"The change is that "other people" now includes the FBI. Which it probably could of before, just now they get a discounted government rate, probably."
Exactly that. According to the article, the FBI have the same access as any other customer. There's no way to stop that. Anyone in the FBI could create an account and submit DNA just like any member of the public. It was blindingly obvious this would happen as soon as the first public DNA database was launched. Just because these guys admit they do it doesn't mean that all the others aren't doing it to, even if they don't know they are.
It's potentially only small step before insurance companies start offering "too much to refuse" or even buying up one of these companies and scanning the database for customers and genetic predispositions to illness and disease.
For you left pondians, this is one of the reasons the EU has GDPR now. It'll be interesting to see what the various EU nations take on this is. DNA is the very epitome of personal data and I bet there are EU citizens data in there. I wonder how much, if any, assets or physical presence FamilyTreeDNA has in the EU?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
