By: Jeremy Balkin
From your lips to flawed fears. Rest assured, you control your DNA samples at FamilyTreeDNA.
Security in our current age
There’s probably nothing more annoying than the bureaucracy of privacy. Every time I try to access my email on any device I haven’t used in more than two days, the system thinks I’m accessing nuclear codes. No, I do not have my phone in a nearby convenient place to receive a text code, and I certainly don’t remember my favorite South American dog breed 17 years ago.
With the ever-interconnectedness of the world today, privacy has become a tedious but necessary right. While I begrudgingly answer security questions and prove to a robot that I’m not also a robot just so I can track the potato chips I ordered yesterday, the importance of privacy becomes exponentially higher when dealing with my own genetic samples.
Your samples are your samples
I first swabbed when I was hired at FamilyTreeDNA in 2012. My unused swabs remain in our climate-controlled storage facility. Similarly, your samples may also be housed there. Though it’s become a routine and necessary part of our whole operation, it’s something we never take lightly. There’s a whole process that goes into checking in samples. If you’ve ever gotten an email from us asking for you to verify that you are, in fact, you, and you sighed and furrowed your brow, you probably already know this.
Most importantly, your genetic samples, wherever they may be housed (by our company or otherwise) are yours and yours alone. You are their arbiter, and ultimately, you control what we do with them.
This isn’t a post detailing the logistics of our Privacy Statement or Terms of Service. Instead, it’s a reassurance of what we do and how it relates to your precious genetic material.
As soon as we check in your sample kit from the mail, it doesn’t immediately go to the lab.
First, our Accessioning Team has to make sure the samples match the tester on the account. To do so, they make sure that the consent form that comes with the kit is signed by the same name that the test kit was ordered under. If there is any question, they will reach out to Customer Service to contact the customer to sort this out. Sometimes, for example, people might have swabbed on the wrong kit, or otherwise given the wrong kit to the wrong person. We try to nip this in the bud.
Once the sample kit is cleared for check-in, the unique barcode is scanned as it enters the lab. After testing, any remaining samples are put in our storage facility in case you decide to upgrade your test in the future. For security, the samples are stored without names or easily identifying information.
You are in control
You always reserve the right to request to have the stored samples completely and irreversibly destroyed by contacting Customer Service. You also have the right to choose how your genetic info is shared with others (i.e., your Account Settings preferences in your account).
As custodians of your genetic material, we have employees here whose primary job is to secure your sample kit(s).
As the Manager of the Customer Service Department., I personally work one-on-one with these other departments, and often with the customers directly.
As customer service representatives, we must follow a procedure when customers contact us about their samples. Whether it’s to delete them, clarify the name of the tester after we’ve already reached out, or just check if their account has any samples in storage for upgrade testing, it’s a big part of our job, too, and something that’s taken seriously.
As I look forward to the day ahead of me since it’s only 5 a.m., I’m writing this post so everyone can get a good glimpse of what I see every day. I wanted to give a basic rundown of how seriously everything is taken. Again, this isn’t a piece about the lifecycle of a sample or the specifics of samples in storage being affected by time.
Instead, I wanted to share the sentiments the others working at FamilyTreeDNA express daily when handling such sensitive material. I know I am in a position that most aren’t, and I can essentially physically visit my samples whenever I want.
As my remaining samples enter their 13th year of captivity in storage, I know they are well taken care of and in a good place. Though I don’t have control over a lot of things in my life, two things are certain: my genetic samples are under my control, and my potato chips will be here in four days.
About the Author
Jeremy Balkin
Customer Service Manager at FamilyTreeDNA
Jeremy Balkin has been active in genetic genealogy for 11+ years and has been writing his whole adult life. Through helping customers daily, helping his team, and continuing to write, he hopes to continue to connect with more people on the subject using his own blend of knowledge and humor.
Working for FamilyTreeDNA itself has shaped the past quarter of his life, and mostly for the better. It has become a part of him, and he hopes to never lose it. In his free time, Jeremy likes to spend time with his nine-year-old son and girlfriend, Gillian.