FTC accuses DNA testing company of lying about dumping samples

The Federal Trade Commission has alleged that genetic testing firm 1Health.io, also known as Vitagene, deceived people when it said it would dispose of their physical DNA sample as well as their collected health data. To make matters worse, the FTC also alleged in a consent order made public last week that the company didn't …

[jfw25]

Interpreting the official response:

"a small number of customer files" == "Have you seen TREE(3)? Now *that*'s a large number!"

"There is no evidence these customer files were improperly accessed." == "They were publicly accessible! Any access was, by definition, proper!"

[Tommy G1]

Re: Interpreting the official response:

My take on the latter was

"There is no evidence these customer files were improperly accessed." += "... because we didn't have logging turned on either."

[Anonymous Coward]

"health, wellness, and ancestry" right...

wellness - (us English) what a conman says to you before he sells you magic beans, or kale, depending on the decade.

ancestry - What you can't accurately determine with a single person DNA test alone, along with ethnicity and genealogy. Within a generation or two you can look at heredity, but it's only accurate if the people you are testing against are also tested and compared in the same date set.

As for heath, there are a host of things this testing MIGHT tell you, but for $250 you could get a full series from an actual medical medical test company covered by actual privacy laws, and control what happens with the data afterwords.

The great thing is all it takes is one idiot relative to start handing these out at Christmas and the whole families medical privacy is gone permanently. You will forever be reliant on the ethical and legal behavior of US insurance carriers, advertisers and, of course, law enforcement. That last won will even shoot down the innocent man has nothing to hide bit by being criminally incompetent and willing to jail someone for decades based on a partial dna match, from a degraded sample, even when the person has never been to the state where the crime was committed.

These fly-by-night DNA companies should have already been shut down.

[willfe]

$75,000 settlement! Oh no, how can they possibly afford that?

I sincerely wish governments would start imposing *meaningful* fines and penalties on companies for stuff like this. $75k is pocket lint, even for a "smaller" biotech company like this. Assuming the settlement goes as described here, the company will probably buy the lawyer responsible for it a brand new mansion as thanks for all the profits saved.