The Government Has Your Baby’s DNA

My 2004 Cato Policy Analysis, “Understanding Privacy — and the Real Threats to It,” talks about how government programs intended to do good have unintended privacy costs. “The helping hand of government routinely strips away privacy before it goes to work,” I wrote.


There could be no better illustration of that than the recent CNN report on government collection and warehousing of American babies’ DNA. “Scientists have said the collection of DNA samples is a ‘gold mine’ for doing research,” notes a sidebar to the story.


I have no doubt that it is — and that government‐​mandated harvesting of this highly valuable personal data from children is an unjust enrichment of the beneficiaries.