Genetic testing company 23AndMe found success generating ancestry reports for customers curious about their family’s genetic history. But now that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, experts warn it might be in former users’ best interests to delete their data from the service.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta urged former customers to “take control and request that a company delete their genetic data,” noting that more than 15 million people have given the company their information.
Cybersecurity expert Cindi Carter, the Global Chief Information Security Officer with Check Point Software, agreed with Bonta’s warning.
“I do think it’s a wise recommendation [to delete data],” Carter said on the KTLA 5 Weekend Morning News on Saturday. “Companies buy and sell data all the time, but genetic data is new territory.”
Why delete? Because nobody really knows what’s going to happen with the data at this point.
The South San Francisco-based company says the filing will not affect how it stores, manages or protects customer data. But any potential buyer could have free rein over the genetic data of millions, with no guardrails on what they could do with it.
Carter says that there’s no telling what a buyer could do with the data due to companies having different policies with varying degrees of care when it comes to customer privacy.
Users can start the deletion process through the 23AndMe app, but as Carter says, it’s also possible to download your data yourself before deleting it from the company’s database.
“Right now there’s a lot of speculation happening around the bankruptcy sale. We don’t really know what’s going to happen with the data,” Carter added.
As of Saturday, there’s no word on any potential sale of 23AndMe or its customer data.
