Protecting Your Privacy on GEDmatch

Recently, I posted my misgivings about law enforcement agencies using GEDmatch to solve cold cases. In that post, I said I would follow up on privacy options for GEDmatch users. I'll also be demonstrating how to delete various kinds of data from the site, for those who feel they are best served by that option.

Public, Private, and Research Settings

Up until this point, my main method of finding and interacting with cousin matches has been the One-to-Many match list. This would also be the primary means that law enforcement agents and their representatives would use to find me on GEDmatch. So the best way to keep them from being able to do that would be to change the privacy options of my match data.

• Public - allows anyone on GEDmatch to see you kit number in their match list, and to run comparison utilities across the site to establish relationships. Is the best option if you don't care who accesses your data on GEDmatch and how they use it.
• Private - removes your kit number from the match list. Doesn't allow for anyone to use your kit number in the comparison utilities on GEDmatch, even if they know it. Is the best option if you want to establish a completely invisible presence on GEDmatch to see your match list, but have no intentions to communicate with anyone there or to use their analysis utilities.
• Research - removes your kit number from the match list, but allows those who already have your kit number to use other GEDmatch utilities to analyze your data. Is the best option if you want to control who has access to your kit numbers and how they use them.

I weighed each of these options and chose the one that most closely reflects how I want my data to be used, and what I want my relationship with GEDmatch users to look like going forward.

My New Approach to Using GEDmatch

I want to continue having access to GEDmatch and the tools and data it offers. I'm not interested in removing my data or locking myself out of the comparison utilities that GEDmatch offers. The Research option, therefore, is the best one that fits my needs for now. As long as my data is present and available in any form on GEDmatch, I know I can't ultimately stop someone who tries hard enough from getting access to my data. But I can make it sufficiently inconvenient for the wrong people who don't want to go that far out of their way. My hope is that this will be an effective deterrent to people I don't want to have access to my data.

Instead, I'm choosing to make my kit number available in places where family and other genealogists are most likely to see it. By making it available on my profiles with testing companies, social media, and in the Facebook groups for the surnames and locations where I research, I'm still allowing others to use GEDmatch with me. Rather than relying on the One-to-Many match list as the source of those connections, I can create those opportunities where they're most likely to produce real results.

Rather than passively waiting for connections to happen, this approach puts the onus on me to go and make those connections myself. In conjunction with all the other tools available to me, this seems like the best option for me going forward with GEDmatch. And if that ever changes, I won't hesitate to make more adjustments.