Your DNA is almost exactly the same as other people's, just a unique mix.
Music is exactly the same notes, just a unique mix. So why is Sony upset that I want to stream their entire library? But jokes aside...
A few decades ago I fought the military on collecting my DNA. I stalled them long enough to get my honorable discharge and avoid that all together. It's funny you ask because the commander asked the same thing and joked "Are you afraid we are going to clone you?!" to which I replied, "No sir, you should be afraid you are going to clone me." and we both had a laugh because he knew I was right. The military are not fond of critical/free thinkers. One of me was plenty. I explained that insurance companies were already using this data to retroactively cancel peoples policies even if they were not actively afflicted by something. The commander showed me how to use the FOIA request system.
Laws have evolved a little since then but there are plenty of other risks. For starters, I can't easily change my DNA like I can change my debit card. That data can be used to tie me to others or guilt by association which is undesirable drama. It can also be used to try to sell me things. It can also be used to target biological weapons against specific groups of people. There appears to be an imbalance of data sharing in this regard. [1] Then there is simply the matter of privacy. If I want to share my DNA with some lab that is in turn going to sell it out to hundreds of other companies over and over forever, I should at very least be getting paid a vast amount of money and land and have legally binding contracts and NDA's that cover what is and is not allowed to be done with my data and how long it may be retained. That contract and the laws enforcing the contract must have some serious teeth with very serious ramifications for anyone violating it whether intentionally or by mistake.
Congrats on your navigation of the military DNA collection.
I'm more curious what the actual threat might look like.
The marginal utility of your particular genome is miniscule. Without deep phenotypic information from biophysical parameters, it is utterly impossible to learn something novel from any single genome. This makes the marginal value of the genome information very low, both to you and any attacker or user. You would not be paid much for your data even if it was sold over and over because the rates are like those for plays on Spotify.
There are not fixed differences between human populations, and there are dramatic pressures to balancing selection that keep diversity focused in key genomic regions that are critical for immune response. This is to say that it would be damn hard to target any single group with a bioweapon. And if you wanted to target a single individual with a genomically targeted bioweapon, you also have physical access, making the problem of getting genomic information without consent trivial.
People often talk about insurance risk. I suppose that's an attack vector. It's also one that can be regulated with laws and social norms. Fwiw I wonder how often this is primarily an American concern.
Imagine a public genome data repository. People donate their genomes to science and post them there for the world to use and learn from. In my opinion, it would be better for an individual to share their data than not. The reasoning is that no matter what is done with the data, the net effect will be that society learns more about the individual's particular genome than those of people who haven't contributed. This will yield better adaptation of the society to the individual. Literally this might mean that a treatment for something affecting the individual is slightly better. In expectation, the worst thing that can happen is that the individual gains more information about themselves.
I'm curious about the possible abuse scenarios given the ubiquitous use of PCR-testing for nearly two years, now.
If I'm informed correctly for a viable sample for NGS you need like 2mL saliva (which sounds little but it really takes some time: >1 min) not those trace amounts which gets usually collected by the swabs?
A very practical reason not to want your DNA out there, unrestricted, is insurance costs. From car insurance, to health insurance, to mortgage lending rates, and life insurance, and while GINA from 2008 is supposed to protect that information, there are loopholes with the interpretation of that law that should give everybody pause.
Using that analogy, all the 1s and 0s in your private key are the same as everyone else's as well. Genetic data can be used for all kinds of things, the worst of which would be things like targeted diseases or planting your DNA at a crime scene.
Actually it's like your private key is made up of ~1000 1 mb pieces that each have 1/1000 rate of difference with any other similar piece. Oh, and the order of the pieces is almost always exactly the same.
No, genomes are not "almost the same" because they are all in base-4 sequences and this made up of the same 0s 1s 2s and 3s.
We are astoundingly similar, even unusually so for a large mammalian species.
Not sure what you are concerned about. What would you expect a bad actor to do with your DNA sequences? I'm genuinely curious.