Summary

In the movie, DNA determines your value. This has many consequences:

• A girl takes a stray hair to check out a guy she's interested in. If his DNA is no good, he's no good as a partner

• Our protagonist, who's parents decided to let grow naturally in the womb instead of letting the fetus be genetically perfected, has inferior DNA. This prevents him from getting any kind of job better than cleaning toilets. Even though it's illegal to force DNA collection, refusing to provide it becomes the same as a rejection (like SSNs now).

• Desperate people use the DNA of others to borrow identities so they can get things they otherwise couldn't

• All police searches, checks, investigations, etc involve checking everyone's DNA.

Lessons

By showing how segregated and shallow society becomes when DNA is used to establish social status, this movie is an excellent way to describe to others why DNA must remain something that is private just like your medical conditions and exact placement of all the moles on your body. These are just things that no one has the right to know.

Tags: DNA, Gattica

DNA might not be as strong evidence as you've been led to believe. Of course, if you can understand the math in this article, you're probably too smart to survive the jury selection process anyway. (H/T to schneier for the link) Tags: DNA, If You Only Knew, Public Confidence