Recent technological advances have made it possible to interrogate human phenotypes at a previously unimaginable scale. But, as with any collection of personal data, it is important to ensure individual privacy. Indeed, previous investigations into the ability to discern an individual's participation in genetic studies have led to the withdrawal of allele frequencies from publicly available results. In this issue, Im et al. probe deeper, questioning how much private information can be extracted from typically reported statistics, such as regression coefficients or p values. Through a series of analyses, the authors determine that regression coefficients can, in some cases, provide just as much information as allele frequencies, thus creating a situation in which even statistics that were thought to be "safe" can in fact identify participants and their medical history.
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