What steps does the Genographic Project take to keep my results confidential?
The results of the Genographic Project can be accessed only by you or by someone else to whom you give your randomly-generated Genographic Project ID number. No one can link your name or other contact information to the sample that you provided to the Genographic Project unless they have your Genographic Project ID number. If you choose to request further genetic testing from Family Tree DNA for purposes other than the Genographic Project, you will use your Genographic Project ID number to permit Family Tree DNA to access the sample of cheek cells you provided. Family Tree DNA has committed to National Geographic that it will protect the confidentiality of your Genographic Project ID number and that it will safeguard and use the number only for purposes of the further testing that you have requested. However, National Geographic may disclose participant information when doing so is required by law. National Geographic will discard samples at the conclusion of the Genographic Project.
The results of the Genographic Project identify ancestral migration information only. They cannot be used to identify someone in criminal proceedings. The results of the Genographic Project Public Participation Kits can be accessed only by the respective participant or by someone else to whom the participant gives their randomly generated Genographic Project ID (GPID) number. No one can link a participant’s name or other contact information to the sample that was provided to the Genographic Project unless they have the participant’s GPID. To help protect the privacy of participants, the project does not associate any personally identifiable information about a participant with this randomly assigned password. As noted in the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of our website, National Geographic may disclose participant information when doing so is required by law. However, because National Geographic does not retain a participant’s randomly generated GPID number, National Geographic
