as if you opened a box that for a long time was locked.“