GENETIC sequencing will soon be cheap enough for everyone to have a digital copy of their own genome. But that also means someone could hack your hard drive or mobile device and gain access to it. If you thought having your email hacked was bad, wait until some digital ne鈥檈r-do-well makes off with the information they need for a paternity test. Encrypting the data is the obvious solution, but how?
In the decade or so since researchers first sequenced the human genome, . Consumer software that can do anything from testing your genetic compatibility with a partner to solving paternity disputes won鈥檛 be far behind.
It would not be difficult to encrypt your DNA details to prevent them getting into the wrong hands, but the data would still need decrypting if you wanted it to be tested. That could expose it to unwanted scrutiny.
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That鈥檚 why and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, have come up with a cryptographic technique that lets you hand over genetic information for testing while still keeping your genome private. They used a method called homomorphic encryption, which allows you to analyse encrypted data and then decrypt the result to give the same answer as would come from analysing the unencrypted data. This would essentially mean someone could examine a digital genome without ever seeing its contents.
The only problem is that this would require a whole genome to be analysed, and homomorphic encryption is slow in dealing with large amounts of data 鈥� a full genome weighs in at around 3 gigabytes. De Cristofaro estimates that comparing two genomes in this way would take about 10 days.
To speed things up, the team has harnessed some of the tricks used in genetic testing. For example, a technique called RFLP uses enzymes to cut DNA strands anywhere a particular sequence appears. This produces fragments of varying length, the comparison of which gives the result of the test. The researchers replicated this method digitally and were able to perform a secure digital paternity test in a fraction of a second 鈥� even when running the software on a Nokia N900 smartphone. This means genetic apps can鈥檛 be far off, De Cristofaro says. The team is presenting the research this week at the in Chicago.
鈥淎nyone could have their DNA sequenced and carry it on a portable device,鈥� says of the University of Vigo in Spain, who previously developed a way to securely search for short strings of DNA. But he warns that cryptography might not be enough: people will also need to be educated about the risks of sharing genetic information. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like social networks 鈥� it鈥檚 incredible what people disclose,鈥� he says.
聯Anyone could have their DNA sequenced and carry it on a portable device, but there are risks in doing so聰
