Gedmatch changed T&Cs again

pinkypinky

Following more changes by Gedmatch's parent company, Verogen, I've deleted all my kits today.

Some details:
https://www.facebook.com/DNADoeProject/posts/2815513718707395

They just can't keep undermining their users' trust.
It particularly bothered me that suddenly everyone was opted back in to law enforcement matching specifically to identify unknown infants, with a view to finding and prosecuting mothers (but not fathers).

It's a detriment to my research but we have to stand up for high standards in this area.

Further detail here as well.
https://thednageek.com/trust/?fbclid=IwAR3GdKRVoX1itV3RdH0SIECQMLIkDXSGh6k_GQVgnKx9fqBblajV46xHces

Hermy

Thanks for the heads up - I wasn't aware of this.

Hermy

pinkypinky wrote: »

It particularly bothered me that suddenly everyone was opted back in to law enforcement matching specifically to identify unknown infants, with a view to finding and prosecuting mothers (but not fathers).

Forgive my ignorance but prosecuting them for what?

L1011

Hermy wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but prosecuting them for what?

Child abandonment etc

pinkypinky

Or murder/infanticide.

Waitsian

pinkypinky wrote: »

Following more changes by Gedmatch's parent company, Verogen, I've deleted all my kits today.

Looking more into this, I've just done the same. And honestly, I can't say the site has ever been any use to my research.

srmf5

Back on the 19th July 2020, I saw these Doe kits when there was the security breach that changed the settings to allow law enforcement access.

My great aunt has two very high matches at 450.6 cM and 215.5 cM under an email belonging to the DNA Doe Project. There were a total of 5 kits on her match page belonging to this project with the other three at 86.1 cM, 28 cM and 17.7 cM.

My mum also had matches under an email with a code for the kit name but I haven't found who the email is under since it was just a bunch of numbers. My mum had 4 John Doe matches with them all being matches of my paternal great aunt as well. The highest match is the same for my mum and paternal great aunt but 453.5 for my mum. My dad also had the same 4 matches with the highest at 536.1 cM for him.

The fact that they matched both my mum and my relatives on my dad's side makes it seem like they're not real. The Doe kits all had coded names.

There was definitely something off with those kits. I checked the first one's one-to-many and none of my family even appear on the page of matches. They have loads of high matches with the highest being anonymous kits from the same email addresses. Three prominent email addresses. It made me wonder if these kits were manipulated some way so that they'd match as much of the database as possible.

Logging in today, I noticed that the kits that I previously deleted when some of these changes had occurred have returned. A match asked me to upload to GEDmatch so I did again. I now have duplicate kits for my family on GEDmatch. Weirdly the olds kits don't appear as matches for my new kits and vice versa. Yet if I do a one to many comparison of a random match, the duplicate kits do appear in their match list. Just makes you wonder if deleting your kit actually makes a difference.

pinkypinky

Yes, I noticed my old kits had returned when I logged in to delete everything too. I deleted my account as well.

stopthevoting

pinkypinky wrote: »

Following more changes by Gedmatch's parent company, Verogen, I've deleted all my kits today.

Some details:
https://www.facebook.com/DNADoeProject/posts/2815513718707395

They just can't keep undermining their users' trust.
It particularly bothered me that suddenly everyone was opted back in to law enforcement matching specifically to identify unknown infants, with a view to finding and prosecuting mothers (but not fathers).

It's a detriment to my research but we have to stand up for high standards in this area.

Further detail here as well.
https://thednageek.com/trust/?fbclid=IwAR3GdKRVoX1itV3RdH0SIECQMLIkDXSGh6k_GQVgnKx9fqBblajV46xHces

Thanks for this info. I didn't know about this change.
Do you have any more information about the part in bold?
And why only mothers and not fathers?
From the first link, I got the impression it was about unidentified adult remains.

pinkypinky

They're making a distinction between infants and adult remains.

I am presuming the reason they're chasing up mothers is that they are in some way responsible for the infant's death. Some countries have a different law regarding infanticide and murder, but in the USA they are considered the same thing, which doesn't recognise the circumstances in which a woman may have found herself in a crisis pregnancy (or her mental health).

Mollymoo19

I'd also be concerned for the people that permanently deleted kits when they last changed their T&C, only to have them reappear in the past week. Seems they are holding onto peoples data behind the scenes.

srmf5

They've now changed the old 'deleted' kits to 'no public access'. Still doesn't fix the problem that they shouldn't still have those files on their system once deleted.

pinkypinky

I'm not a member of the Gedmatch users facebook group but if someone else is, then it's worth mentioning it there.

I just double-checked and my account is deleted from Gedmatch.

Mollymoo19

pinkypinky wrote: »

I'm not a member of the Gedmatch users facebook group but if someone else is, then it's worth mentioning it there.

The un-deleted kits issue has been mentioned on the User group, and reported to GEDmatch. Apparently it's with their IT staff and more than one user has reported it.

srmf5

This is the email that GEDmatch sent out:

Dear GEDmatch user,

We are writing to inform you of a technical issue that occurred January 14th and temporarily affected one or more kits associated with your GEDmatch account.

During this isolated incident, a very small number of kits that had previously been deleted briefly reappeared in the kit owner’s account. The occurrence lasted 48 hours or less before the kits were permanently deleted.

This was not a data breach or “hack.” Please allow us to provide some detail on how this technical error occurred. As part of the transition when Verogen acquired GEDmatch last year, the company was required by General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to store certain information separately. On January 14th, we were able to merge the information that had been separate into our main database. This is when the error occurred. During the time the deleted information was stored on the separate server, no one had access to it. With the database merge complete, the information has now been permanently removed.

Importantly, the opt-in permissions were not changed on these accounts, therefore the kit owner’s preferences related to law enforcement matching for violent crime were honored.

Rest assured that the unique nature of this incident ensures that an error of this type will not happen in the future. If you wish to delete kits, they will be permanently deleted. Verogen or GEDmatch do not keep copies of the information, and the information is never sold to a third party.

Your privacy is of the utmost important to us. If you have further questions about this isolated incident, please reach out to us at gedmatch@verogen.com.

Sincerely,
Brett Willams
CEO
Verogen

hblock21

srmf5 wrote: »

the deleted information was stored on the separate server, no one had access to it. With the database merge complete, the information has now been permanently removed.

In other words, your "deleted" kits can't be accessed easily but we have them under lock and key.....for a few years, until such time people forget about them and we can then sell them on.


"the information has now been permanently removed"


but you will note the email does not state they have been DELETED from ALL severs just REMOVED from the live site sever. They still have them on another hidden sever..........


This is all very disappointing, I trusted the site when I uploaded kits a few years ago and I even encouraged other people to do it. But at the same time I dont believe its only gedmatch, I believe it would be common practise and all the other dna sites to behave in the same way. Once they have your dna, they always have it even if you delete it.
Now, I am not a person that really cares that they are hoodwinking us all like this and I am not going to delete my kits. What I am worried about is that we will most likely over a period of time see less and less people doing dna and so for people like myself that love researching dna matches - we will hit a wall. Although, I believe it has already started, dna has hit its saturation point.

bellaf

I was under the impression that my details on Gedmatch were deleted but this morning I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Romania who claims he is a match. He had my relation's Gedmatch user name and my e-mail address. I wondered if anybody else been contacted recently on their "deleted" accounts?

stopthevoting

bellaf wrote: »

I was under the impression that my details on Gedmatch were deleted but this morning I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Romania who claims he is a match. He had my relation's Gedmatch user name and my e-mail address. I wondered if anybody else been contacted recently on their "deleted" accounts?

He may have got the match before you deleted it, and only got around to sending the email now.
If you only deleted your kit, and not your account, you would still be able to log in to see your account, and it should say "You have not uploaded any DNA kits".
If your account is completely deleted, if you wish, I can check if your number shows up, if you want to sent it by PM.
However, going by some of the previous posts here, it is worrying that we can't be sure whether or not they are retaining data that is supposed to be deleted.

srmf5

bellaf wrote: »

I was under the impression that my details on Gedmatch were deleted but this morning I received an e-mail from a gentleman in Romania who claims he is a match. He had my relation's Gedmatch user name and my e-mail address. I wondered if anybody else been contacted recently on their "deleted" accounts?

It is possible that he may have seen you as a match around the time of the 14th and 15th of January. My old deleted kits re-appeared on my GEDmatch account and were appearing as matches to people that time.

pinkypinky

Certainly I downloaded the full set of matches for all my kits before I deleted my kits/accounts!

bellaf

Thanks for the replies. I was able to get into the Gedmatch account and it seems that my matches were deleted alright but my mother's on the same account weren't. The man is a genuine match which is a relief. He was as surprised as I was when he realised his match was Irish! Thanks again!