Author Topic: New website: auto-clustering your matches  (Read 7057 times)

Offline Gardenshed

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #18 on: Friday 07 December 18 18:12 GMT (UK) »
[quote author=davidft link=topic=804727.msg6631204#msg6631204
3. I am not sure how sites like Ancestry, ftDNA etc can justify this (yes I know they will argue that it is the account holders giving their permission but that is not wholly true is it
[/quote]

I wonder if they do justify it or whether it is a breach of the terms and conditions to allow it? Do not FTDNA and My Heritage at least say they comply with EU privacy standards? But if they are not able to stop users handing over their passwords to other sites which then mine the data, that sounds to me like a major breach of privacy.Every person has many thousands of matches linked to their account who will have no say over the decision to allow access.

I am now wondering whether I should delete my results from the sites if my matches are giving access to random third party sites?

Offline Gardenshed

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #19 on: Friday 07 December 18 18:27 GMT (UK) »
I have just emailed FTDNA to ask whether use of this site is consistent with their terms and conditions.

Offline davidft

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #20 on: Friday 07 December 18 18:36 GMT (UK) »
I have just emailed FTDNA to ask whether use of this site is consistent with their terms and conditions.


I'll be interested in what they say (yes I am a customer of theirs).


As it says on their home page "we will not share your DNA" which is surely what this new company is being allowed to do. I also read the privacy policy quickly and am not sure they should be allowing Genetic Affairs to operate on their site if they follow their own rules.
James Stott c1775-1850. James was born in Yorkshire but where? He was a stonemason and married Elizabeth Archer (nee Nicholson) in 1794 at Ripon. They lived thereafter in Masham. If anyone has any suggestions or leads as to his birthplace I would be interested to know. I have searched for it for years without success. Thank you.

Offline Gardenshed

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #21 on: Friday 07 December 18 18:56 GMT (UK) »
I agree. I do wonder if they are allowing access to the company concerned, however, or if customers are breaching their terms and conditions by handing over their login ( which seems an extraordinary thing to agree to do by the way). Nonetheless FTDNA has a responsibility to the rest of us (or at least I hope they do!) and should have been able to detect this activity and the use of their name on the Genetic Affairs website, if this is unauthorised.

Added: clause 6C(iv) of the Terms of Service for FTDNA says users agree not to post or share any person’s personal, proprietary or confidential information without their permission.

I have also emailed Ancestry to ask about consistency with their terms and conditions of service.


Offline sugarfizzle

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #22 on: Saturday 08 December 18 04:48 GMT (UK) »
Some very important points have been raised here, and I will be interested to see what ftDNA and Ancestry have to say about the matter.

To view things from another perspective, have you uploaded your DNA to Gedmatch?
Run one to many.
You are presented with a list of 2000 matches, complete with email addresses.
Click on 'L list' for one of those matches
Another 2000 matches with email addresses.
Click on 'L list', another 2000
Ad infinitum

Details about millions of testers.
What can you do with the details? - Not a lot.
What can you do with the email addresses? - Quite a lot if you wanted to do harm.

I realise that there is a difference  - you have willingly and knowingly uploaded there, and are happy for your DNA details and email to be shared with thousands of other people.

In reality, we have opened a can of worms in having DNA testing in the first place, who knows what will become of it in years to come.

I hope ftDNA and Ancestry reply soon.

Regards Margaret
STEER, mainly Surrey, Kent; PINNOCKS/HAINES, Gosport, Hants; BARKER, mainly Broadwater, Sussex; Gosport, Hampshire; LAVERSUCH, Micheldever, Hampshire; WESTALL, London, Reading, Berks; HYDE, Croydon, Surrey; BRIGDEN, Hadlow, Kent and London; TUTHILL/STEPHENS, London
WILKINSON, Leeds, Yorkshire and Liverpool; WILLIAMSON, Liverpool; BEARE, Yeovil, Somerset; ALLEN, Kent and London; GORST, Liverpool; HOYLE, mainly Leeds, Yorkshire

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Offline sugarfizzle

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #23 on: Saturday 08 December 18 05:16 GMT (UK) »
Another viewpoint again. I am trying to get my head around this.

You aren't sharing any details of your matches with anyone, other than username and amount of cMs shared.

Ancestry allows people to give access to their results, as viewer, collaborator or manager.

I have shared my ancestry results with my husband and cousin, they have shared theirs with me.  A couple of others have given me access to their results.

I have access to names and cMs shared of all my cousin's matches, approx half of them unrelated to me in any way.

The bare facts of the other half, if I knew for certain which they were, mean nothing to me.

Does this make sense?

Regards Margaret
STEER, mainly Surrey, Kent; PINNOCKS/HAINES, Gosport, Hants; BARKER, mainly Broadwater, Sussex; Gosport, Hampshire; LAVERSUCH, Micheldever, Hampshire; WESTALL, London, Reading, Berks; HYDE, Croydon, Surrey; BRIGDEN, Hadlow, Kent and London; TUTHILL/STEPHENS, London
WILKINSON, Leeds, Yorkshire and Liverpool; WILLIAMSON, Liverpool; BEARE, Yeovil, Somerset; ALLEN, Kent and London; GORST, Liverpool; HOYLE, mainly Leeds, Yorkshire

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Offline Guy Etchells

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #24 on: Saturday 08 December 18 05:47 GMT (UK) »
[quote author=davidft link=topic=804727.msg6631204#msg6631204
3. I am not sure how sites like Ancestry, ftDNA etc can justify this (yes I know they will argue that it is the account holders giving their permission but that is not wholly true is it

I wonder if they do justify it or whether it is a breach of the terms and conditions to allow it? Do not FTDNA and My Heritage at least say they comply with EU privacy standards? But if they are not able to stop users handing over their passwords to other sites which then mine the data, that sounds to me like a major breach of privacy.Every person has many thousands of matches linked to their account who will have no say over the decision to allow access.

I am now wondering whether I should delete my results from the sites if my matches are giving access to random third party sites?

The problem is not with the companies the problem is with the individuals who share their data and the individuals who share their passwords with other sites.

When you have your DNA tested you are given a choice regarding groups of people you wish to share with. It is up to you to share carefully, the tighter you control such sharing the fewer matches you will receive.
If you then download your DNA Data and upload it to another DNA site you relieve your testing company the responsibility as to who the new company shares your data with that is between you and the new company and is decided by the new sharing rules you agree to.
Every match you can see has given their testing company the authorisation to share that Data.

If however you give a new company your sign on details you are giving that company permission to be you and receive all the information you are entitled to receive, in other words you have breach the trust of everyone who has trusted you with their information in order to gain additional information.

It is no good crying that the companies are sharing the information they are simply following their instructions and sharing with people you have told them they can trust and share the data with.

Look at it this way if you have a credit card (cc)  the cc company has a duty not to share your login details with anyone else. If you breach their security process by giving your details to someone and lending them your cc then if that person withdraws all the money in your account it is not the cc card company that is at fault it is you.

People have to start accepting responsibility for their actions rather than trying to blame others.
Cheers
Guy
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As we have gained from the past, we owe the future a debt, which we pay by sharing today.

Offline lisalisa

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #25 on: Saturday 08 December 18 19:22 GMT (UK) »
I agree. I do wonder if they are allowing access to the company concerned, however, or if customers are breaching their terms and conditions by handing over their login ( which seems an extraordinary thing to agree to do by the way). Nonetheless FTDNA has a responsibility to the rest of us (or at least I hope they do!) and should have been able to detect this activity and the use of their name on the Genetic Affairs website, if this is unauthorised.

Added: clause 6C(iv) of the Terms of Service for FTDNA says users agree not to post or share any person’s personal, proprietary or confidential information without their permission.

I have also emailed Ancestry to ask about consistency with their terms and conditions of service.

I will be interested to read the responses from the companies.

I haven't been to the website, but I read through the blog post which is linked to at the start of this thread, the first time I read the part about the credits I quote below, I thought it was quoting from the website, reading again, it might only be from the blog post, . . .
quote:
[The great news is that everyone begins with 200 free credits which may last you for quite some time.  Or not. Consider them introductory crack from your new pusher.]

 . . . disturbing, I think.

But I am very concerned about data being accessed/shared without the consent of the person whose data it is.

Lisa

Offline hurworth

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Re: New website: auto-clustering your matches
« Reply #26 on: Saturday 08 December 18 19:33 GMT (UK) »


What is of more interest to me is how is this new company doing this. A major gripe people have with Ancestry is that it does not have a chromosome browser to interpret tree matches. Yet this new site must gain access to the raw data of results if they can tabulate matches the way they do. That being the case why can't we have access to the data the new website is obviously getting? Anyone fancy questioning Ancestry about this and whether a chromosome browser is on the horizon?

I don't think it is accessing the raw data.

I think what it is doing is going through and finding ALL the shared matches (i.e. two people who share more than 20cM) for you and putting this in a table.