I did 23andme and although I'm not happy about this, I admit I'm growing numb to all the leaks of information, and I kind of went into it with the assumption that it might be leaked at some point.
As you can surmise from those, the issues about DNA sharing are more general than 23andme, or even private companies.
I mean, therapy notes have been leaked, and hospitals have had medical records compromised.
I do genetics research and although 23andme does have sensitive information, the level of information they have is relatively low. People with certain polymorphisms might be at risk but most of it is pretty crude, and I suspect many of the people affected might know through nongenetic ways that they were at risk anyway. I think the genetics revolution people were predicting doesn't exist, or to the extent it does, it will require something different than what 23andme has.
Google or Apple has more damning and accurate information about someone than 23andme. If 23andme or anyone else had some mind-blowing insights into you personally based on your genes, they'd certainly sell that to people and they don't. Most of their selling points are in genealogy and things like that.
I don't mean to sound dismissive, this sucks and 23andme could/should have done things differently. It's just I think as a society we need something other than "live as a technohermit" or "implement such strict security you're at risk of shutting yourself out" and "become a permanent victim of darknet hackers and authoritarian tyrants". I also think people overestimate the information value of the genetic information 23andme has. Yes, it's significant, but it's really at this point limited to what they offer. There's no would-be 8yo serial killers out there that, if we only had 23andme information, would be able to "prevent" them from killing in some real-life version of Minority Report crossed with Gattaca. Maybe someday, with different information, but not now.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-s-all-us-r...
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/science/poking-holes-in-t...
As you can surmise from those, the issues about DNA sharing are more general than 23andme, or even private companies.
I mean, therapy notes have been leaked, and hospitals have had medical records compromised.
I do genetics research and although 23andme does have sensitive information, the level of information they have is relatively low. People with certain polymorphisms might be at risk but most of it is pretty crude, and I suspect many of the people affected might know through nongenetic ways that they were at risk anyway. I think the genetics revolution people were predicting doesn't exist, or to the extent it does, it will require something different than what 23andme has.
Google or Apple has more damning and accurate information about someone than 23andme. If 23andme or anyone else had some mind-blowing insights into you personally based on your genes, they'd certainly sell that to people and they don't. Most of their selling points are in genealogy and things like that.
I don't mean to sound dismissive, this sucks and 23andme could/should have done things differently. It's just I think as a society we need something other than "live as a technohermit" or "implement such strict security you're at risk of shutting yourself out" and "become a permanent victim of darknet hackers and authoritarian tyrants". I also think people overestimate the information value of the genetic information 23andme has. Yes, it's significant, but it's really at this point limited to what they offer. There's no would-be 8yo serial killers out there that, if we only had 23andme information, would be able to "prevent" them from killing in some real-life version of Minority Report crossed with Gattaca. Maybe someday, with different information, but not now.