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Why can't a public trust buy 23andMe? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If 23 and Me goes bankrupt, they will sell all of the biometric data they've collected over decades to the highest bidder. Why can't the US government step in to purchase the company and establish a public trust?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Because those people never agreed to it being used by anyone else. And it’s in the public interest to protect everyone from their highly-sensitive biometric data being misused.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Unfortunately, everyone who used their service did agree to it. Directly from their Privacy Policy:

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.

https://www.23andme.com/legal/privacy/#data-sharing

Whether this will hold up in court is a bit murky. But without a large, laborious court battle, they can and will sell the data and they are "legally" allowed to

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Thanks for posting this.

While my first point may have been flawed, by second still stands.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I definitely agree with your second point. And I find it ridiculous that a company can ever claim to "own" your genetic information. It's why I've never dared sign up for any kind of genetic ancestry sites. I can't give that personal of information away for free, let alone pay for it to be taken

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