Nasty development in medical privacy

[Brian Morrison]

On Mon, 05 Mar 2001 16:46:55 +0000, Ian BROWN wrote:

>Will we have to wait 20+ years until medical researchers understand the genome 
>enough to be able to pull out the specific sequences needed and junk the rest 
>in order to try and reduce identification?

I would have thought that the more specific (and smaller) the stored
information becomes, the easier it will be to identify it or connect it
with another sample. Currently DNA matching is done by slicing up
chromosomes and comparing fragment lengths; as soon as it becomes
possible to be more specific about the sequences produced by this
technique, or eventually to cut the strands in known positions, the
specificity of data produced will improve.

-- 
Brian Morrison                                  bdm@fenrir.demon.co.uk
              do you know how far this has gone?
               just how damaged have I become?
                                      'Even Deeper' by Nine Inch Nails