Genomic Privacy (Dagstuhl Seminar 15431)

Abstract

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 15431 "Genomic Privacy". The current rise of personalized medicine is based on increasing affordability and availability of individual genome sequencing. Impressive recent advances in genome sequencing have ushered a variety of revolutionary applications in modern healthcare and epidemiology. In particular, better understanding of the human genome as well as its relationship to diseases and response to treatments promise improvements in preventive and personalized healthcare. However, because of the human genome's highly sensitive nature, this progress raises important privacy and ethical concerns, which simply cannot be ignored. A digitized genome represents one of the most sensitive types of human (personal) identification data. Even worse, a genome contains information about its owner’s close relatives. The Dagstuhl seminar 15431 brought together computer scientists, bioinformaticians, geneticists and ethical experts to discuss the key security and privacy challenges imposed by the storage of large volumes of genetic data.