In today’s society, digital information provides the framework for every aspect of our daily lives from school records, housing records, and economic history. With the advent of computerized data as a way to facilitate the storing and accessing of information, we have not only created a footprint for what we do, but a virtual genetic code for who we are as individuals. In a recent article in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society’s flagship publication, Computer, Dr. Hye-Chung Kum, an associate professor with the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health argues that this data, or our social genome, could be used in new ways to help better understand the concerns of a population and how to best meet their health and societal needs.