Blood Center to Collect DNA of Donors; Part of DoD Program; “Be Very Afraid”
February 1st, 2007Via: Seattle Times:
For the first time, the Puget Sound Blood Center will begin collecting, testing and storing the DNA of blood donors.
Donors may opt out of the program, part of a study funded by the Defense Department to develop better ways of identifying blood types. And the Blood Center is firm that the effort will be limited to that purpose and not shared with the government.
Even so, privacy watchdogs worry that this latest move is just part of an increasingly long list of governments and other agencies that are storing people’s DNA coding — with few laws overseeing its use.
“There are no real practical limits on what can be done with that DNA information,” said Barry Steinhardt, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union’s national Technology and Liberty Project in Washington, D.C. “People ought to be very afraid that these samples are going to be used for some other purpose.”
