DO YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE A RIGHT TO YOUR GENETIC CODE? When a woman gets her genome sequenced, questions about privacy arise for her identical twin sister. “Patients must give their informed consent before undergoing whole-genome sequencing or any other genetic test. But there are no laws that restrict what patients can do with their own genetic information, or that require patients’ family members to be involved in the consent process. This raises questions about who owns an individual’s genetic code, since family members share many genetic traits and may harbor the same genetic abnormalities associated with certain diseases.”