Genome re-identification in the news
January 17, 2013
Since its founding, the Personal Genome Project has only accepted participants who understand and acknowledge re-identification as a potential risk. This “open consent” approach arose from our argument that privacy may be over-promised and that re-identification is increasingly possible as technology advances.
Dramatic progress in re-identification has been published today in Science (Gymrek et al.), and is reported on in Wired (“Scientists Discover How to Identify People From ‘Anonymous’ Genomes”). Wired’s article features some quotes from George Church and highlights our project.
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Personal Genome Project Blog 
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/health/search-of-dna-sequences-reveals-full-identities.html
It is my feeling that the anticipated scientific advances to result from analysis of 10^5 genomes and phenomes far outweighs any identification of participants that, it sounds like, motivated hackers might come up with. I think most PGP participants feel the same. I do agree that removal of nonessential data (precise date of birth, place of residence) might be worth considering.