Christine Cox / NBC News file

Researchers say genetic genealogy databases can be leveraged to unlock more sensitive genetic information.

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

Researchers have shown that it's possible to link your identity to supposedly secret genetic information about your predisposition to diseases, merely by analyzing family-tree databases and other publicly available information.

"It was quite surprising," said Yaniv Erlich, a genetic researcher at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. "When we got the first family, I was surprised. ... It's as if you opened a box that for a long time was locked."

Erlich led the research team whose work is being published in this week's issue of the journal Science. The team's study already has led to a tightening of security measures for federally sponsored genetic databases.

The security-cracking trick relies on the availability of genetic information linked to surnames in a variety of public family-tree databases. DNA samples from males can be tested to look at dozens of genetic markers on the Y-chromosome that change only rarely from generation to generation. If the markers from two individuals with the same surname are a close match, that's a tip-off that the two are closely related, even if they don't know each other.

Tens of thousands of people (including yours truly) make that information public in hopes that someone else will match up with their results. The genealogical markers aren't linked to disease or other specific traits. But under the right circumstances, they could provide an opening for links with other, more sensitive genetic information.

How the secrets were revealed Erlich and his colleagues conducted a three-step process to see how easy it'd be to use that opening. First, they analyzed anonymous Y-chromosome data from a public database for the 1000 Genomes Project, to come up with the DNA coding for markers that are used for genealogical purposes. Then they compared those markers against entries in the two largest family-tree databases, Ysearch and the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

The researchers said their analysis projected a success rate of 12 percent for recovering the surnames of U.S. Caucasian males. Another 5 percent would theoretically be linked up with the wrong surnames. They said upper- to middle-class Caucasian males were easier to identify, presumably because they're more likely to participate in the family-tree databases.

Read more:
How hackers can unlock your genetic secrets

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