DNA

In early August, when the UK government announced it was purchasing 90-minute saliva-based COVID-19 tests called LamPORE and 5,000 lab-free machines to process them, supplied by DNANudge, clinical researchers were dismayed to find that there is no publicly available data about the accuracy or

Chinese police are using equipment from the US company Thermo-Fisher to collect blood samples from 35 million to 70 million men and boys to build a genetic map of the country's 700 million males to add to its existing database of 80 million genetic profiles. The database would allow the authorities

In February 2019 BuzzFeed News reported that one of the largest home DNA testing companies, FamilyTreeDNA, had formed an agreement with the FBI to grant the agency access to its database of more than 1 million genetic profiles, most of which were supplied by consumers with no thought that they would

In October 2018, British home secretary Sajid Javid apologised to more than 400 migrants, who included Gurkha soldiers and Afghans who had worked for the British armed forces, who were forced to provide DNA samples when applying to live and work in the UK. DNA samples are sometimes provided by

In 2018, British immigration officers demanded that the mothers of two children provide DNA samples in order to provide proof of paternity. The children both had British fathers and had previously been issued British passports, but their mothers were not UK citizens. In one case, the father had

In 2018 genetic testing companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe agreed on guidelines for sharing users' DNA data and handling police requests. The guidelines, which include easy-to-read privacy policies, were inspired by two incidents: one in which local investigators used the GEDmatch DNA comparison

During 2018, when US president Donald Trump operated a policy under which immigration officers separated families arriving at the border without documentation, there were a number of suggestions for using genetic testing to verify family relationships in the interests of reuniting them. After

By 2018, gene studies involving more than 200,000 test takers had found correlations between 500 human genes and academic success. Based on these results, the behavioural geneticist Robert Plomin claimed that parents would be able to use consumer tests to enable "precision education", built around

The Houston, Texas-based online dating startup Pheramor claims to use 11 "attraction genes" taken from DNA samples in its matchmaking algorithm. Launched in February 2018 in Houston with 3,000 users, Pheramor also encourages users to connect it to their social media profiles so it can datamine them

On July 1, 2015 Kuwait's National Assembly passed a new counter-terrorism law that included the requirement that all 1.3 million Kuwaiti citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents provide DNA samples, which will be stored in a database maintained and operated by the Interior Ministry. The law, which

In 2015, the DNA testing company 23andMe revealed it had sold access to the DNA information it had collected from the 1.2 million people who had paid for genetic testing to more than 13 drug companies. One of these was Genentech, which paid $10 million to look at the genes of people with Parkinson's

In 2015 Hong Kong's Face of Litter campaign used DNA samples taken from street litter and collected from volunteers to create facial images that were then posted on billboards across the city. The campaign, conceived by PR firm Ogilvy & Mather and organised by online magazine Ecozine and the Nature