Yves Moreau

Let's take a study in which citizens' position data collected from smartphones is made anonymously available to scientists by the network operator, for example to research traffic flows in cities. But even if this data is provided anonymously, it is quite easy to assign the data to specific people. I just have to look at where the cell phones are at night and most of the day. Then I know where a particular person lives and where he works. These are meaningful correlations. And then I also know that Mr. X occasionally visits his lover on the way home. There are often simple mechanisms with which information about specific people can be derived from seemingly anonymous data. In medical research, the connections cannot be described so clearly. But even there, there are traps lurking everywhere that you have to think about.

The Uyghur people, as well as the Kazaks and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang would be interesting to study from an ancestry and genetics perspective because they have lived for centuries at the crossroads of where the East meets the West along the famous Silk Road trading route. But where Chinese studies raise red flags is in the inordinate number of forensic genetics papers involving Uyghurs and Tibetans. Uyghurs makes up 1% of the Chinese population, yet Moreau said that out of 500 Chinese genetics research papers that his team looked at, 1-out-of-5 papers involved the genetic data of Uyghurs in some way. Additionally, among the papers that Moreau identified, most of the papers have a member of the Chinese public security bureau or some other law-enforcement entity as one of the co-authors.

CBHD Research Analyst Heather Zeiger interviews Yves Moreau, professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, Belgium. His research is located at the interface between artificial intelligence and genetics, focusing in particular on mass surveillance technology.

La bioéthique ne se résume pas à cocher rapidement des éléments sur une liste. Elle concerne des principes éthiques fondamentaux, tels que ne pas nuire aux individus et créer une valeur ajoutée pour leur bien-être. Il est également important de trouver un équilibre entre ce que l’on pense pouvoir résoudre grâce à une technologie – comme confondre les auteurs d’un crime – et ses aspects négatifs potentiels, tels que le contrôle accru sur des groupes minoritaires. Nous devons veiller à ce que les avantages ne profitent pas principalement à un camp, la majorité, au détriment des autres. Cela pose un problème éthique.

In the future, I want to tackle these issues by collaborating with experts both in STEM fields and in the social sciences to promote awareness of these issues and develop tools to educate students, researchers, and people with a scientific background on these issues. Influencing the culture and attitudes of people developing technology provides enormous leverage. I am incredibly encouraged by the interactions I have with my students, who are from a generation that is unfortunately faced with the huge challenges of climate change and environmental sustainability and realizes that business as usual is not an option. They absolutely crave such intellectual tools that will empower them to shape a fairer and more sustainable future.

“It was a relief to see that the ethically questionable articles were finally retracted,” Yves Moreau, a professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, told The Epoch Times in an email. “It is also frustrating that such a process took almost three years, while four to six months must be enough to carry out the necessary verifications and make a decision,” Mr. Moreau added.

À l’interface entre informatique et biologie, Yves Moreau se dit impressionné par la place de la réflexion éthique dans la communauté de génétique humaine, malgré la lourdeur administrative des évaluations : « Alors que mes collègues européens qui collectent des données cliniques sont englués dans des processus nécessaires mais pénibles pour obtenir l’approbation des comités d’éthique, observer qu’aucun contrôle n’est effectué en génétique médico-légale en Chine est extrêmement frustrant ».

Der belgische Bioinformatiker Yves Moreau, die Dresdner Psychologin Anne Gärtner sowie eine Forschungsinitiative aus Kalifornien sind am Donnerstag mit dem Einstein Foundation Award ausgezeichnet worden. Die Preise wurden am Abend im Bode-Museum von der Einstein Stiftung Berlin vergeben. Sie sind mit insgesamt 500.000 Euro dotiert.

Ook pr. dr. Yves Moreau (electrical engineering bio-informaticus KU Leuven) liet enkele reflecties uit zijn vakgebied optekenen waarbij hij de huidige AI-hype in perspectief plaatste. Iedereen herinnert zich eenzelfde hype toen AI van IBM in de vorm van de supercomputer Watson (gelanceerd in 2007) een industriële revolutie zou ontketenen en fikse groei voor IBM zou genereren. Niets van die twee voorspellingen kwam uit. Intussen stelde IBM zijn visie over Watson flink naar beneden bij en klinkt het een pak bescheidener.

Ruim tweehonderd huisartsen, specialisten en andere zorgverleners woonden afgelopen weekend een medisch congres over artificiële intelligentie in de zorg bij in CC Westrand Dilbeek, in organisatie van de Huisartsenkringen Zennevallei, Pajottenland en Noordrand. Tal van experten gingen met elkaar in debat, zoals Guy Nagels (afdelingshoofd Neurologie – UZ Brussel), Yves Moreau (Bio-informaticus – KU Leuven), Sigrid Sterckx (moraalwetenschapper UGent), Stefaan Callens (KU Leuven en advocaat) en Jeroen van den Brandt, voorzitter van Domus Medica.

In 2016 kreeg Moreaus interesse in bio-ethiek een extra dimensie. Een collega maakte hem attent op het feit dat er in Koeweit een wet was aangenomen die toeliet dat van elke inwoner en elke bezoeker een DNA-staal zou worden afgenomen dat in een databank van de politie zou belanden. ‘Het doel, het oplossen van misdaden, leek misschien nobel,’ stelt hij, ‘maar de vraag drong zich op hoe ver je kunt gaan in het opslaan van gegevens van mensen waar je ook heel veel andere informatie uit kunt afleiden.’

Tellingly, several of the researchers were associated with public security authorities in the PRC, a fact that “voids any notion of free informed consent,” Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, who focuses on DNA analysis, has said.

M. Moreau s’est intéressé dans ce contexte à la publication dans des revues scientifiques occidentales de dizaines d’études émanant de Chine qui visaient clairement, selon lui, à « développer et valider des méthodes d’analyse d’ADN pour la police ». En les publiant, les revues se rendent en quelque sorte complices des dérapages pouvant en découler, note l’universitaire.

Several of the researchers are associated with public security authorities in China, a fact that “voids any notion of free informed consent”, said Yves Moreau, a professor of engineering at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, who focuses on DNA analysis. Moreau first raised concerns about the papers with Hart, MGGM’s editor-in-chief, in March 2021.

All the retracted papers were published between 2019 and 2021 in Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine (MGGM) – a journal by the American multinational publishing company Wiley. Bioethicist and geneticist Yves Moreau from Belgium first raised concerns of these papers in March 2021 to MGGM’s editor-in-chief Suzanne Hart. More than 50 papers in different journals are reportedly still under investigation two years after Dr Moreau first flagged them.

Interview from 34'27''

"ANDE is a good illustration of the fact that it’s not just Thermo Fisher. This is basically a pervasive problem. It’s a very special moment where there needs to be a political decision." Yves Moreau , a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and an expert on China’s use of genetic technology

The university’s publishing arm has begun internal investigations into three studies, including one based on DNA collected from the oppressed Uighur population in Xinjiang by scientists linked to the Chinese police. The research has been published online by Oxford University Press (OUP) in a journal that receives financial support from China’s ministry of justice.