Your DNA Can Now Be Pulled From Thin Air. Privacy Experts Are Worried.

NYT SCIENCE: Your DNA Can Now Be Pulled From Thin Air. Privacy Experts Are Worried.
By Elizabeth Anne Brown
Section: Science
Source: New York Times
Published Date: May 15, 2023 at 03:00AM

Environmental DNA research has aided conservation, but scientists say its ability to glean information about human populations and individuals poses dangers.

David Duffy, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Florida, just wanted a better way to track disease in sea turtles. Then he started finding human DNA everywhere he looked. Over the last decade, wildlife researchers have refined techniques for recovering environmental DNA, or eDNA — trace amounts of genetic material that all living things leave behind. A powerful and inexpensive tool for ecologists, eDNA is all over — floating in the air, or lingering in water, snow, honey and even your cup of tea. Researchers have used the method to detect invasive species before they take over, to track vulnerable or secretive wildlife populations and even to rediscover species thought to be extinct. The eDNA technology is also used in wastewater surveillance systems to monitor Covid and other pathogens. But all along, scientists using eDNA were quietly recovering gobs and gobs of human DNA. To them, it’s pollution, a sort of human genomic bycatch muddying their data. But what if someone set out to collect human eDNA on purpose? New DNA collecting techniques are “like catnip” for law enforcement officials, says Erin Murphy, a law professor at the New York University School of Law who specializes in the use of new technologies in the criminal legal system. The police have been quick to embrace unproven tools, like using DNA to create probability-based sketches of a suspect.

Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/science/environmental-dna-ethics-privacy.html