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What Does AncestryDNA Do With My Data?

DNA tests are an increasingly popular way for people to learn about their genealogy and family history, and AncestryDNA is one of the most pop, with over 14 million examination kits sold since 2012. These DNA tests are fun and informative, only take yous ever thought near what companies similar Ancestry do with your Dna?

AncestryDNA says that they keep your identity protected and shop your data in a secure location. They do take steps to ensure that your data is safe, but there are risks to submitting your data to any company. Here'south a await at how these tests work and what happens to your data when you submit your Dna for a exam.

How Do You Take a DNA Examination?

To collect your Dna, AncestryDNA sends customers a kit that includes a plastic tube. While taking care to follow whatsoever additional instructions provided, just take a swab of your saliva, put it in a tube, mix it with a solution that stabilizes the Dna in your saliva and return information technology to AncestryDNA in the included prepaid envelope. In a few weeks, AncestryDNA emails yous the results of your Deoxyribonucleic acid assay.

How Deoxyribonucleic acid Tests Work

So what happens to your DNA when y'all submit the test? How do scientists make up one's mind your ethnicity from a sample that came from inside your oral cavity? AncestryDNA breaks downwardly your DNA sample into a m of what they call "windows." Each "window" looks at over 700,000 fragments of your Deoxyribonucleic acid.

The scientists at AncestryDNA compare the code in your DNA "windows" to historical samples and public databases of DNA from different groups of people all effectually the earth. If your DNA matches certain fragments of Dna that are known to be unique to a given grouping of people, then some of your ancestors were probably members of that group. AncestryDNA is constantly refining its methodology, so you may receive updates to your Dna information from time to time.

How Does Ancestry Protect Your Information?

AncestryDNA has a detailed statement of how it protects your privacy on its website, and it takes specific measures to protect the DNA samples that y'all and other customers submit. It stores your Deoxyribonucleic acid data in a protected database with multiple layers of security, and your physical DNA sample remains in a facility with limited access and 24-hour security. The laboratories that perform your DNA analysis practise not have your personal information when they test your Dna sample. AncestryDNA likewise does not comply with data requests from police force enforcement unless forced to do so past a warrant or other valid legal process, and it advocates for customer privacy in the event that it is fabricated to turn over whatsoever data to law enforcement.

Federal law protects your DNA as well if you live in the United States. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) statute makes it illegal for most employers or health insurance providers to acquire Dna data for the purposes of discrimination.

The Risks of Submitting Your Deoxyribonucleic acid

While Ancestry Dna strives to proceed your DNA and the data that information technology contains secure, there are risks that you have when yous submit your Deoxyribonucleic acid for analysis. Like whatsoever company, Ancestry Dna could hypothetically have its data hacked and compromised. When signing upward for AncestryDNA, you're also given the option to anonymously share your DAN with various universities and companies for research purposes. Most people tend to opt-in.

The police force doesn't always protect your DNA. GINA excludes members of the military, federal employees, veterans and beneficiaries of the Indian Health Service, though internal policies for those organizations offer some protections. Federal authorities and other police enforcement agencies have used Dna from testing services in past investigations.

How You Can Protect Your Data

Information technology's worth noting that if you utilize AncestryDNA or one of the other large Dna testing companies, your data has a much greater gamble of remaining prophylactic than if y'all employ a smaller company. Regardless of which company you cull, withal, at that place are still measures yous tin accept to protect your data. The biggest key to keeping your DNA information secure is reading the privacy policy thoroughly and simply agreeing to uses yous approve of — and not signing up if that isn't possible. Y'all can also written report a company to the Federal Merchandise Commission if they violate the terms of its privacy policy.

Don't forget that you take the right to delete your data from Ancestry Dna at whatever fourth dimension. While you will lose access to your information, no one else will be able to run across information technology, either. You tin can as well revoke access for companies and nonprofit organizations to use your DNA anonymously, although any companies that already accessed it will withal have that information. You tin can plow off the ability for other people to see if your DNA is close enough to theirs for you to be related.

However, if relatives share their DNA (on Ancestry.com or elsewhere) and their data somehow falls into the hands of law enforcement or another organization, they would hypothetically be able to identify if y'all are a relative of that person if they also have a sample of your Deoxyribonucleic acid. This is how the infamous Golden State Killer was caught, although GEDmatch, the specific visitor that provided the data, has stated that information technology will no longer cooperate with law enforcement without a warrant.