Analysis | The Technology 202: Consumers advocates want Washington to tackle 'Wild West' of DNA test kits - The Washington Post

Ctrl + N

A consumer advocacy group leader says it's time for Washington lawmakers to set some rules in the “Wild West” of at-home DNA testing kits.

Following a report that Family Tree DNA gave the FBI access to its vast genetic database, Sally Greenberg, the executive director of the National Consumers League, says Congress must make sure people are aware of the broad privacy implications of using these common services. Most people who buy DNA kits think they’re learning about their ancestors or relatives, Greenberg says, and they don’t know that companies often have sweeping terms of service agreements that allow them to share customer genetic data with law enforcement or other companies.

The underlying science of genetic testing is still evolving, she warns, and no one knows how this data could be used (or abused) down the line. “We need some rules of the road,” she told me. “Right now it puts consumers at great risk of having their very private information shared, sold and misused in ways they didn’t sign up for.”

Consumer DNA tests are growing in popularity as they top everything from Black Friday shopping lists to wedding registries, and consumer advocates say it's way past time for Washington lawmakers hold hearings and craft legislation that requires companies to be more transparent about how they collect and use genetic information. One clear potential reform suggested by consumer advocates: Requiring companies to give customers clear ways to opt in to sharing their genetic information with other parties.

The Family Tree DNA report, Greenberg says, underscores how companies can’t be trusted to regulate themselves.

In February, Family Tree DNA admitted it had been sharing information with the FBI, saying the agency could use the information to place suspects at the scene of violent crimes or to identify decomposed bodies. It has been well-documented that DNA testing companies often hand over data if they have a warrant or other request from law enforcement, but Family Tree DNA gave law enforcement the ability to create accounts that granted them the same access to the database as customers who take the tests.

Many of the Family Tree DNA's customers felt duped because the company had positioned itself as a leader in privacy within the DNA testing industry. As my colleagues Tony Romm and Drew Harwell reported last year, Family Tree DNA was among the businesses that supported privacy rules developed by the Future of Privacy Forum. Participating companies said they would be upfront with users when they shared DNA information they collected with groups such as law enforcement or researchers. The genetic testing companies said they would obtain “separate express consent” when sharing the data with other parties like insurers, and they would release law enforcement transparency reports.

Following Family Tree DNA's disclosure that it was giving the FBI access, the Future of Privacy Forum removed the company as a supporter of its best practices, according to its website. As my colleagues noted, failing to meet the public pledge could invite regulatory scrutiny.

“Those that promise to protect consumers' sensitive personal data — then fail to adhere to those promises — could invite penalties from the Federal Trade Commission,” my colleagues wrote when the pledge was unveiled last year.

Greenberg is calling the agency to look into Family Tree DNA sharing data with law enforcement. The FTC has previously issued a warning to consumers that using these kits come with considerable privacy implications. But that's not enough for Greenberg.

"99 percent of consumers have no idea what the FTC said, maybe 99.9 percent," she said.

Because the FTC has limited rulemaking authority, Greenberg thinks a more effective path may be to get the issue in front of Congress. The National Consumers League is trying to elevate the privacy concerns surrounding DNA kits as Congress tries to craft federal privacy rules. Greenberg thinks DNA test kits could be the next key issue in the privacy debate.

Greenberg has asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), the chair of the consumer protection and commerce subcommittee, to host a hearing on DNA test kit privacy. The House Energy and Commerce Committee declined to comment on whether it would do so. Even if the committee doesn't host hearing just on DNA test kits, it's possible the issue could come up in other broader privacy hearings.

Just this week, there were two of those in the House and Senate. Lawmakers have previously shown interest in the issue. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), the Energy and Commerce Committee chair, last year sent letters to four top companies — including Family Tree DNA, asking them to clarify their privacy policies.

Greenberg says lawmakers should also consider crafting laws that would apply to genetic information. Greenberg says that genetic information is so sensitive that it should be protected in the same way as medical records. After all, a test that predicts likelihood of a future condition could have serious implications in the hands of an insurer.

That's why Greenberg is calling for a law protecting health-care information similar to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the 1996 law that created broad safeguards for patient data and medical records.

“We need a strengthened HIPAA for DNA testing companies,” she said.

BITS, NIBBLES AND BYTES

BITS: YouTube said it will prevent users from posting comments on most videos that feature minors following reports of material on the site that sexually exploited children, The Washington Post's Tony Romm and Craig Timberg reported. “We recognize that comments are a core part of the YouTube experience and how you connect with and grow your audience,” YouTube said in a blog post. “At the same time, the important steps we’re sharing today are critical for keeping young people safe.” The changes are set to take several months to enact. They will prevent posting comments on videos where children under the age of 13 are featured prominently and on videos with children from 13 to 18 if those videos could draw predatory behavior.

The company took down more than 400 channels and removed tens of millions of comments in the wake of the reports. “On Thursday, YouTube said it accelerated its work on new software that could spot and remove predatory comments more effectively, adding it had terminated additional channels that put children at risk,” my colleagues wrote. Several companies paused their spending on advertisement on YouTube following reports of pedophilia comments on the video platform.

NIBBLES: The state of New York has begun a probe into Facebook's collection of intimate and personal user data from several popular apps, the Wall Street Journal's Sam Schechner reported. The New York Department of Financial Services sent letters to Facebook and nine app developers to request information after the Journal reported that several apps shared data such as menstrual cycles, body weight and heart rate with Facebook. As I reported earlier this week in The Technology 202, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) ordered an investigation to determine whether the social network is “secretly accessing personal information.”

New York authorities sent a letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg seeking “information about all companies that have sent Facebook data about mobile application users via software provided by the social-media giant in the last three years,” Schechner reported, citing a person familiar with the probe. The state also requested that app developers provide copies of their contracts with Facebook and information about payments to or from Facebook related to the software.

BYTES: Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) introduced a bill to prohibit major tech companies from allowing discrimination in targeted advertisements, the Verge's Makena Kelly reported. Companies would be banned from carrying ads that discriminate against people based on criteria such as race, gender or sexual orientation. The bill, titled DATA Privacy Act, would also restrict data-collection practices. It would allow online platforms to gather user information only for “legitimate business or operational purpose” and would direct companies to increase transparency about their data practices, Kelly reported.

“The Senator is focused [on making sure] that as Congress tackles the issue of protecting Americans' data privacy, our government is also guarding against potential forms of digital discrimination in areas ranging from housing and employment to lending and access to resources,” a spokesman for Cortez Masto told the Verge. The legislation would give the Federal Trade Commission power to define what constitutes discriminatory behavior in targeted ads and data practices and would “extend the FTC’s civil penalty authority for violations of those rules,” the Verge reported.

PRIVATE CLOUD

— A small group of activists is voicing opposition to Amazon's planned headquarters in Crystal City in the Washington region, according to The Post's Robert McCartney and Patricia Sullivan. The company has sought to show that it will be a good neighbor and has elicited a more positive reaction in the region than it did in New York, where it abandoned a project for headquarters there amid local opposition. But local opponents to Amazon in Arlington have demanded that the Arlington County Board set up public meetings with representatives of the company.

“The opponents want to discuss concerns that the influx of well-paid new residents will raise housing costs, add to congestion and displace low-income families,” my colleagues wrote. “They also object to giving public subsidies to a wealthy corporation, and they are critical of Amazon’s partnership with companies that work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

— Meanwhile, Cuomo is trying to convince Bezos and other Amazon executives to come back to New York after the company canceled plans to build headquarters there, the New York Times's J. David Goodman reported. But Amazon has not indicated that it would revisit its decision. “The conversation between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Bezos appeared to have been the first time the two had spoken at any point about Amazon’s plans for Queens, or about the company’s abrupt decision earlier in February to cancel the project amid noisy opposition,” according to the Times.

— Facebook is working on a plan to develop a digital coin for WhatsApp users, according to the New York Times's Nathaniel Popper and Mike Isaac. More than 50 engineers are involved in the secretive project, which is housed in an office that other Facebook employees can't access. “The Facebook project is far enough along that the social networking giant has held conversations with cryptocurrency exchanges about selling the Facebook coin to consumers, said four people briefed on the negotiations,” the Times reported.

But Facebook and other companies such as Telegram and Signal that intend to launch cryptocurrencies could face several obstacles in their endeavors. “The lack of a central authority over cryptocurrencies — a government or a bank — has made them useful to criminals and scammers, and the designs of the computer networks that manage them make it hard to handle significant numbers of transactions,” Popper and Isaac wrote.

— More technology news from the private sector:

PUBLIC CLOUD

— A political action committee has run robo-calls impersonating President Trump's reelection campaign but hasn't directed any of the money that it raised to the president's reelection efforts, CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott reported. The Support American Leaders PAC is led by Matthew Tunstall and its robo-calls raised more than $100,000 in January. The group has run more than 200,000 of those calls. “The operation effectively amounts to an income cycle of wash, rinse, repeat: paying for ads to raise money to pay for more ads to raise more money and so on, with Tunstall taking home whatever money doesn't get used to pay for more ads,” according to CNN.

— Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said her agency plans to finish the first of seven probes into Facebook this summer, Reuters reported. Dixon said on RTE radio that the other investigations could be completed by year's end. “The commissioner is also probing Facebook subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram as well as Twitter, LinkedIn and Apple in relation to their processing of personal data and the transparency of their data processes,” according to Reuters.

— More technology news from the public sector:

FAST FWD

— Workers for Google appeared with a group of Democratic lawmakers who announced a bill that would put an end to forced arbitration, the Verge's Colin Lecher reported. “We come here today not as employees at the same company, or as even colleagues in tech, but as six of the 60 million workers in America that are denied access to justice,” said Tanuja Gupta, a worker at Google, according to the Verge. Google said last week that it would end forced arbitration after workers expressed opposition to the practice — the company had previously announced that it would stop forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

— More news about tech workforce and culture:

#TRENDING

— Tech news generating buzz around the Web:

404 ERROR

— News about tech incidents and blunders:

BURN RATE

— Today in funding news:

CHECK-INS

Today:

The Cato Institute holds a conference titled “Who’s afraid of Big Tech?”

Coming soon:

WIRED IN

Trump and North Korean official contradict each other after summit collapse:

See The Weather Channel's immersive mixed reality segment in action:

Airbus, OneWeb launch satellite for rural area high-speed Internet:

https://ift.tt/2EkQTnM

Analysis | The Technology 202: Consumers advocates want Washington to tackle 'Wild West' of DNA test kits - The Washington Post

0 Response to "Analysis | The Technology 202: Consumers advocates want Washington to tackle 'Wild West' of DNA test kits - The Washington Post"

Post a Comment

Analysis | The Technology 202: Consumers advocates want Washington to tackle 'Wild West' of DNA test kits - The Washington Post

Related Posts :

0 Response to "Analysis | The Technology 202: Consumers advocates want Washington to tackle 'Wild West' of DNA test kits - The Washington Post"

Post a Comment