Congressmen sound alarm over data privacy following 23andMe bankruptcy

Three congressmen from the Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce are elevating issues over information privateness weeks after the genetic testing firm 23andMe filed for chapter, placing thousands and thousands of shoppers’ private info up on the market.

The Republican representatives — Brett Guthrie from Kentucky, Gus Bilirakis from Florida and Gary Palmer from Alaska — despatched a letter to 23andMe interim Chief Government Joe Selsavage on Thursday requesting solutions to several questions by Might 1.

The questions revolve across the destiny of 23andMe’s genetic database, which incorporates DNA info from greater than 15 million folks. The congressmen requested the corporate how it will shield the info in an occasion of a sale and the way it will vet potential patrons.

The corporate didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

23andMe declared Chapter 11 chapter in March and acquired authorization from the U.S. Chapter Court docket for the Jap District of Missouri to promote considerably all its belongings. The corporate, based in 2006 and once valued at $6 billion, popularized at-home DNA take a look at kits and spurred a pattern of ancestry looking and novice prison investigations.

However the enterprise failed to determine a sustainable enterprise mannequin, and because it struggles to remain afloat, specialists, prospects and authorities officers are nervous genetic info might fall into the wrong hands.

“Given the dearth of HIPAA protections, the patchwork of state legal guidelines overlaying genetic privateness, and the uncertainty surrounding what occurs to buyer info ought to a sale of the corporate or buyer information and data transpire, we’re involved that this trove of delicate info is susceptible to being compromised,” the Vitality and Commerce letter mentioned.

Although any purchaser of 23andMe should comply with adjust to the corporate’s privateness coverage, that coverage may be unilaterally modified at any time, in response to Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel on the Digital Privateness Data Middle.

“I might be very involved if I had given a swab to 23andMe,” Geoghegan mentioned. “There may be little we will do to manage what occurs to it.”

The chapter submitting prompted California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to problem a consumer alert urging prospects to delete the info they’d offered to the corporate.

“Given 23andMe’s reported monetary misery, I remind Californians to think about invoking their rights and destroy any samples of genetic materials held by the corporate,” Bonta wrote.

The 23andMe web site crashed following the warning as prospects rushed to log in, the Wall Road Journal reported. Thursday’s letter raised the problem, noting that “prospects are experiencing points accessing and deleting their information.”

Guthrie, Bilirakis and Palmer are the newest authorities officers to voice concern over the state of affairs. The Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform and the Federal Commerce Fee have additionally despatched letters to 23andMe lately inquiring about information safety.

23andMe issued an open letter to prospects in late March assuring them that their information would stay protected within the occasion of a sale.