Remember That DNA You Gave 23andMe?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/09/23andme-dna-data-privacy-sale/680057/?gift=wt4z9SQjMLg5sOJy5QVHIsr2bGh2jSlvoXV6YXblSdQ&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

20 Comments

  1. coconuts_and_lime on

    Never did that thing because I was afraid something like this would eventually happen. I belong to several minorities that are targeted by hate, there is no way I’m just giving some company abroad the whole list of them.

    My family thinks I’m being paranoid

  2. thisguypercents on

    I cant believe people *PAID* to give this company their DNA. And did 23andme even give a curtesy pop?

  3. I’m so torn by this, yes, this sucks, and I’m not happy about that.

    At the same time, I was adopted and had 0 health history. A 23&me test is the only reason I found out I have a super rare disease and was able to start treatment to insure I don’t die by 60 and hopefully have a long healthy life.

  4. I didn’t use 23andme but I did another service mostly to see potential medical issues in the future and to see where my ancestry is from. I was really on the fence about it because of the possibility of it being used for bad purposes at some point so while I still used it, I did not give them identifying information so theoretically they have my DNA but wouldn’t know it’s mine unless compared with another sample. Or at least I hope…

  5. CandidateMore1620 on

    There are a lot of things you can decline as far as using your sample for other stuff (research data etc). But yea it’s reminding me a lot of how ancestry.com went down

  6. Everyone in both my family and my wife’s family did some form of a commercial DNA test over the last few years. They tried to get us in on the “fun,” but we refused to do it and I cited this exact reason, but they all thought I was overreacting.

    Gonna send them this article because I fucking love saying, “I told ya so.”

  7. If an insurance company denies your benefit due to bio data they did not gather directly from you, they are asking for a class action lawsuit.

    Any insurance company who bases their decision on sold or discarded data will not be able to prove the data belongs to that specific person, and that it was not faked or doctored. They need to get their own blood samples, and that’s exactly what they do.

    An insurance company would have to be at least as stupid and dishonest as Elon Musk to try to base any part of their business model on data that was essentially “dumpster dived”.

  8. i never used this company and i never would. its mostly because i’ve seen it tear family’s apart. a good friend of mine had a family testing with the father surprising everyone turns out 2 of the 5 children weren’t his now i know why his wife was so hesitant and sketchy about it. but yea aslo selling genetic data has always been a concern when i look at thigns like this and the product is cheap its most likely you are the product.

  9. ValveinPistonCat on

    I remember specifically not giving them my DNA because 23 and me was obviously a fad that was inevitably going to die off and the only thing they’d have left worth selling was their customers’ data, and the most likely customers are probably the pharmaceutical or insurance companies.

  10. ElevatorFriendly648 on

    Even if you do not have a account if a enough 2nd, 3rd or even 4th cousins do. Your own dna is at risk.
    Look up how they caught the Golden State Killer