Privacy Protection for Genomic Data: Current Techniques and Challenges

Abstract

Human genomic data is a treasure that holds rich information for bioresearch. The share of human genomic data is necessary for the continuous progress of biology, medicine and health research. However, human genomic data also contains private information of individuals. Human genomic data may be maliciously used to find out the genetic tendency for a disease, and even to track descendents and relatives of the individual. In this paper, we review some techniques for protecting privacy in sharing human genomic data and discuss problems and challenges.