GEDmatch changes hands again in Verogen sale
It isn’t mentioned on the website of GEDmatch, the third-party DNA tools site at the heart of much of the early privacy debate over law enforcement use of consumer DNA databases for criminal investigations.
And The Legal Genealogist sees no change in the site’s terms of service — those rules that set out not just what consumers can do on the site but what the site owners can do with consumer data.1
But — disclosed or not — GEDmatch has a new owner: QIAGEN, a company headquartered in The Netherlands that says it “serves more than 500,000 customers around the globe, all seeking answers from the building blocks of life – DNA, RNA and proteins.”2 It announced its acquisition of GEDmatch’s parent company, the forensic firm Verogen, last week.3
And, at the moment, nobody in the genetic genealogy community has a clue just what that acquisition means for GEDmatch, or what the new owner has in mind for this.
The GEDmatch story began years ago, when two genealogist-programmers teamed up to create a database where those who tested with different DNA companies could compare their results and find cousins to collaborate with and, with luck, solve genealogical mysteries. Its array of tools was terrific, and the ability to compare results across platforms made it extremely useful for researchers.4
And then the privacy issues began to swirl. First, the disclosure that GEDmatch was the website used by police in the Golden State killer case without its users’ knowledge.5 Then its disclosure that the site had disregarded its own terms of service in allowing police access to information.6 And its initial privacy opt-out that wasn’t anything approaching an informed consent system,7 And ultimately the sale of GEDmatch to the forensic company Verogen.8
Now Verogen itself has been acquired, putting GEDmatch into new ownership as well.
On one hand, this could be a good thing. As a Dutch company, QIAGEN may well be more sensitive to privacy issues than an American company would be: privacy laws throughout Europe are stronger than they are in the United States. Informed consent is at the very heart of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and that regulation requires that people affirmatively opt in to the use of their data, rather than allowing data use unless people opt out.9
On the other hand, the acquisition removes the ultimate authority over GEDmatch one more step from its genealogy roots. And it’s hard to see any way that that’s going to be good for family researchers.
At the moment, it’s a waiting game: we need to see what — if anything — changes in the GEDmatch terms of service and/or its operational privacy.
Stay tuned…
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “GEDmatch sold again,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 19 Jan 2023).
SOURCES
- The terms are still dated 30 December 2021, and the text reads the same now as it did on that date. See “Terms of Service and Privacy Policy,” Effective Date: December 30, 2021, GEDmatch.com (https://www.gedmatch.com/ : accessed 19 Jan 2023). ↩
- “About us,” QIAGEN.com (https://www.qiagen.com/ : accessed 15 Jan 2023). ↩
- See “QIAGEN completes acquisition of Verogen, strengthening leadership in Human ID / Forensics with NGS technologies,” Press Release, QIAGEN.com (https://www.qiagen.com/ : accessed 19 Jan 2023). ↩
- See generally Judy G. Russell, “Gedmatch: a DNA geek’s dream site,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 12 Aug 2012 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 19 Jan 2023). ↩
- See ibid., “The bull in the DNA china shop,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 29 Apr 2018. ↩
- See ibid., “Withdrawing a recommendation/,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 15 May 2019. ↩
- See ibid., “The choice that really isn’t,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 22 May 2019. ↩
- See ibid., “GEDmatch acquired by forensic firm,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 10 Dec 2019. ↩
- See generally Article 6, Lawfulness of processing, GDPR.EU (https://gdpr.eu/ : accessed 19 Jan 2023). ↩
I believe that when you publish your DNA, you let anyone view it – cops included. It’s awfully hard to discriminate which folks can see it. You WANT it to be widely distributed; otherwise, why bother. You lose the ability do decide which pigs are more equal.
You have an absolute right to make that decision for yourself, but not for anyone else. The issue with GEDmatch was that it made the decision for others, and got its hand slapped for it.
If something is publicly available, then logically, it is available to all who can access it, whether it be potential relatives or the police.
If this isn’t accurate, then what would stop someone from, for example, demanding that they be removed from your publicly available family tree under the premise that you are violating their right to privacy?
As a matter of genealogical ethics, we should NEVER include personally identifying information about living people online without their permission.
I have no idea what Qiagen has in mind for GEDmatch but I suspect that was not their prime reason for acquiring Verogen. Qiagen is a highly reputable company who has focused on molecular biology/DNA based instruments with an eye toward automation and integration of multiple components. They have experts in software who could advance GEDmatch tools. On the other hand, genealogy has never been their business. This seems to be a move into forensics and likely providing automated solutions in that market. However, genetic genealogy and forensics are now joined at the hip so it would not surprise me if they put some effort in that area.
Also, Qiagen’s current customer base is companies, universities, government, medical centers, and similar institutions. They are not used to dealing with a. DTC population and are not set up to handle the kind of feedback you might get from the average consumer.
Judy,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention and your assessment of the situation.
It’s not the time for speculations. However a usual move by “wolfs of wallstreet” are dived and sell off parts of a company the have no use for. This is often done to maximalize short term profitt, and make new company more attractive for their investors. We have robally not seen the end of this.
Since the database of GEDmatch can support the forensic applications of the new parent, I suspect it won’t be sold off. But that doesn’t mean it will remain anything near what it is now. We just have to wait and see.
Perhaps a GEDmatch 2.0 is needed? Or a GEDmatch that serves the family genealogist/researcher instead of the medical or corporate researcher?