Explore the 65-case collection

The series follows distinct security principles across human genomics, laboratory infrastructure, and non-human genetic resources. Case numbers identify records; they are not severity rankings. Evidence labels separate actual events from capabilities and hypothetical scenarios.

65 case studies

Consumer genetics and commercial data

003

23andMe 2023

Genetic Graph Amplification

officially disclosed
006

GEDmatch

Governance as a Security Control

well sourced
011

1Health / Vitagene FTC Enforcement

Deletion Integrity and Cloud Exposure

officially disclosed
012

GEDmatch 2020 Permissions Breach

Consent-State Integrity

officially disclosed
013

MyHeritage 2018 Breach: A Negative Control

Exposure Classification Accuracy

officially disclosed
030

FamilyTreeDNA And FBI Matching

Material Policy Change

well sourced
048

Ambry Genetics Email-Account Breach

Unstructured Communications Are Genetic Data Stores

officially disclosed
049

DNA Diagnostics Center 2021 Breach

Legacy-System Discovery Failure

officially disclosed
050

Veritas Genetics Portal Incident

Interface Exposure Must Be Scoped by Data Class

officially disclosed
051well sourced

Consent, ownership, and biospecimens

004

Havasupai

Purpose Drift / Secondary-Use Consent Failure

historical governance case
005

Henrietta Lacks / HeLa

Familial Genomic Consent

historical governance case
014

Moore v. Regents Of The University Of California

Biospecimen Control Is Not One Right

historical governance case
015

Washington University v. Catalona

Custody, Ownership, and Withdrawal Are Distinct

historical governance case
016

Greenberg v. Miami Children's Hospital

Participant Contribution and Commercialization Drift

historical governance case
017

Texas Newborn Blood Spots

Collection Necessity Does Not Authorize Unlimited Reuse

historical governance case
018

Kennewick Man / The Ancient One

Ancestral Genomic Governance

historical governance case
019

Chaco Canyon Ancient DNA

Community Standing Survives Temporal Distance

historical governance case
020

Nuu-Chah-Nulth Blood-Sample Return

Specimen Mobility and Community Control

historical governance case
026

Personal Genome Project Open Consent

Residual-Risk Transparency

historical governance case
061

Association For Molecular Pathology v. Myriad

Ownership Boundaries Around Genetic Information

historical governance case

Re-identification and inference

001

Stranger Visions

Unintentional Genetic Disclosure

well sourced
007

Forensic DNA phenotyping

Genetic Inference

well sourced
021

Icelandic Population Imputation

Population Imputation Spillover

well sourced
022

Homer Et Al. And Aggregate GWAS Data

Membership Inference from Summary Data

well sourced
023

Gymrek Surname Inference

Quasi-Identifier Fusion

well sourced
024well sourced
025

Genomic Beacon Re-Identification

Query Interface Leakage

well sourced

Law enforcement and forensic genetics

002

Golden State Killer

Kinship Leakage

well sourced
027

S. And Marper v. United Kingdom

Retention Proportionality

historical governance case
028

Maryland v. King

Collection Threshold and Purpose Expansion

historical governance case
029

Kuwait's Universal DNA Law

Population-Scale Collection Limits

historical governance case
031

Buckskin Girl / Marcia King

Restorative Identification

well sourced
032

Bear Brook Identifications

Multi-Person Kinship Reconstruction

well sourced
033

Angie Dodge / Christopher Tapp

Genetic Evidence as Corrective Control

well sourced

Integrity, provenance, and laboratory failure

034

The Phantom Of Heilbronn

Collection-Supply-Chain Contamination

well sourced
035

Adam Scott / LGC Forensics Contamination

Workflow Carryover and Contextual Review

well sourced
036

Lukis Anderson And Secondary DNA Transfer

Presence of DNA Is Not Proof of Presence

well sourced

Discrimination and institutional use

037

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Genetic Testing

Genetic Testing as Institutional Power

officially disclosed
038

Lowe v. Atlas Logistics

Genetic Protection Is Not Limited to Disease Risk

historical governance case
039

Fabricut And The First EEOC GINA Settlement

Family History Is Genetic Information

officially disclosed
040

Norman-Bloodsaw v. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

General Consent Is Not Specific Consent

historical governance case

Reproductive and heritable genetics

041

The He Jiankui CRISPR-Baby Experiment

Heritable-Edit Governance Failure

well sourced
042

Donald Cline Fertility Fraud

Reproductive Provenance Fraud

well sourced
043

Jan Karbaat And The Dutch Donor Registry Failure

Genetic Auditability of Reproductive Systems

well sourced
044

CHA Fertility Center Embryo Mix-Up

Reproductive Sample Identity Integrity

alleged

Genomic cybersecurity and infrastructure

008

Genomic laboratory ransomware

Genomic Infrastructure Compromise

threat model
045

Illumina Local Run Manager Vulnerabilities

Instrument Software Is Part of the Genome

officially disclosed
046officially disclosed
047

DNA-Encoded Malware Proof Of Concept

Cross-Domain Input Validation

well sourced

Pathogen and research-data governance

052

GISAID Access And Pandemic-Data Governance

Repository Governance Is Availability Security

disputed
053

Deleted Early SARS-CoV-2 Sequences

Scientific Deletion Is Not Always Erasure

well sourced
054well sourced

Genetic resources, agriculture, and biodiversity

010

Agricultural genetic resources

Genetic Resource Resilience

well sourced
055

Svalbard Seed Vault Water Intrusion

Environmental Assumptions Expire

well sourced
056

ICARDA Aleppo And The First Svalbard Withdrawal

Genetic-Resource Disaster Recovery

well sourced
057

The Vavilov Collection During The Siege Of Leningrad

Human Custodianship as a Security Control

well sourced
058

Pavlovsk Experiment Station Development Threat

Land-Use Governance Can Destroy Genetic Assets

well sourced
059

The Enola Bean Patent

Genetic Resource Misappropriation

historical governance case
060

Bowman v. Monsanto

Control of Replicating Genetic Technology

historical governance case
062well sourced
063

The Irish Potato Famine And Crop Uniformity

Diversity Is a Security Control

well sourced
064

Digital Sequence Information And The Cali Fund

Benefit Sharing After Digitization

well sourced

State surveillance and population security

009

DOJ bulk genomic data

Genomic Sovereignty / Strategic Data Security

officially disclosed
065

Mass DNA Collection In Xinjiang And Tibet

Genetic Surveillance of Populations

alleged

Compare the evidence

Use the database to inspect scope and uncertainty across the collection.

Genetic Security Incident Database

How to read a case

Start with the security principle and event summary. These explain why the case is included. Then look at the affected asset: a family-tree profile is different from a raw genotype file, and both differ from a stored blood sample. The distinction helps put dramatic headlines in proportion.

The evidence label tells you what kind of support exists. It is not a severity grade. A well-documented policy announcement may have no victims to count, while a disputed event may still raise serious questions. Read the limitation section before repeating a case as an example of a broader claim.

Choose a starting point

For an introduction to collection without intentional disclosure, begin with Stranger Visions. For the consequences of genetic relationships, compare the Golden State Killer investigation with the 23andMe incident. Both involve connections between people, but the access pathways and purposes differ substantially.

Havasupai and HeLa are useful together when thinking about time: what changes when specimens remain available and new research becomes possible? The NIST scenario shifts the focus to laboratory operations. The agricultural case then tests whether the same framework still makes sense when the asset is a resource collection rather than a person's profile.

Reading across these cases is more informative than sorting them into a single ranking. Ask which part of the security problem changes when the asset, purpose, or setting changes. That comparison is the main reason to use a shared case format.

Cornerstone reading

Evidence and classification methodology