Changes Affecting Ordering Kits for Others

[loobster]

It used to be - if you ordered and paid for a Kit for someone else, you were assured access until and unless the person repaid you.
I see no such promise in the current Terms of Service.
Have we lost that protection on new tests we order for others?
On the tests we ordered previously, as well?
Or??


I do not recall seeing any announcement in the "Announcements and New Features" Thread about that being changed.
Nor about a new Consent Form that is now being required to do any processing (see http://forums.familytreedna.com/show...11&postcount=5 )
Nor about any "Confirmation Page" that now appears when one first logs in to a new Account.
Were any of those changes announced here?
Elsewhere?

I also see no indication of a date on the Current Terms - does anyone know when they went into effect?



The prior version of the Terms of Service - currently available at https://www.familytreedna.com/legal/...rvice/05222018 included:
3rd Party Payments and Account Access
If a person consents to testing that is paid for by another party, that person is consenting to allow the other party, whether an individual or a group project, access to their results and information, even if they order and pay for additional testing later. The purchaser of a test cannot deny access to the account and raw results of the test taker. The test taker cannot deny access to the purchaser of the test without reimbursement of the purchase price.

Should the test taker no longer want to allow the purchasing individual or group to have access their account, the test taker may reimburse the purchasing individual or group the full amount of the purchase price to return sole access to that account to the test taker only. Once the test taker has provided documentation to Family Tree DNA that they have provided a full reimbursement of the purchase to the original payor, we will be able to return access to test taker alone. Please note that although a test taker may reclaim ownership of the record and DNA stored with Family Tree DNA, they cannot undo or retrieve any prior data downloads or sharing outside of Family Tree DNA.

[Fern]

I also see no indication of a date on the Current Terms - does anyone know when they went into effect?

Sometime in the second half of May ... and probably because of GDPR.

I printed out the old Ts&Cs in mid May to take to my cousin in Australia. Shortly after I returned (on 25 May, the day that GDPR came into effect) I discovered there were new Ts&Cs. There must have been a notification about it at the time, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed. But I can't remember where.

[loobster]

Ah - then perhaps the "05222018" in the URL for the Prior Info is the last date (ie 22 May 2018) it applied - not the first date for that version.

Does anybody know - if you ordered and paid for a Kit for someone else, will they still assure you access until and unless the person repays you or ??

Any comments on the other changes?

[Fern]

Does anybody know - if you ordered and paid for a Kit for someone else, will they still assure you access until and unless the person repays you or ??

The current Terms of Service and Privacy Statement are silent on this. You'd have to ask FTDNA ... preferably in writing

What you've mentioned was in the previous Privacy Statement. It said, under the sub-heading 3rd Party Payments and Account Access (headings and sub-headings weren't numbered in that version of the Privacy Statement):

"If a person consents to testing that is paid for by another party, that person is consenting to allow the other party, whether an individual or a group project, access to their results and information, even if they order and pay for additional testing later. The purchaser of a test cannot deny access to the account and raw results of the test taker. The test taker cannot deny access to the purchaser of the test without reimbursement of the purchase price.

Should the test taker no longer want to allow the purchasing individual or group to have access their account, the test taker may reimburse the purchasing individual or group the full amount of the purchase price to return sole access to that account to the test taker only. Once the test taker has provided documentation to Family Tree DNA that they have provided a full reimbursement of the purchase to the original payor, we will be able to return access to test taker alone. Please note that although a test taker may reclaim ownership of the record and DNA stored with Family Tree DNA, they cannot undo or retrieve any prior data downloads or sharing outside of Family Tree DNA."

I've just read through the current TOS and Privacy Statement. The closest either of them comes to a statement about "ownership" is this, in part 7.C. of the Privacy Statement: "Your DNA Data belongs to you." But "you" isn't defined anywhere - not in the TOS, not in the Privacy Statement.

My guess is FTDNA decided it's not worth covering the situation where Person A pays for the kit and runs the account but Person B provides the sample - maybe they didn't get to hear of any cases where the people involved got disputatious, and then reached a solution based on the wording of the Privacy Statement.

I manage a small number of kits (which I paid for) for wider family members. They don't care about the inner workings of dna; they just ask to be told if I find anything of interest. But I can see it might be a worry if you have a "stroppy" tester or a difficult relationship with them. In that case, I'd open a request and ask for clarification.

PS: at least we now know who owns the dna. That wasn't at all clear in the previous version: you had to infer it.

[liverman]

Alignment with Genetic Genealogy Standards

If the original policy included a process where the agreement of the TESTER was documented, then that is a case where the tester has waived their basic right to the ownership of their own data.

The Genetic Genealogy Standards (http://www.geneticgenealogystandards.com/), published by genetic genealogists in 2015, states "Genealogists believe that testers have an inalienable right to their own DNA test results and raw data, even if someone other than the tester purchased the DNA test." (Standard #3)

In the original policy, it appears FTDNA was implementing a variant on that standard where the tester waived that right. Perhaps FTDNA decided this waiver was not sufficiently well documented and put them in the position of enforcing a private contract between two individuals (the tester and the purchaser).

I support the Genetic Genealogy Standards and I am pleased that FTDNA's new policies are in alignment with Standards.


Greg Liverman
Pinewood Genealogy