I don't think it could ever actually work in practice :/
Exactly. I can think of so many bad outcomes. Just the medical point:
both medically ("your sample indicates you may have a higher risk of dementia")
You know how this will end in the modern tech dystopia. In countries where health care insurance is not mandatory or there is a large gap between collectivized and private insurance, DNA would be used to reject or raise the prices for people with 'unlucky DNA'.
A government that could be trusted now is not necessarily trustable in the future. I am pretty sure the orange guy clan would love to lone their pockets by selling such information.
Also, apart from these issues, a lot of people simply do not want to know these things. Suppose that the outcome is "you have a 30% risk of dementia by 60". For most people such kind of information is hard to act on, while it increases worry significantly. I do think it can help for some treatable illnesses, enabling early monitoring.
You could potentially make DNA a 'protected class' of data, implying insuarance companies cannot look at it in their decision making, same as something like race.
We do basically have this, kinda, with not being able to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
The law however is only as good as it is being enforced. And if recent events is anything to go by, not having this data is generally the strongest protection.
Comments
I don't think it could ever actually work in practice :/
Exactly. I can think of so many bad outcomes. Just the medical point:
both medically ("your sample indicates you may have a higher risk of dementia")
You know how this will end in the modern tech dystopia. In countries where health care insurance is not mandatory or there is a large gap between collectivized and private insurance, DNA would be used to reject or raise the prices for people with 'unlucky DNA'.
A government that could be trusted now is not necessarily trustable in the future. I am pretty sure the orange guy clan would love to lone their pockets by selling such information.
Also, apart from these issues, a lot of people simply do not want to know these things. Suppose that the outcome is "you have a 30% risk of dementia by 60". For most people such kind of information is hard to act on, while it increases worry significantly. I do think it can help for some treatable illnesses, enabling early monitoring.
You could potentially make DNA a 'protected class' of data, implying insuarance companies cannot look at it in their decision making, same as something like race.
We do basically have this, kinda, with not being able to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
The law however is only as good as it is being enforced. And if recent events is anything to go by, not having this data is generally the strongest protection.
The US has the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and I'm sure you can find similar laws elsewhere.
The problem is a law can be repealed any time. Might take some heavy lobbying to get there but nothing is impossible.