Marketplace host Charlsie Agro, left, and her identical twin sister, Carly, check out some DNA ancestry results. (CBC)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits-twins-marketplace-1.4980976

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Commentary

There is lots of people paying for these DNA ancestors kits or giving them as gifts but this proves their algorithms are still guessing or assuming a lot. This especially so for the companies with less DNA samples to compare to or for regions with less DNA samples. They only look at about 700k of about 3 Billion parts in DNA samples and whether a gene gets expressed or not can be affected by how other gene’s are expressed and other factors creating near infinite possibilities.

Nevermind the privacy concerns with your DNA data for you and your children. There has already been many cases of misuse or sharing of confidential data with third parties without consent and data breaches. There currently is little to no legislation or regulations for DNA data including preventing discrimination based on DNA. Insurance providers may one day chose to deny life insurance or increase premiums if someones DNA indicates high risk for serious disease. They may not even have to disclose they relying on this data. Part of the issue is it is often very difficult to make accurate predictions based on someones DNA.