DNA might contain health information, but unlike a doctor’s office, 23andMe is not bound by the health-privacy law HIPAA. And the company’s privacy policies make clear that in the event of a merger or an acquisition, customer information is a salable asset. 23andMe promises to ask its customers’ permission before using their data for research or targeted advertising, but that doesn’t mean the next boss will do the same. It says so right there in the fine print: The company reserves the right to update its policies at any time. A spokesperson acknowledged to me this week that the company can’t fully guarantee the sanctity of customer data, but said in a statement that “any scenario which impacts our customer’s data would need to be carefully considered. We take the privacy and trust of our customers very seriously, and would strive to maintain commitments outlined in our Privacy Statement.”
We take it very seriously, just not as seriously as money.
“I mean, we would have to receive a pretty excellent offer to violate our customers’ privacy—which is super important to us. (We reserve the right to also accept offers ranging from “pretty decent” to “doable,” or in the event of our profits not really getting us hard anymore, we may also accept “any” offer.) Your privacy is very important to us.”
There needs to be government protection of your DNA, but the government probably doesn’t want that
The worst thing is I’ve never consented to them having my DNA but they have half of it anyway thanks to my brother…
My identical twin brother who gave it to them…
That is one of the rare situations where it likely works to your advantage. Any negative thing you do with with your DNA will be pinned on your brother because its his name associated with the DNA you share.
I thought identical twins usually had like a dozen of so diffing mutations by the time they reach adulthood.
I’m not familiar with 23andme enough to know if their markers would pick up on it.
The dna tests they do for criminal investigations aren’t that exact. Don’t know if they would do the more expensive tests when there are twins involved though.
It’s the recipe for the perfect crime!
They have 98% of it thanks to those damn dirty apes
And bananas
Having asleep zombie family can be the worst.
But you can get some sick abs!
stops mid stroke wait, those things are for saliva?
Yes. The other liquid only has half the DNA and they don’t do half price.
That’s why I’ve been sending two at a time.
23 Data Miners and Me.
I remember I didn’t and thank fucking god, because this would have been me:
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/23andme-user-data-stolen-shkenazi-jewish-users/3336464/
Still waiting for the fallout from that. It won’t be pretty.
Yeah. Why am I not surprised.
You’re not surprised at the leak, or you’re not surprised that squid is Jewish?
The moderator of /c/Jewish is Jewish? No shit.
Don’t let this sort of thing out to the general Lemmy population or they’ll try to steal my latkes!
Jesus Christ. between this and the third reich ohio sherriff, we may be in for a very bad time. Dude is referring to immigrants as a plague of locusts, and calling on his violent right wing extremists to target those he sees as political opponents.
Climate change is just going to continue accelerating the amount of migration we see from less developed countries. This type of violent extremism needs to be nipped in the bud before it destroys us.
HA ! Sweet vindication! I’ve been preaching to friends and family not to use these DNA companies for this and other reasons. They called me a loon and I should get my tin foil hat. I cant wait to see their faces
5 spaces after punctuations seems excessive .
That’s why their friends call them a long
Tried to read article but it fades out and can’t resd whole thing. Anyone got the article I can read?
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Thank you that was super helpful. Never trusted any of these companies and glad I haven’t given them my dna.
she’ll consider selling 23andMe-- which means the DNA of 23andMe’s 15 million customers would be up for sale, too.
When a hacker sells DNA it’s mega illegal but when a company does it it’s all peachy albeit controversial? BS.
Its always fun being ridiculed, mocked, and insulted by your family because you dare to point out the dangers of something obviously dangerous.
And yet, when shit hits the fan… who do they come running to begging to fix it?
Why, You, of course.
because you must forever clean up the shit, but you can never prevent the shit.
I’m not bitter or anything.
I’m so glad I never sent them my DNA. It was tempting from a genealogy perspective. But my concerns about privacy and them selling on customer information always weighed heavier than that temptation.
But I feel a lot of sympathy for those who used their services. For a while they incessantly advertised them, including via paid endorsements from many ‘trusted’ podcasters and YouTubers. The company’s failure should bring to the fore a drive for new laws in many countries to protect consumers’ DNA from being monetized and exploited. But sadly we all know it won’t.
So the fun thing about genetics is… if you said no, but they conned enough of your family, they got a good part of your genome anyhow.
In my case, Mom was somewhat interested about it when it came out. Dad too. And i told them no to, because, well one, sharing data bad. But also, this buisiness is a one off. There are no repeat customers and it was destined to be sold to the highest bidder.
For once, my parents listened. But good god. This company has already been mined by police to use genetic info from relatives to convict their family members. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/magazine/dna-test-crime-identification-genome.html
Murder convictions and serial rapists going to jail, i got no problem with, but that slippery slope exists. And from years of experience, im not inclined to give the authorities my data, even by proxy. The abuse potential is immense and history is not on the average citizens side.
multiple family members of mine bought 23andme kits, so the company has my data as well. even though I wanted nothing to do with them.
There are no repeat customers and it was destined to be sold to the highest bidder.
I didn’t even think of this, but very glad I didn’t submit either.
Remember That DNA You Gave 23andMe?
No. When did I do that?
Ah, by not sending them money every month you agreed to them coming into your room while you slept to harvest your unique juices.
Should have known to opt out of that thing you never signed.
When your cousin did it a few years ago. Now they have a lot of your DNA too.
I’m still glad I did.
Lead me to finding my biological family.
And as far as side effects go, there’s not much they can use it for that will bother me.
This whole “meh I don’t care about privacy, take my data” attitude among younger generations is going to cause us SO MANY PROBLEMS in 20 years.
And what are these problems you foresee?
Being denied medical insurance because you have a genetic predisposition for certain diseases.
New government comes into power, decides homosexuality is illegal. Digs into your post history, finds your comments supporting homosexuality, you go to prison.
Someone takes a bunch of photos of you, uses AI to create a lifelike video of you doing a lewd sex act, and then blackmails you with it.
Identity theft cases go through the roof.
Employers refuse to hire you because of an argument you had on facebook when you were 14.
You’re really REALLY craving ice cream. Predictive algorithms knew you would be craving ice cream right now. So your personal price for ice cream at every store is now 3x what it usually is.
You call in sick to work, but actually go to visit a sick friend. Your car reports your location to your boss, and you’re fired.
It really shows how far we have fallen when these examples (to which, top notch, grade A examples, mind you) sound terrifyingly real. Some even sound like they have happened in some capacity. You could write horror stories for the modern age.
Regarding the second argument: unless something really bad happens in the country, wouldnt it be impossible to put someone in prison for breaking a law that didnt exist you did the action?
I know this is prohibited in the romanian constitution and i know that the entire document was inspired by the american constitution so i just assumed that it was a common thing to have in a constitution. I have seen a lot of people(including americans) use being charged for a crime that didnt exist when you committed it as a pro-privacy argument and im not sure if other countries just forgot to put one of the most important thing in their constitution
Illegal? Probably. Impossible? No.
Impossible unless something really bad happens in the country
If something really bad happens in the country and they would lookin your history of comments if you supported something, couldnt they also ban privacy and charge you for that?
Please correct me if im wrong
Something really bad can happen. It has happened before in many countries, and will continue to happen as long as we have humans.
Yes, privacy can be made more difficult. Certain privacy friendly services (example VPN, there are others) could be banned.
But, the less information they have on you, the better off you’ll be.
That relies on the assumption that a dictatorship would follow the rules.
unless something really bad happens in the country, wouldnt it be impossible to put someone in prison for breaking a law that didnt exist you did the action?
yeesh, this’ll age like rotten eggs.
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”
Oh, honey
Honestly most of these sound like America problems, insurance, employers digging through history, cars reporting to workplaces, etc.
Companies already have profile information on me, or 95% accurate generalisations for my demographic. And no way would such price gouging tactics be allowed in my country.
The most plausible ones, such as a government targeting me - well the only other option is to live my life underground and that defeats the whole purpose of pride. So yeah I’ll gladly risk being myself publicly in spite of the risks.
Look at the end of the day, things could change 180 a new oppressive and more American like government could come in and make my life shitty. But the thing is, if they’ve already managed to come in, they’re going to make my life shitty regardless of what information I have out there.
You sweet naive fool. “That would never happen, it’s ILLEGAL!” Grow up. They are already doing it.
That’s nice American, why don’t you go focus on a real issue like gun control instead of fearing an imaginary future where fascists are in power but can only find public information about a person to persecute them with?
Maybe you could focus on the lack of universal healthcare, rather than private insurance raising your prices.
Stop focusing on imaginary future scenarios and focus on the actual real problems you have already. Because they don’t exist elsewhere and it’s got nothing to do with DNA information.
Hahaha did I strike a nerve? Probably guilt. You know you should care more about privacy but you can’t give up the convenience.
Considering the rise of fascism everywhere? What could possibility go wrong?
Mass data harvesting, inevitable data breach - oh look, you have genetic markers for some degenerative condition, and for some reason you’re now suddenly getting booted off your insurance and refused coverage.
They already got our data.
Yep. Look at all the profiling data companies like Google, Meta and Reddit collect.
Worst that could happen is that you get denied insurance coverage or pay a bigger premium than you should. Or get caught easier if you decide to succumb to a life of crime. Or in the future they might be able to figure out if you have predisposition towards addictive behaviors and market gambling and stuff to you.
So hopefully nothing too bad, but personally I’d still feel iffy about a private corporation owning the rights to my DNA.
Ethnic cleansing could happen.
I mean, ethnic cleansing is unlikely to even care about genetics.
We can do genomic cleansing if you wish
Worst that could happen is that you get denied insurance coverage
If you end up getting a serious illness or cancer or something like that, you might reevaluate how big of a problem this is.
I was being facetious. Obviously it’s a huge problem.
I don’t have health insurance and the world already advertises addictive shit to me and everyone else.
I’m not too worried about it.
I wish you the best of luck when your health insurance rejects your life saving operation because, “you were informed of your genetic predisposition to x and did not take preventative actions for n years.”
while you’re dealing with your own mortality, you’ll also be coming to terms with your own ignorance that put you in that situation.
but don’t worry, you’re young, you’ll live forever.
I have universal healthcare.
Have fun when your private health insurance fucks you over for whatever bullshit reason it picks and you can’t afford to fight it even though you’re in the right?
“they didn’t come for me.”
what a damn fool.
People are morons for doing these things and expecting any privacy.
23andMe has a “request data deletion” feature. I don’t know if it actually works, but it’s worth a try if you’re worried about it.
Yep, I had my data deleted. They told me so, but I don’t for a second believe it.
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I assume that all of that is dishonest.
I had my sample destroyed the day they went public.
*you hope
They seem trustworthy. /s
Lol, sure you did.
Nope. I wasn’t that fucking stupid. So…. Not me.
Except half a dozen of your relatives did, so you might as well have at this point.
I guarantee you they didn’t.
i was really close to using this service.
then they got hacked. so i waited.
now this makes me glad that i waited.
Anyone who used these DNA analysis services were idiots to begin with.
There was no way in hell that valuable genetic data would ever stay private with no commercial or police access.
Sadly my grandpa did it before dying so some of my information is in there.
