. Bankruptcy notification 23andmeThe company from San Francisco, which stores genetic information of at least 15 million customers, has raised significant concerns about the security of consumer data.
According to Units from the company’s privacy in the USAIf 23andme is involved in “bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets, you can obtain personal data, sold or transferred as part of this transaction, and this privacy statement will apply to personal data as transferred to a new entity.”
In the statement, it also noted that the company “may disclose personal data to our associates in order to handle our services and services of our associate.”
It is a possibility of transferring data to pages that consumers do not allow, as specified in the privacy statement, which is at the root of how to make this data available.
»Read more: These siblings conducted DNA tests and received various results. Why determining ancestors is rarely true.
On Friday, the Prosecutor General of California Rob Bonta issued a consumer warning, reminding clients that they can delete data sent to a fighting genetic test company. “Occupation of sensitive consumer data” accumulated by 23andme is removed Both the Act on the privacy of genetic information and the California Act on consumer protection, according to its office.
“California has solid privacy regulations that allow consumers to take control and ask to delete their genetic data,” Bonta said in a statement. “Considering financial anxiety reported by 23andme, I remind Californians to consider reference to their rights and direct 23andme to delete their data and destroy all samples of the genetic materials held by the company.”
In addition to direct problems related to data transmission policy, experts warn against a wider risk of genetic data.
“The problem is that if you are susceptible to some health risk-lub at the risk of lifestyle-you can want to keep this privacy,” said Nattraj, data security expert and general director Accuknox from Menlo Park. “People can do it for various reasons. If (data) falls into the wrong hands, you can become a basically blackmaile material.”
»Read more: Home genetic tests sets sound like a great idea – until they are Opinion
He advised the trial to those who demand deletion, but want to store their genetic data to store them in a digital “private vault” or other secure platforms.
“You can create a private vault if you can protect it using Google documents using two-component authentication or store on a laptop with encryption at the disk level,” he said. “If you want to be very, very safe, you can put it in a hardware portfolio such as Yubikey.”
23andme, once valued at $ 6 billion, met with a turbulent year because he tried to improve his financial health.
At the beginning of this year, The company confined 153 Bay Area JobsIncluding 122 in Sunnyvale and 31 in the headquarters in southern San Francisco, which is 27% of the American labor force.
According to a company submitted last year, as at March 31, 2024, 23ndme employed 582 people around the world, including 560 full -time US employees.
After the bankruptcy, the general director and founder Anne Wojcicki resigned from leadership, but remained on the board.
»Read more: What a cancer specialist wants you to know about shipping genetic tests Opinion
Senator of State Josh Becker, Democrat Menlo Park, whose district includes South San Francisco, the main biotechnology center in the region, said that its direct goal is to ensure “protection of consumers’ privacy and that no genetic information is improperly available as part of bankruptcy proceedings.”
“We are trying to publicize, make sure people know about their rights to remove,” said Becker.
The California Privacy Agency is designed to monitor compliance with the provisions on the privacy of state data for concerned whether the company actually deletes data.
Becker, former executive director of the Silicon Valley, Author of California “Delete Act “He enters into force next year and may require that data brokers stop following people and delete all collected information about them.
“We want consumers to know that this is your data and you have the right to them and delete information whether it is via a genetic information page or whether it is one of 500 registered data brokers in California,” he said. “Although there is no reason to believe that 23andme data is currently threatened, we want people to be aware of what data these companies have and know their rights.”
To delete their 23ndme account and personal data, customers can follow these steps:
– Log in to them 23ndme account on the company’s website.
– Go to the “Settings” section of their profile.
– Scroll down to the “Data 23ndme” section at the bottom of the page.
– Click “Display” next to “23andme data”.
– Download their data.
– Scroll to the “Delete data” section.
– click “constantly delete data”.
– confirm their request; Below will be E -Mail with 23andme, containing a link to finalize the removal.
On the website, customers can also direct the company to destroy stored saliva and DNA samples, as well as withdrawing the permit to exploit their genetic data for research.
