The Unholy Alliance Between DNA Sites and Facial Recognition

Dagny Taggert
The Organic Prepper

Technology that was once only seen in dystopian science fiction is rapidly infecting real life. Two means of collecting personal data – DNA databases and facial recognition software – are forming an unholy alliance, and the privacy implications could be devastating.

Privacy concerns surrounding DNA and facial recognition aren’t anything new. As the popularity of DNA genealogy websites like Ancestry DNA and 23andMe increase, so do questions over who has access to that data and how it will be used. The use of facial recognition and other biometric data technology is on the rise, and people are expressing concerns (and outrage) about that technology as well.

Genealogy sites have been making the news of late, mainly for concerns over how our personal data is used – and who has access to that information.

Recently, GEDmatch, which has more than 1 million genetic profiles in its database, decided to stop providing information to police without user permission. Last month, the site faced criticism when it allowed Utah police to use the database while investigating a violent assault. “Prior to the change, GEDmatch had allowed police to use its data only for rapes and homicides,” reports Bloomberg:

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Before he died, this biohacker was planning a CRISPR trial in Mexico

Emily Mullin

MIT technologyreview.com

Aaron Traywick and his company, Ascendance Biomedical, are connected to a website advertising a gene-therapy trial for lung cancer.

The controversial biohacker Aaron Traywick, who was found dead in a sensory deprivation tank in Washington, DC, on April 29, appears to have been planning human tests of a CRISPR therapy for lung cancer, MIT Technology Review has learned.

Traywick, who was 28, made headlines in February when he injected himself with a DIY herpes treatment in front of an audience at a self-experimentation conference. He was CEO of Ascendance Biomedical, a mysterious company aimed at making gene-based medical treatments available to everyone.

The company had previously live-streamed another self-injection in October 2017. Tristan Roberts, an HIV patient, was filmed on Facebook injecting himself with a compound provided by Ascendance. The company called the treatment a gene therapy and said it was designed to lower the number of HIV particles in Roberts’s blood. It didn’t work: his viral load increased in the weeks following the injection.

Traywick, who had no formal medical training, was also planning to test an experimental lung cancer treatment that supposedly involved the gene-editing tool CRISPR. The therapy was to be offered at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, just a few miles over the US border.

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