but when it happens on the dark web it's so incredibly illegal, but when a company does it...
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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Privacy
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What a pile of fuck, not a decent person at that company to deep-six the data before they left
Why would anyone expect anyone to risk getting sued or risk going to jail for that? Fully get want you are saying, though.
The smart thing was to never trust some random upstart company with a cutsie name with the code of our literal DNA. Caveat emptor and all that.
So much wrong can be done if it ends up in the wrong hands in any of a multitude of sectors, from military contractors to insurance companies who could literally up premiums based on DNA profiles and propensity for illnesses. And that latter one would be one of the most docile of outcomes.
I knew the whole idea of letting a company get your genetic fingerprint was a bad idea from the start. Being curious about my ancestry wasn't worth it.
Not just yours, but your family 's DNA. You are not much different from your siblings and parents. I was pissed when my brother told me he did one of those stupid DNA tests.
Yeah, I feel like I dodged a bullet. As I knew some family members who tjpigbt about it but declined to do it because of the for-profit angle in case the company flopped.
That’s great but all it takes is some of your blood relatives to submit their genetic data and they can calculate your genetics to a degree that is accurate enough.
Luckily for us, all family members either saw what OP saw ahead of time, or the few that were curious listened to others and didn't go through with it. Exactly because of the reason that you stated.
So... Orgies for privacy? :D
How to remove your data from 23andMe
I wish I could. I have been trying to get my account back for months.
Hmm.
One of the notable issues is that this process also won’t delete all of your data — according to 23andMe’s privacy disclosure, your genetic information, date of birth, and sex will be retained for an undisclosed amount of time to comply with the company’s legal obligations,
A merger or liquidation is not a valid purpose to store personal, and especially Art. 9, data, as covered by the legal basis of legal obligations, according to GDPR. So, if you are in Europe, they would have to delete it.
Uh... nope. Sorry. They specifically touch on it"
"Commonly owned entities, affiliates and change of ownership: If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction and this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity. We may also disclose Personal Information about you to our corporate affiliates to help operate our services and our affiliates’ services."
If you request to delete your data as per the GDPR, they will delete some data, but as per their legalese they will not delete all and what is not deleted falls under their Privacy Statement, where you find the above, quoted text. Worth noting that in above the use of may in practice means "will".
On top of that, once the data is out of the the EU, which they make a point to state numerous times, they rely on the DPF which focuses on how data is used or transfered to outside the EU. So, if a company is already signed to the DPF, then they can totally keep some of your data as well. Or if they transfer it using it the same framework. So the DPF does not help either. The GDPR focuses on common identifying information, off the cuff it does not seem to address the notion of how DNA can liyerally be used for exactly that, so, legally, as it stands the DNA data is out of scope of the GDPR. Or, at least that is what they seem to be claiming, indirectly.
So yeah, you can delete some data, but with a bunch of asterisks followed by that statement. So, sadly, your argument is not fully correct. They will delete some identifying information. But they seemto keep the most important of the data.
This is the perfect example of why privacy matters. No matter how much you trust a parent company one day when the investors come knocking they are legally obligated to liquidate all assets to the highest bidder. Today its 23andme tomorrow it could be discord, google, amazon, Facebook or any other tech company.
In case people only saw the headline....
The sale is because a breach already happened: "hackers obtained personal data of about seven million of its customers in October 2023".
They cannot afford the lawsuits.
This was just waiting to happen tbh
I am surprised it took this long. But they got hacked 2 years ago, so data on millions of people had already been leaked.
They were surviving on fumes since since they were still dealing with the fallout of that.
I’ve been telling people since this dna testing started that sooner or later that data will be for sale, an insurance company will buy it, and then get used against people to increase their health insurance rates or deny claims.
But I’m a crazy conspiracy theorist according to everyone ;)
Same reason I don’t want to buy a new car anymore…
LOL I told everyone the same. Same on my end, they thought I was being conspirational. As if a company could never one day fail and have to sell their assets. It seemed impossible to them, somehow.
I used to think that part of the reason is that they submitted their samples without thinking and later contemplating how not smart that action was; created some hard cognitive dissonance, making calling me a conspiracy theorist the far easier pill to swallow than admitting a mistake. Since I know of people who did it early on, as they thought they were being cutting edge at the time.
Yeah, I do not want to buy a car either or anything that sells in subscriptions. I am already keeping an eye on models of non-smart TVs for when my current model finally dies. LOL
Even if a relative has shared their DNA, it can be used to make some fairly safe assumptions about yours.
My car's computer doesn't transmit. It doesn't log anything more than engine fault codes. That's how I like it.
Find me a car produced in 2024 or later which does this
2024 Suzuki Swift.
You even need to dial in the date and time manually because there's no GPS either.
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/3476295/Suzuki-Swift-2024.html?page=548#manual
Same reason I don’t want to buy a new car anymore…
Because of the "driving behavior" data that gets sent out via secret cell connections and bought by insurance companies?
Just disconnect the modem problem solved.
Not sure if it is a joke.
But according to the legalese of some manufacfurers, just being inside the car is a form of you giving consent.
You would have to disable all radios and receivers, GPS, never take your car for maintenance and never connect your car's systems to anything and never connect your phone or peripherals to it. As your phone will send car data to the manufacturers. Disable or break all cameras. And this is assuming they even respect you opting out. Apparently, most people are so unaware of the data collecting being such a huge thing that some manufacturers do not even really disable what you tell them to disable, or by using the car or an option in the car, you give them permission to enable them again. LOL Point is that you can't or most people won't do any of these things and car makers won't stop until maybe they get sued.
What! What cars have this???
Yes, unfortunately. I dunno if it's a global thing or just in the US, but several years ago, they started sending your car's computer data to insurance companies, who then use it to determine how well you drive and what insurance rates they want to give you.
It's really scummy.
Here is at least one of those reports the other poster touched on
All cars for awhile. Mozilla released a privacy report a year or two ago and it seems nobody cared. Which is why they can do this stuff.
Yup. Go ahead and try turning that cell phone radio thing off. Why do you need an app for remote start? Why can’t it be on the keyfob anymore? But again, nothing to see here - just the continued enshittification of everything.
I just pulled the fuse. Problem solved. Phone start doesn't work but never used it.
Safest thing that would actually work is to take out the battery. ;-)
Not on electric cars. LOL