Biotechnology for consumer use: Voluntary, non-medical, DNA identity banks as commodity products

The involuntary collection of DNA into databanks for insurance and identification purposes has been well-explored, as has the voluntary use of such repositories of DNA information for the construction of databases for medical research. There is a little-investigated fourth manifestation of such databanks, however, a voluntary, non-medical, consumer-oriented one. Specifically, DNA information is now being marketed in the commodity consumer market as a way of establishing both genealogical relatedness and identity per se, including religious, racial, and ethnic identity. In this article the development of such identity databases is discussed, and the ethical consequences of the accumulation and dissemination of such information are briefly explored.