David Flowers
Department of video game development and design, Old Dominion University
CYSE-200: Cybersecurity, Technology & Society
Dr. Christopher Bowman
March 29, 2026

DNA digitization is a tool that can help many in the medical field. This type of technology is able to stop other people from getting hurt by serious medical conditions, even finding cure’s to fatal illnesses. The problem with DNA digitization is that if a hacker gets a hold of your DNA they then are able to impersonate you and it would be near impossible to stop them since unlike a SSN you cannot change your DNA. DNA digitization risk’s do not outweigh the potential life saving that it has the ability to do. The reason for this is because without the technology a person would die or be hurt almost significantly, but with the technology that person will be healthier and although there is a chance that their digital DNA might get stolen at least that person is alive to try and do something about it.

 Corporations and workplace environments should not use DNA to see if a person’s genetic makeup make a person a great fit for a role. This can lead to discrimination happen by having employers hiring only those that could be seen as genetically good for the job. for instance if a corporation were to hack into a hospital’s database of digitized DNA they could try to see who would be a better person for their workplace instead of actually looking at a person’s resume.

The permanent nature of biological data changes the way that we should think about human factor of security since it is near impossible to change it. If a hacker were to get ahold of a persons biological data they would have access to almost everything that the person owns, but with traditional digital passwords if a hacker can be stopped by changing said password. Since biological data cannot be changed, it would be near impossible for that person to be able to secure anything. thus the new human factor of security would be a persons biological data granting access to their bank account, or hackers if they were to gain that biological data.