Spitting down a tube is going down the tubes. 23andMe, the genetic testing company once valued at $6 billion, is filing for bankruptcy.
Many Trojans trusted their data with 23andMe, which for a fee provided test results about one’s ancestry and genetic health data. Now, if the company is sold, customers’ genetic makeup could be up for sale as well. What this means is that one’s DNA, such as who you’re related to and possible health issues you might have, could potentially be up for grabs.
“It seems like that’s your business,” said Paige Iacobacci, a freshman majoring in Cinema and Media studies.
Iacobacci is worried about the ethical concerns of personal data being sold. She believes that this situation has similarities with private health information becoming public without people’s knowledge or consent.
“If you decide to give your DNA to a company, it’s in their best interest and your best interest for them to keep that confidential,” Iacobacci said.
Experts say the sale of 23andMe genetic information could be a disaster for data privacy. The ethics of selling this data has come into question.
However, 23andMe claims there will be, “no changes to how we store, manage, or protect customer data” during this process.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is actively telling Californians to delete their data and to ask 23andMe to destroy their saliva samples.
Arianna Cioe, a sophomore studying philosophy, politics, and economics, believes any data that was given to 23andMe should not be sold.
“I think people use it for personal use. So there’s definitely a big privacy concern. I have family members that have done it, and I don’t even have face ID on my phone,” Cioe said. “It’s just personal — very personal data.”
Similarweb, a site tracking web traffic, found that 23andMe recently saw a huge spike in visits, more than 1.5 million clicks, suggesting users are scrambling to clear their records.