Genomics: A future Global Privacy and Identity Challenge
(Author - Ullas O Tharakan)

2020 AD: World a better place. Get ready for the ultimate shopping experience, the designer babies. Imagine the fertility Hospital near your lane offer you to manipulate the Gene sequence to get you the perfect baby with intelligence as Einstein, Blue eyes – sort of Tom Cruise killer Looks and the so called perfect shape. Days are not far away, when Designer Babies becomes a reality and Hitler infamy ambition of defining a super human unintentionally finds a place in the Society.
Genome research has given a new dimension to “code” human beings. Humans are not just by chance; they are manipulated to fit the best, defying the Darwin’s Law of Evolution, making it an instant process than a gradual one spread across thousands of years. Entire human gene has already been decoded in the ambitious Human Genome project. In the projected future, going to be closer than we think, Governments and organizations will have has to concentrate to protect people from the negative side of this individual problem, there is a need to demarcate the goods and bad of this unprecedented innovation. Already there has been ban on human cloning world wide, a well-respected step taken by governments worldwide.

With the intense research and the indecorous intention to make business, there could be lot of loopholes, which will affect the humans worldwide. For example, when a Baby is born, he/she will walk out of the maternity with a Human Code CD - a more futuristic form of Birth Certificates. CD will contain the entire Genome code of the baby. This specifies predictive disease list with accurate prediction on likely hood of disease occurrence. Early prediction of disease will be always an advantage as it could help to improve the quality of life and as well as increase the natural lifespan by taking preventive medications.

But what happens if somebody else gets to access to these information. It would be the ultimate disaster for somebody in waiting. Governments need to redefine the existing laws in order to prevent this. The social, ethical and legal issues will have a daunting effect on the individual. Fairness of usage of information will be a big issue. For example Insurance companies can target you for high money and can also deny your qualification for Insurance. Pharmaceutical companies can create customized drugs eventually this being used a one-to-one marketing campaign at a premium cost. Corporate can disqualify you from job because of your predicted future based on genes.

This could lead to Psychological impact, stigmatization, and discrimination due to an individual’s man made genetic differences – the existing ones and the expected ones.
There will be Conceptual and philosophical implications regarding human responsibility, free will vs. genetic determinism, and concepts of health and disease. This will lead to Commercialization of humans design as products including property rights (patents, copyrights, and trade secrets) and accessibility to data and materials needs to be mandated.

In order to make this Genetic experience fruitful and more poised towards humanity governments worldwide should initiate a due diligence. Governments would need to establish a Global Genetic Privacy Protection (GGPP) model to enable a framework for protecting the future human rights violation. Worldwide Health Ministry Departments needs to foray over a period of time for a GGPP model. This model needs to start with these basic aspects:
- Embryonic stage manipulation: Protection of the Genetic Trait Modification
- Gene Selective Manipulation Law
- Human Code access Protection Law (Practices can be extended from the existing HIPPA global laws)
Better, governments worldwide start enacting a law and stop this world moving towards the digital apartheid era preventing the human community from the next privacy disaster in waiting.