February 16, 2010 1:52PM 

# The Government Has Your Baby’s DNA 

By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) 

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My 2004 Cato Policy Analysis, “[Understanding Privacy — and the Real Threats to It](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1652),” 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](http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/04/baby.dna.government/index.html) 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.

##### Related Tags 

[Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) 

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