Privacy breach at Gedmatch?

This looks like the end of the road for my subscription with Gedmatch (www.gedmatch.com). DNA guru Debbie Kennet has just posted on Twitter (@DebbieKennett) that there has "been a major privacy breach at GEDmatch. It appears that all kits, regardless of user preferences, have been opted in to law enforcement matching... The site now appears to be down completely". Others are reporting a similar find.

Sorry, but if this is the case, it is just not acceptable.You don't offer people a choice to opt in or out, and then flout that shortly after no matter what was decided. Even if there is an error here, I am not as confident about this site as I once was.

UPDATE: I have managed to gain access, and my Police status had a red cross through it (i.e. permission not given), but I have no idea if my account was briefly compromised and then switched back without me knowing. There is no statement from Verogen as yet. I have tried to delete my account and got the message: "The gedmatch site is down for maintance. Currently no ETA for availability."

(With thanks to Debbie)

UPDATE: See https://thednageek.com/gedmatch-goes-haywire/ and http://mstarnesai.com/worlds-largest-open-source-dna-registry-suffers-outage-and-possible-data-exposure/ for more.

Chris

My next 5 week Scottish Research Online course starts August 31st - see https://www.pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is now out, also available are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.