One of the exciting and mysterious properties of human genetic information is that your DNA doesn’t just store who you are, it stores who you could be. More than a simple “fingerprint” that encodes a unique identity, your genome provides a spectrum of probable personal futures but this knowledge could be used against you.
As individuals, increased knowledge of our genetic makeup has helped us to better understand our heritage and ethnic origins, revealed family members we never knew, and helped personalize medicine. But our genetic identities don’t share the same legal protections as our medical records and there has been a lot of buzz lately about an individual’s right to keep their genetic information to themselves.
