The U.S. National Institutes of Health announced it has updated its Genomic Data Sharing Policy. The agency now allows researchers to have unrestricted access to genomic summary results. Researchers raised privacy issues with unrestricted genomic data access back in 2008. The researchers were concerned the summary results could be used to determine whether an individual participated in a research study. The NIH moved to restrict access to the information but has now reversed its direction. “Despite the increasing availability of genomic summary results from a variety of sources, we are not aware of any reported examples of individuals being matched to participation in a research study using genomic summary results beyond the research designed to demonstrate the hypothetical possibility that it could happen,” the NIH blog post states.
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