http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_1267&sess=CUR&house=B&author=padilla
on 5/24 it was held in committee, which means it has been brought to the floor for a general vote yet. For status information, you can subscribe to the page above. I'll try to keep this page updated, but it is always better to get info from the horse's mouth!
Original article:
A great example of how complex privacy can be - California considers a DNA privacy (SB 1267, proposed by Padilla, The Genetic Information Pirvacy Act) law that would be great for privacy, but apparently would interfere with research and make it harder for scientists to make progress fighting disease. From the Nature article:
Under the newly proposed bill, a person’s genetic information may only be accessed by individuals specifically named on a consent form, and only for purposes written on the form. Genetic information along with the original samples must be destroyed once their specified purposes are fulfilled.
Such requirements could seriously hinder genomic research, says geneticist David Segal, associate director of genomics at the University of California, Davis. He points out that scientists typically sequence DNA from thousands of people to discover genes associated with particular diseases. Under the proposed legislation, a large genomic dataset could not be re-used to study a different disease. Researchers would either need to destroy the data after each study, or track down thousands of former subjects for new authorisations—an infeasible task, he says.Other resources:
Scientific American Article on Research problems created by the bill
Privacy blog post on the bill
Wired News article on the bill (short overview)
image: wrongfulconvictionsblog.org
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