Cybersecurity and Ancestry link

With over a billion online documents, Ancestry Link runs a network of genealogy, historical data, and DNA products. United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other European nations account for the bulk of users. (Wallace, Gourna & Sheehan, 2015). Others can only be accessed by paying a subscription, while some are available to everyone for free. Even though it’s thought that lineage can help people find relatives and great-grandparents they may not have known about their entire lives, the website has risks, so in the long run, the majority may need to be warned about using it. The danger with DNA test is tremendous since there is an abuse of this system as it has been exploited not only for looking for origin but also for business and economic gains. One may not tell what a company does with the information since it may be bought or sold off in future (Wallace, Gourna & Sheehan, 2015). This ancestry searches may promote racism, both politically and socially causing a nation some disadvantages. Some may have used the test to help prove they deserve an inheritance based on a particular ancestry (Wallace, Gourna & Sheehan, 2015). Apparently, most of the information is irreversible especially when it lands in the hands of exploitive individuals leading to huge compromise of personal information.

When people become interested in family history especially on long gone ancestors, it may be easy to do a few online searches (Wallace, Gourna & Sheehan, 2015). First, by building a family tree, having ancestry information and getting assistance from tutorials or articles or attending a genealogy conference and buying books. Perhaps, if people get educated about visiting such websites, they will learn the right techniques and have positive intent in what they do. Like for instance, apart from only searching family data, one may seek to find past information on a nation, city or a great legend.

References

Wallace, S. E., Gourna, E. G., Nikolova, V., & Sheehan, N. A. (2015). Family tree and ancestry inference: is there a need for a ’generational’content?. BMC medical ethics, 16(1), 87.