They can't. I'm not a lawyer, but in my opinion: many of the people that have died were enrolled in a study, or only tested for "health reports". Either way, there's patient or study subject confidentiality. Not just HIPAA - studies usually have even tighter confidentiality requirements. Even contacting a family member would be viewed as a breach of that confidentiality. So, yes - when you send messages to that unresponsive cousin, you may be talking to yourself. On 10/27/15 8:41 PM, genealogy-dna-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > I ask that there be an option that the DNA testing organization can search > for the person and if it finds out that the person who submitted their DNA > sample is now dead, then at our expense we can find out who that person > was, pay for the upgrade and submit it Family Finder and to gedmatch. We > can safely assume that anybody who submitted their DNA sample wants to find > their relatives and therefore would have agreed to this were they still > alive. > > Sam Sloan

I agree that you are not a lawyer. For the rest of it, you are incorrect. The privilege of patient confidentiality disappears once the person dies. You can report that a person died of cancer, but while he is still alive you cannot report that he has cancer. I am confident that it would be completely legal to reveal the identities of these people after they have died. Of course, they would have to check carefully to make sure that they are really deceased. Since a high percentage of the people in these groups are elderly it will not be long before the majority of the people in these groups will have passed, but their test results will have value for those of us still alive. Sam Sloan On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Brooks Family via < genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com> wrote: > They can't. > > I'm not a lawyer, but in my opinion: many of the people that have died > were enrolled in a study, or only tested for "health reports". Either > way, there's patient or study subject confidentiality. Not just HIPAA - > studies usually have even tighter confidentiality requirements. Even > contacting a family member would be viewed as a breach of that > confidentiality. > > So, yes - when you send messages to that unresponsive cousin, you may be > talking to yourself. > > > On 10/27/15 8:41 PM, genealogy-dna-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > > I ask that there be an option that the DNA testing organization can > search > > for the person and if it finds out that the person who submitted their > DNA > > sample is now dead, then at our expense we can find out who that person > > was, pay for the upgrade and submit it Family Finder and to gedmatch. We > > can safely assume that anybody who submitted their DNA sample wants to > find > > their relatives and therefore would have agreed to this were they still > > alive. > > > > Sam Sloan > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > GENEALOGY-DNA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >