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?

  • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    Why should they?

    Anyone who used 23 and Me agreed that their genetic code was able to be used my 23 and Me for whatever they want. Why is it now the job of the government to jump in and give those people retroactive protection.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 months ago

      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.

      • NotNotMike@programming.dev
        1·
        2 months ago

        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