[Arkay]

Ever see the movie "Gattaca"? It's fictional, but it paints a picture of what could happen in a society where one's genetic inheritance is paramount. The issue of DNA privacy is a hugely important one. To say that vague "societal" needs outweigh an individual's rights to privacy, without presenting narrowly defined criteria for when that might be true, is to invite a Big Brother Totalitarianism, a communistic or faschistic nightmare in the future. It's not just possible, it's almost inevitable if everyone's right to privacy ceases to exist... which it will if people are not vigilant about it. "The death of 1,000 cuts" can apply well here.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the right to privacy in general is being not just undermined and eroded, but blindly, foolishly relinquished. If most of the world ends up little better than slaves, or with little more choice than those in the fictional Gattaca, then it will be because of such step-by-step relinquishment as we are seeing today.