this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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469
Millions of people’s DNA up for sale as 23andMe goes bankrupt (www.telegraph.co.uk)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
41 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Summary

Genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy, putting the DNA data of millions of users at risk of being sold.

Privacy advocates have urged consumers to delete their data amid fears it could be sold to data brokers or used for targeted advertising.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta advised customers to consider deleting their profiles after the company’s share price crash heightened concerns.

CEO Anne Wojcicki reportedly rejected three takeover bids before the bankruptcy filing, raising questions about the company’s future and data protection.

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[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 68 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I say this without schadenfreude, but I fucking called it straight out of the gate.

Every single person who was enticed or cajoled into submitting these tests as a novelty or curiosity has potentially compromised the personal security of every single member of their immediate & extended family, as well as their descendants. At the very least, those parties previously mentioned may face ludicrous rates for life/health insurance or outright denial of coverage. The company to which they submitted their genetic code no longer exists, and their family's entire biological blueprint is on the auction block. Think before you make decisions, people.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Think before you make decisions, people

Are you really saying that now, in the trump era after trump actually won by votes?

[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I am 100%. Just because you say something doesn't mean that someone else will agree, but if you don't say it they'll turn around and claim that no one disagrees with them. The doltish Red Wave certainly wasn't for lack of debates or opposition, but it bears saying anyway.

[–] dzsimbo@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

their family's entire biological blueprint

I don't believe this part holds up. The type of sequencing you're talking about is an incredibly labor- and time-intensive task. The good folk at these fastfood laboratories are just comparing historical markers and shooting off a list of what those markers tell about you.

It still remains to be seen if insurance companies will eat this data up or not, but they will have trouble providing any justification for dismissing claims without sounding pretty racist.

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 96 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Here comes venture capital to the "rescue!"

[–] HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Private equity hedge fund. Covers all the bases.

/s

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Fred: pulls off venture capital mask to reveal private equity mask underneath

Daphne: pulls off private equity mask to reveal 1% mask

Shaggy: pulls off 1% mask to reveal klan hood

Velma: "Ji—eezus Christ!"

[–] HowAbt2morrow@futurology.today 4 points 2 days ago

Yup, it was Cletus all along!

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 60 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Pretty sure they already shared all that data with the feds. They can cross reference and calculate the DNA of almost every person in the US that has a family there. I guess it would be worse if a private company could do that too, but with Trump im not sure if thats even true anymore.

The Nazis would have given everything for this tech.

Veritasiums vid on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT18KJouHWg

And a quote from the top comment

"My biggest concern is health insurance. If you have someone's DNA profile, and that gets into the wrong hands, or laws enacted, resulting in health insurance companies having access to knowing that this person has a proclivity to Parkinson's, then rates could skyrocket. This is a massive privacy issue."

[–] pdxfed@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Luckily we have GINA which, like most other things that would give people rights, won't be enforced.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah man, imagine the world if governments and companies actually respected basic human rights.

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I always think that my depression comes from having watched too much Star Trek as a kid. I expected better for us by now.

[–] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 day ago

You should have paid attention to the timeline. In the Star Trek timeline we should expect world war 3 to start next year and go for thirty years. The first warp flight and first contact is after that, and it's only after that that the "better for us" even starts happening.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 12 points 1 day ago

Did you mean: Gattaca?

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I remember that video when it was new, and how very uncritical veritasium was

Disappointing

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah the dude is pretty boring in that sense. Definition of a wet rag when it comes to taking a political stance.

[–] RandomPrivacyGuy@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago

but hey, at least some americans got to make a twitter post about their irish+italian+french+british+swedish+argentinian ancestry!

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm so glad I was never dumb enough to send them or any other ancestry company a dna sample.

[–] Tanoh@lemmy.world 54 points 2 days ago (5 children)

The problem is that your whole family has to be not dumb enough.

[–] Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yep - both parents and my only sibling have done it. Thanks, guys, glad I didn’t call this a decade ago.

[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cassandra of Troy just called, she said that no one listens to her either 😑

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I hope you hung up on her after saying "yeah, yeah, Cassie, whatever."

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I was the holdout. They bought me a kit and it felt pointless resisting.

Guess I was right and too much of a slug to stand up for it.

[–] voxthefox@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

They're saying if you were the only holdup it doesn't matter. If enough of your semi-close relatives submitted their DNA, yours can be extrapolated reasonably accurately from that.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Might want to tell the fam to delete theirs, maybe help them through the process. Bonta's announcement has a list of the steps, but only you know which of your family will need help.

[–] the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

While plenty in my family are that stupid, they are first and foremost cheap as fuck, way to cheap for a frivolous thing like this.

I'm not too worried but even if they did there is fuck all I can do about it now.

[–] TrojanRoomCoffeePot@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Therein lies the rub. A complete catalogue is not necessary when a partially completed jigsaw puzzle will suffice. A lot of people have unexpected uncomfortable questions in their future about their grandmother's massive stroke, their uncle's schizophrenia, their cousin's mania-induced crime spree, or maybe even their 3rd-cousin's cancer diagnosis. Rates are set to increase across the board, no family is immune.

[–] frickineh@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I don't speak to any of my extended family, but I'm hoping the fact that there's been so much shitty behavior that none of them would want to expose any more of it via DNA. My mom already has 8 siblings she knows of, it wouldn't be a surprise if there were a couple more out there, and pretty much all of my uncles are the type to have affairs.

[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

I was coerced into it because someone thought they were my illegitimate half-sibling. I was extremely hesitant due to privacy concerns but I succumbed to family pressure. Through the test, we discovered she's more likely to be my cousin. Immediately after, I "deleted" all my info. I guess you can only take their word for it.

[–] ALilOff@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I was in college (jeez that’s like 7 years ago) I did my dissertation on the future of privacy and I spent 7-8 pages on DNA tracking like 23andMe.

As a business and invasion of personal identity is immoral.

However the major point of ethicality is for police work, as I believe it was ancestry that helped catch the golden state killer. I believe it was ancestry relative of the serial killer did the test and there was a used cigarette at the site of a murder and tracked back to him.

It’s a whole philosophical debacle. Is it right to keep the dna of millions stored to prevent or capture a handful of potentially dangerous individuals.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Is it right to keep the dna of millions stored to prevent or capture a handful of potentially dangerous individuals.

No. Who decides what's a "potentially dangerous" individual? Obviously rapists and murderers are a low bar but what if they decide to start using it for lesser crimes or protesters? Or to persecute "undesirables"? Our current administration is a great example of why having this information available to the government is a terrible idea. Any safeguards can easily be stripped away.

[–] ALilOff@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Oh I agree with you, since it was my dissertation I had to argue for both sides. The view of “potential danger” is not worth the weight of violating a natural human right.

I touched upon similar a social credit scoring system, where in ideology with big brother crime rates will go down, however the trade off is people will have less faith in others. As people will no longer be able to determine altruism, are you helping me because you’re a good person, or just to boost your credit score.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The safest way to do it is to not participate, which is why I have not participated and none of my family have. I am glad this trend seems to be dying out.

[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago

I am unfortunately not so lucky. My brother's idiot wife jumped right on board as soon as it was available. Even after I told them how terrible of an idea it was.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I mean, this is kinda hilarious to me. The vast majority of people I know that did this, were right wing hoping to find out exactly how "European" they are. When asked about it, they rarely wanted to talk about it.

[–] spacesatan@leminal.space 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I can't ask them to delete my data because I forgot the fake birthday I used for the fake name and they keep asking for it for "security". Alas. If in 5-10 years I'm living in a country that allows genetic discrimination either openly or through lack of enforcement I feel like I have bigger problems to worry about.

I'm more annoyed that forgetting that date also means I can't download my data so I can't use 3rd party analysis tools.

[–] Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I always thought it was a bad idea and never did it. However my parents did it, and I'm sure a lot of what is known about them applies to me.

[–] OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Whaaaaaaaaat??? Noooo wayyyy... I never thought this would happen.......................... Man oh man the unforseenness of this event is staggering who would've thought this scheme could have ever gone bad??? See, that's why I only trust the Mormon Church with my genetic data and ancestry. Smh

[–] jam12705@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

What do you got, the whole town's DNA on file?

Yuh-huh. If you've ever handled a penny, the government's got your DNA. Why do you think they keep them in circulation?

[–] Willy@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 day ago

Eh. My DNA is all over the place. NBD.

[–] loudartist@lemmy.wtf 0 points 1 day ago

Stupidity of people deserves it