Thursday's Telegraph reported that geneaology website ancestry.com has built a huge DNA database that enables people to trace long-lost family members, and it's proving very popular:
Visitors to Ancestry.com simply take a swab of saliva from inside of their cheek and send it off for analysis.
"DNA testing in family history is reaching critical mass," said Megan Smolenyak, the site's chief family historian.
"As more people add their results, the DNA database becomes a powerful asset for users to make connections and discover their family tree."
UK government take note: all you need to do to persuade people to hand over their DNA details (or any other deeply personal information) is to make it seem like fun.
Alternatively, wait for the inevitable ancestry.com widget for Facebook, then plunder the whole lot at once. Surveillance has never been so easy.
1 comment:
Actually I think the thing I find MOST disturbing about the site is that it sneakily converts you to a paid, automatically-renewing account if you click on anything tempting.
It does seem like fun, and I agree that it's kind of concerning.
I'm going back to working on the PAPER version of my family tree.
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