The newborns lose genetic privacy at the start of their lives and we’re one step closer to the dystopia of Gattaca. Next up: designer babies courtesy of CRISPR.
That sounds overly dramatic. On the other hand, the article doesn’t give clear information on health data processing nor does it address privacy.
There are reasonable way to implement it, such as treating this a sensitive health information, requiring informed consent of a parent to add a genome in a database (even anonymously), not giving the government control nor full access, just statisitical information.
There is going to be lots of fun who’s the father discussions because of this.
I’m expecting this to be offered and not mandatory like other blood tests currently given to newborns. However even though it’s optional, staff will promote it as potentially life saving. New parents with their vulnerable newborn are unlikely to say no to a free test. Anti vaxxers and privacy conscious will likely refuse, but it will be popular.
Gee I’m sure glad we gave palantir access to all our NHS files, I’m sure they won’t do anything shady with the addition of this data
if this isn’t the absolute surveillance nightmare
the US already does this. it’s a good thing and allows expecting parents to make decisions about the birth before its too late.
