Millions of people’s DNA up for sale as 23andMe goes bankrupt

15 comments

1. It’s just crazy to me people would willingly give their DNA to a company. You have no idea what they’re going to do with it. And even if you totally trust them, what if they get hacked? 

2. This is why I have never done such a test despite me being very interested in it, I was mentally going back and forth about it.

   Why the duck should I care about my genetic information being sold, you ask?

   One fear is that my health insurance will get expensive because some providers might refuse me, based on the fact I have some genetic dispositions (I don’t know of any, this is just hypothetical) and they bought the data.

   Right now this is very unlikely that this will happen, but I simply don’t know how the situation will be in the future.

3. Bankrupcies and companies being bought up, is the reason why you should never let any company have access to your sensitive information, unless you are ready for that information to be available to everybody.

   Even if a company has the best of intentions, hackers are always looking to make a profit from your sensitive data.

4. No it isn’t.

   [https://www.23andme.com/en-eu/legal/privacy/full-version/](https://www.23andme.com/en-eu/legal/privacy/full-version/)

   **Commonly owned entities, affiliates and change of ownership:** If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction and **this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity**. 

   What will happen in the long run is unknown, but Anne Wojcicki is trying to retain control of the estate just so that the data isn’t spread or sold to anyone.

5. If this information is “sold” , then it’s going to be a very specific bio-engineered wars . I couldn’t believe it when I saw that in No time to die (James bond movie) , but now it kinda makes sense

6. While having your genomic dna up for grabs sounds terrible, 23andme maybe sequences like 0.1% of the genome.
   Sequences your whole genome costs in the 100s of dollars in reagents alone.

7. I didn’t know my dad and he didn’t know his dad. So I’m very curious about my heritage/history. But not curious enough to send my dna to something like this

8. It’s just crazy to me that they are allowed to sell private informations about their customers.

   This would be totally forbidden in the EU in any situations by our data privacy laws.

9. My dad and his siblings all did this even though we’re aggressively Irish/German heritage on that side (learned that we are aggressively Irish/German quelle surprise) I was annoyed when he did it to “learn our heritage” and now I’m pissed since even though I didn’t do one of those, because such a close family member did it, 23andMe has my genetic information.

10. All this paranoia, then why trust banks then? Or credit card companies? Or your doctor? They have your personal information and health records. How many of you have plugged in those devices that read your driving data for a 10% discount on your car insurance?

    Insurance companies always win.

    If any of you think that you’re going to get cloned or a super virus is going to be made that is custom tailored to unalive you. I’ve got some aluminum foil hats I can sell you.

11. The government and corporations that run the world already have every single data point they could want on any of us. Your DNA is almost immaterial tbh. They have enough data to know your medical history already.

    I did a DNA test thinking it would be a good way to know my medical history bc my mother was adopted. I ended up becoming close with her biological family through Ancestry. I also discovered some shocking things regarding my paternal DNA that I am still reckoning with. If you don’t want to have your DNA tested that is fine. But there are huge advantages to this testing for millions of people. To me the reward outweighed the risk significantly.

12. I remember when people insulted me to say that this would eventually happen.

    No wonder this kind of companies is not allowed in many countries.

    People are truly stupid, especially for dubious results provided by this line of work.

13. Yea, someone please clone my dumbass, maybe I get a version that’s happy.

    Worst case scenario, my clone becomes a US president, standards seem low these days.

14. Some people under criminal suspicion got arrested as they found a match from a DNA test from a family member. I wonder what AI with a specific harmful intent could do with this kind of mega data.

15. MMW… some health insurance company will buy it

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