If you have ever been spitting in a plastic tube or exchanging your cheek and sending your saliva to learn about your parents or your health risks, you may think that the company that analyzes your DNA is important to keep your secrets. But you may be wrong.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, called HIPAA, protects people’s medical information with the help of doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies. This applies to medical tests that have been prescribed by a doctor but not to those that you can purchase online directly from companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry because these devices are not considered as medical tests. As a result, these companies have operated in the legal field. Companies write their own privacy policy that customers agree to when purchasing equipment, but companies can change these rules at any time.
That is a problem, for genetic information can reveal all kinds of secrets about you type, anu family connections, as well as your chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other cancers. Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using public housing to investigate criminal cases.
But more and more countries are following compliance with privacy laws to close those gaps. California became new on October 6 when Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Privacy policy, which imposes restrictions on the collection of companies that attempt to use DNA directly to consumers. SB 41, which comes into effect in January, requires customers to provide valid authorization before their data can be used for scientific research or shared with another person. If customers agree to use their research, companies should provide an easy way out at any time.
“Users have a right to privacy,” said Maureen Mahoney, a technology specialist with privacy policy at Consumer Reports, a nonprofit marketing company that has invested in California. “People do not want to know that the results of their tests will be made public.”
Mahoney says activists want to ensure that DNA testing companies will not be able to hide laws in practice. A new law in California prohibits companies from using it “Dark appearance”-A scams that use popups and other online sites to trick consumers into accepting them.
It also mandates that companies provide customers with a simple and easy way to close their accounts and delete their entries in the company’s database, if they so choose. In addition, companies are required to process customer samples within 30 days upon request.
Utah He enacted a similar law in March, followed by Arizona in April. Both of these laws provide for the protection of data, privacy, and the privacy of others.
Prosecutors say such protections are required because US secret laws were written before the genetic testing at home. HIPAA was established in 1996. The Human Genome Project did not disclose the file of the original of our genes to 2003. Five years later, Congress recognized the potential for genetic information that could be used to seduce people, and in 2008 passed The natural law of choice (GINA). The law prohibits discrimination against employers and health insurance based on personal information. But it does not prevent other institutions, such as life insurance, creditors, or schools – from refusing to receive medical care because of a person’s genetic makeup.