Genetic testing company 23AndMe, a Silicon Valley beloved, once a $6 billion Silicon Valley darling, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection on Sunday, preparing to sell the business. CEO Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded the company in 2006, resigned after months of unsuccessful attempts to make the company private.
When uncertainty about the company’s future peaks, all eyes lie in the deep personal and potentially valuable data data 23andMe holds. Privacy advocates have two risks to leave genetic data to any institution. Although organizations have long warned that they may not be able to protect it, they can also hand over customer data to new entities that they don’t trust and don’t choose.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta reminded consumers Alerts On Friday, Californians have the legal right to ask the organization to delete data. Customers in 23 other states and countries and countries have little or no similar protection, but also have the right to remove health data in the My Health My Data Act in Washington and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations. Regardless of residency, all 23andMe customers should consider downloading what they want to store from the service and try to delete the information.
“This situation is that unless you live in California or Washington, the US still has no national health privacy laws, and it doesn’t protect your rights,” said Andrea Downing, co-founder of The Light Collective, a patient-driven digital rights nonprofit. “On the other hand, we continue to evolve our understanding of how genetic information is valuable, but we also have our own vulnerabilities.”
John Verdy, Senior Vice President of Future Policy at Privacy Forum, said the new owner of 23AndMe can modify the company’s privacy policy and new data collection for new customers, but data already collected from current customers is subject to existing terms. “We have a legal obligation to cover information collected under current policies,” he says.
Still, researchers emphasize that in practice, such a large-scale migration creates real data exposures outside of 23andMe customer controls. “In my opinion, these privacy policies are not worth the paper they are printed, especially in the context of venture capital and private equity space acquisitions,” says Ken White, a longtime security researcher and data privacy advocate. “For ordinary people using these services, you’re pretty much on your own. My advice is to request that you delete your data as soon as possible.”
To delete genetic data via the 23andMe website, log in and then go setting In your profile. Scroll to 23andMe Data And click View. At this point you can choose to download a copy of your genetic information. Next, scroll to Delete the data Click Delete data permanently. Once you start the process, you will receive an email from 23andMe and confirm it. Click on the email link to complete the deletion process. Additionally, if you previously allowed the company to maintain it, you can instruct 23andMe to destroy the biological samples used to extract DNA data. I’m going setting after that Likes.
