Originally published at: 23andme's prospects for survival dim - Boing Boing
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Hand over your DNA to private company, they said… find out your “ancestory” they said… what could go wrong, they said… handing over your DNA to a PRIVATE COMPANY they said…
Sheesh.
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The only asset of any value they hold is the data they have collected. Of course it will be sold. And probably resold. And so on. The thing with data is you can sell it and still have it to sell again. I cannot see this ending well…
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Huh. Kinda glad I never got around to doing that now. I did order the kit, kept putting off doing the swab and sending it in, and finally threw it out a couple of years ago. I did do a different DNA test, run by a nonprofit that, at one point, I think was partnered with PBS or NPR or somebody. I think that got shut down, too, and I have no idea what happened to that data.
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Entirely predictable outcome here.
Corporations and governments are leaky and untrustworthy and not necessarily operating with motives that align with MY best interests.
Biometric data is neat and all, but I can change a password, but not my DNA (in spite of what certain anti vaxxers think).
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My brother used the service so i don’t have to. I’m currently trying to convince him to delete his data.
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Technically, I don’t have DNA.
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I wonder if the major insurers are already warming up their rescission specialists for a go at the theory that something you heard (for entertainment purposes only) from 23andme will count as an undisclosed preexisting condition should you get expensive…
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The original business model of this company (or at least the one that they talked about publicly) was always doomed. People who wanted to pay to learn about their own ancestry or genetic profiles are typically one-time customers, as their DNA doesn’t tend to change much over time. They were always going to run out of individuals interested in their services eventually.
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No worries; they still have your relatives’ DNA so it’s not like they can’t use publicly available ancestry records to learn all about your genetic profile if anyone is so inclined… 
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Oh I know. Both my parents and my uncle did it.
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This would not surprise me at all.
I carry a rare allele that means my offspring have a 50:50 chance of developing kidney problems that are potentially fatal, either during foetal development or in early life (I was lucky and escaped with one more or less intact kidney).
I enrolled in a hospital-based study in Canada that aims to determine the genetic basis of rare diseases, so hopefully they could learn the gene and mutation responsible for my condition and perhaps help others down the road. It was full genome sequencing, so if they discovered I carried mutations for other rare conditions that they could screen for, I had the option of being informed. However, the waiver was also clear that this would mean I was aware of a rare condition and I’d have to inform my insurance company. On the flip side, the agreement also warned that while they were not required to disclose information to insurers under Canadian law, that could change in the future
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You’re assuming “delete” means “delete”. You have to trust them that the only thing that they did was make it inaccessible on the website. Could still be in the backend, could still have samples.
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Of course…I have full trust in all companies I deal with.
/s
Not sure there’s much else we can do.
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Worse case, former customers will be spammed with unproven experimental drug ads that target their supposedly genetically derived maladies beyond all worry and annoyance; better case, data is folded into Ancestry’s user interface so former customers continue to get something for their $100 DNA test processing; best case, DNA data is replicated and programmed into the Metaverse, establishing the immortality of former customer beings forever. /ymmv
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I think I’ve seen that episode of Black Mirror.
No thank you please.
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Beat me to it.
…insurance companies will buy the data and use it to decline coverage, or Jack up your premiums to “protect” themselves from your possible but not guaranteed genetically related maladies. Or employers will buy it to predict whether you will cause the group rate to go up.
Under current US law it is illegal for employers or insurance companies to discriminate based on your genetic information, but that’s hard to prove, and there’s no guarantee that that law won’t change, or Justice Thomas, Scalito, et al won’t take a bribe (now legal thanks to same court) to decide to strike down that law. As @fuzzyfungus said.
My mother did it, too. I was livid when I found out. I had to educate her that she just put me, my siblings, and my children in “the system” as well, and that info could be mined and used against us. When she accused me of being paranoid, I had her listen to the episode of bear brook that helped identify the murderer based on genetic info uploaded by relatives. Thanks, mom.
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I’m fairly sure that I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream was not utopian fiction.
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Hmmph!! Should have chosen Ancestry!!
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Paranoid… Well informed…
Tomato, Solanum lycopersicum.
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