

Microbiomes raise privacy concerns - adventured
http://www.nature.com/news/microbiomes-raise-privacy-concerns-1.17527

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fcbrooklyn
I propose that we collect this data on dogs when people register them, so that
when the owners leave shit on the sidewalk they can be identified and burned
at the stake.

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DanBC
Some places are gathering DNA evidence from dog faeces in order to prosecute
irresponsible owners.

[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/apr/2...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2015/apr/28/dna-
testing-dog-poo-have-to-be-barking-council)

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fcbrooklyn
Outstanding. Now if they can just get behind the burning at the stake part of
my idea we'll be in business.

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DanBC
> “Right now, it’s a little bit of a Wild West as far as microbiome data
> management goes,” says Curtis Huttenhower, a computational biologist at the
> Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, who led
> the latest study1. “As the field develops, we need to make sure there’s a
> realization that our microbiomes are highly unique.”

This is the important part to me. I see a bunch of personal health data
experiments and they look really exciting. Then I look at their privacy
policies and how they're going to protect my data and it's usually really
terrible.

It's really off-putting to see people being so cavalier about health data.

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ChuckMcM
Yes, and in related news dogs sniff poo because it really is the equivalent of
a doggy tweet.

As others have pointed out this is probably much more temporal and thus less
useful from a privacy invasion standpoint, but eventually if someone tracks
this and locks in seasonal variations it might pose a modest "threat". For me,
the interesting thing is how much of a person's "scent" is derived from their
microbiome? If you can tie those things together then tech that is replacing
bloodhounds for identifying scent trails might be able to "home in" on someone
if trained on a recent piece of clothing.

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orthecreedence
Well I certainly won't be going #2 next to my murder victims anymore.

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DanBC
Many criminals do leave excrement at the crime scene. This is something to do
with adrenaline?

[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rdLJw9Pgt70C&pg=PA182&lp...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rdLJw9Pgt70C&pg=PA182&lpg=PA182&dq=excrement+burglary+crime+scene&source=bl&ots=bkCVzXC69y&sig=RHWkL7IB6HFErrVufP30qJWeVqQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vT1SVY7VJcaksAHbrICAAg&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=excrement%20burglary%20crime%20scene&f=false)

(Sorry for lousy source. There's probably something better available.)

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gpvos
So if you're concerned about your privacy, you'll need to get a stool
transplant every few months.

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kasperset
I think this is slightly exaggerated. Microbiomes are very dynamic and can
change very often.

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gww
This is definitely the case, even changes in diet and antimicrobial therapies
can change things quite drastically.

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mig39
Just change your diet, and the microbiome will change.

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spiritplumber
That's a wolf.

