Last week, amid state hearings on this year’s controversial “On the Same Page” program for new freshmen and transfers at UC Berkeley, the campus announced that it would no longer be providing individualized DNA test results to the program’s participants.

The change came after a decision by the state Department of Public Health, which determined that the information contained in the individual test results could affect students’ health decisions.

As a result, UC Berkeley would have had to adhere to standards such as having students obtain approval from their physicians before submitting their samples and using state and federal approved labs for the actual testing.

While the general uproar over the testing itself seems misplaced, those running the program should have reasonably foreseen the need to adhere to state standards in the testing and might have done well in taking more pains to do so, including possibly putting off the program until a later year.

However, the fact remains that the information being collected was in no way invasive or harmful, providing students with information on their abilities to metabolize alcohol, tolerate lactose and absorb folic acid. The attributes being analyzed were intentionally innocuous and not disease-related.

Results were to be kept completely anonymous an would be identified only by a barcode.

Given the structure and voluntary nature of the program, it is unreasonable to shield students from the information they choose to receive about themselves.

Any student who did not wish to obtain the analysis was under no pressure or obligation to provide a sample.

We feel it indicative of a heightened level of paranoia that information included in this study is considered so deeply personal that it cannot be released, even to those who have in effect requested it.

Even in the worst case scenario, it is hard to imagine what harm could be done with the testing data.

Meanwhile, students are deprived of what could have been a personalized and engaging learning experience.