Is there going to be revised standard wording for DNA confirmation post-GDPR?

Question

Now that GDPR has come into force, I was wondering if the standard wording suggested on https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:DNA_Confirmation ought to be reviewed.

It will often be the case that at least one of the DNA test takers is a living non-member of WikiTree. Where tests are managed on behalf of living relatives it is possible that all of them might be. Since the decision has been taken that the DNA test information has to be removed from such people in order to comply with GDPR, I assume there may also be an issue with naming them in the DNA confirmations added to biographies.

I have already changed the wording on the profiles that I manage and I believe a number of other people have also made changes. However I suspect we may each have done it slightly differently, so an updated standard would be helpful both for changing existing confirmations and for people adding them in future.

The way I have chosen to do it is by replacing the name of the test taker by the way they are related to the MRCA. For example:

"Paternal relationship is confirmed with an AncestryDNA test match between a living great grandchild of Edward James Hayes and a living great grandchild of John Hayes, 3rd cousins. Predicted relationship reported by AncestryDNA: 3rd cousin based on sharing 105 cM across 8 segments; Confidence: Extremely High."

I believe this is GDPR-compliant as the name of the test taker cannot be directly identified. Even if it happens that there is only one living great grandchild, their name will no longer be visible (except to those on the trusted list). However I would welcome some official confirmation that this wording is okay.

Apologies if the DNA project is already working on this and is about to update the guidance, but since GDPR is now in force I thought I should mention it in case it had been overlooked.

Comments

You might consider adding a date for when the person was living, such as, "a living (25 May 2018) great grandchild of Edward James Hayes." That might help people seeing the profile years from now and it might remind the profile manager to change the working if the living person becomes deceased. 

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wording

Answer 1

We have  updated it,  Paul, but may need to add more to clarify.  If the people involved are all active WikiTree members,  names can be used.  But,  if you look at the MyHeritage example,  only initials are used for one of the testers,  since they are not members.  There is next to no way to identify the tester by initials only. We've also updated to ask that gedmatch IDs not be in confirmation statements,  unless the person is an active WikiTree member.

Comments

Has there been a substitute found for ysearch and mitosearch? 

Per FTDNA:

On May 24th, 2018, our free, public genetic-genealogy databases, ysearch.org and mitosearch.org, will no longer be accessible as a result of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect on May 25th.

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There hasn't,  though some ideas are being floated around.

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Thanks for updating it Abby. My example used in my question then becomes:

"Paternal relationship is confirmed with an AncestryDNA test match between S.O. and F.R., 3rd cousins. Predicted relationship reported by AncestryDNA: 3rd cousin based on sharing 105 cM across 8 segments; Confidence: Extremely High."

Is that better than the wording I have currently used?

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Looks great,  Paul. I think many of us will find ourselves trying a little harder to convince people to join WikiTree so we can better show our connections.

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"There is no way to identify the tester by the initials only."  True, but the example is not just giving the initials only --  the person is also identified by being second cousins once removed with Abby Glann.  In many cases, that amount of information would be enough to uniquely determine the individual, and sometimes with a little work someone could use that information to identify further information.

Hence, my question that I have asked elsewhere:  what does the law say is too much identifying information?  Is it assured that a relationship to an identified individual and initials is still vague enough?  What if only one person in existence has that relationship and those initials?

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What's the point? The usefulness of having DNA results on WikiTree is 90% gone, gone, gone.

Answer 2

Also category for Ancestry DNA Circles need to be careful who gets put in the circle, members only! I just reviewed mine.