23andMe's genes not strong enough to avoid Chapter 11 Beleaguered DNA testing biz 23andMe – hit by a massive cyber attack in 2023 – is filing for bankruptcy protection in the US following years of financial uncertainty. It said that Chapter 11 proceedings were initiated in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri on Sunday, and the court will oversee 23andMe's …
Don't give up your DNA to anyone without a fight.
It will never, ever be private and will be used against you and your family sooner than later for certain. The corporations and governments are fully aware there's a lot of money to be made and power to be gained by having a large DNA data base on the server. Despite what they might say, they are not going to keep your data safe, secure and private whatsoever.
Might as well print it on a highway billboard.
The governments want the data as much or more than the corporations.Tthey aren't going to protect us, no matter what holy flim flam Swiss cheese law they might pass.
It will never, ever be private and will be used against you and your family sooner than later for certain.
I'm aware of one case where DNA from one of these companies (I think it might actually have been this one) has been used secure a conviction in a serious criminal case. There was a serial killer in the USA (might have been the Golden State Killer, or I may be mis-remembering) where the police had DNA from a crime scene and we able to match it to the killer because a close relative of theirs had their DNA on record. Neither the killer nor any relative had been picked up by the police before, so the police had no suitable DNA record, but were able to source it from the private sector.
The new rules being not to subpoena data but just to make up a customer, pay the $50 and submit the crime scene DNA.
Wait for a letter back saying "Hey! you may have a long lost twin" then find some parallel way to arrest the suspect and never mention the DNA match in court
Both my parents and my sibling provided their DNA to 23andme, so it doesn't even matter if I am more privacy focused (Well, marginally. I don't do anything that is a pain, but I won't opt in to this kind of scam). They've got my number, and now whoever buys this dataset will have it too.
I'd make a Gattaca comparison, but given the current power players in the US, maybe my best hope is that they all stop believing in DNA.
I think there is a 30 day window to retrieve your data and get it removed from their system.
Depending upon the person/entity buying the data, their customers *might* want to do this.
Otherwise, imagine "big pharma" marketing to you using your DNA... [and I thought those TV ads were bad]
and don't forget insurance companies altering your payment amounts... never DOWNWARDS.
See this article
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/opt-out-23andme-account-dna-data-privacy
Do you stil have a copy of the contract?
Betcha it says they get to keep your profile (and probably the raw materials, to re-run as the price of doing that drops and the results get better, full sequences and not just a "profile") - and all the metadata attached to it (maybe they'll excise your name and address, or "anonymise" it to "keep it private").
But the only way these companies can do what they do (whatever that really is and however useless it is) is to keep all the data they have and cross-reference it. How do they "know" you are 12.7% Norse? Because you match with other people who sent in their samples and gave their birthplace as "in the cold hills of Midgard". Sure, they started with purchased samples from around the world, but they can be so much more "informative" now...
Interview with a Welsh politician who had done one of these tests and it showed he was 2% Nigerian. Surprised that the clan Llywelyn had such an exotic background it was explained to him that actually it meant that a percentage of Nigerians owed their ancestry to some visiting Welsh men
"I was covered in an episode of BBC's 'Sliced Bread' podcast... they voted the tests BS rather than SB ('sliced bread')"
My sister did one of those tests and it came back with her having predominately Irish heritage. I tried to explain how the test really works, but she's not that bright and it goes over her head. We can trace our paternal lineage some generations back in Scotland which is in the region and people tend to move around. No ideas on the maternal ancestry. My mother's side of the genetics wasn't all that keen on keeping family records.
I wasn't real happy with my sister having the testing done as she "enjoys" social media and, as stated, isn't very bright. I'm sure she'd trade personal information with no regard for privacy, (nothing to hide, right?) just to get a virtual pat on the head.
I was thinking of this story from the CBC. It is a few years old, but I made sure to keep a bookmark of it. Identical twins sent their DNA to several of these testing sites, and each received a different result. 23andMe was the most different between the twins. And none of the DNA testers matched the heritage of the twins. The charts included are interesting.
"Welsh politician who had done one of these tests and it showed he was 2% Nigerian"
I was thinking some bronze Age tin traders from Africa going on to Cymru after Cornwall, for the rugger, but a legion of Welsh Casanovas ravishing sub Saharan Africa far more likely.
How do they "know" you are 12.7% Norse?
It used to be said that particle physics is like hitting a watch with a hammer and gathering up the bits to find out how it worked. This is more like hitting several watches with a hammer and working out which bits came from which watch.
But, it's my DNA not theirs
But is it yours alone?
It's definitely shared between biological members of your family and what you might do with it can have serious impacts on them.
My personal opinion is the my genome is the most literal legacy or inheritance from my parents and forbears, and that I have a responsibility as a custodian to care for and protect it. I would never provide a sample to any DNA testing or ancestry service and only as a last resort to a medical laboratory.
Life and medical insurance corporations would dearly love to have access to the DNA of everyone just for starters.
Yes it is his alone. A DNA sequence is unique to every living thing. You would share a large subset of that sequence with your blood lines but you need both family member's dna sequenced. Having a single person's DNA sequence tells you nothing about your family members if you do not have the said family members DNA to compare it with.
“ Having a single person's DNA sequence tells you nothing about your family members if you do not have the said family members DNA to compare it with.”
I suspect that comparison would quite often result in some awkward conversations… :-)
I think this is an excellent and inexpensive way to find Venuzuelans etc for deportation back to where they came from - apparently, El Salvador.
Legitimate citizens will want to use the INS's Crypto-CRISPR injection (not a vaccine, and no Bill G chips, honest) to tag their DNA so they don't get a free Skyvan flight over-seas.
"Is my DNA profile regarded as one of 23andMe's assets? (Not really, they don't have my DNA)"
Are you sure that a family member didn't submit to them. Were you mentioned? Does that family member have an instapinttwitface account which has led to a data file that includes all of their connections? Coupled with the data breach, some entity is likely to have a file on you with related DNA information.
The DNA information should not be considered an asset or ever allowed to be sold no matter what the agreement stated. I believe that it's something that should have no legal path to being traded regardless of contracts where somebody simply clicked an "I agree" box on a web form to get past. The average person's belief is they pay a fee and get some information back, not that such personal information will be monetized at a later date. It's not like a credit card or Social Security account that can be replaced if breached.
Speaking as somebody who has done an ancestry DNA test there are two sides to it - the ethnicity bit which is pseudo-scientific dodginess (and should not be taken as anything more) and the "who are you related to?" and that bit is eye opening (because it's shall we say "clarified" quite a lot of family history). Now your DNA is yours but as noted elsewhere if anybody in your near (or not so near) circle of relatives has done a test some of your details are out there and you've got no say in it (and we're not talking parents or siblings either, I've got confirmed matches far out beyond 3rd cousin which is where it supposedly becomes a lottery as to whether you share any DNA with a relative or not).
data privacy will be "an important consideration - but hey, if we can make more money without regard to data privacy, that will be of greater importance.
You've only got yourself to blame if you sent your DNA to them.....
Maybe when all that DNA gets leaked and can be analysed, they can find the idiot gene.
As others have pointed out, the key point is whether or not you were foolish enough to be related to anyone with said 'idiot gene'. Given the number of relatives that the average person has, those aren't good odds
DNA ought to covered by rules on personal info, but since this is a US company I'm not sure that would really help in this case. In short, I think the horse has already bolted for most people in Europe and North America.
For those with relies who struggle to get their heads around the need to delete their 23andMe data immediately, here's a New York Times link to pass on which explains in simple terms the importance of doing so, and how to do so - New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/23andme-data-bankrupt/
Also, detailed in this article
Opt out: what to do with your 23andMe account after company filed bankruptcy
The genetic testing firm filed for bankruptcy after a major data breach. Here’s how to protect your DNA privacy
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/opt-out-23andme-account-dna-data-privacy
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