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A comment on 23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline. Parent comment

Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by 0xCMP on Thursday January 23, 2020 @05:45PM (#22133111)
IIRC you can request the data to be deleted. You have no way of knowing if it's been done correctly, but at least it's something you could do to prevent your kid's DNA from effectively being there.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by jedberg on Thursday January 23, 2020 @06:24PM (#22133463)
I seem to remember reading that even when they delete your data, they keep your sample. So really all it does is prevent you from getting it.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by jellicle on Thursday January 23, 2020 @08:02PM (#22134306)
After account closure:

"23andMe and our third party genotyping laboratory will retain your genetic information, date of birth, and sex as required for compliance with applicable legal obligations, including the U.S. Federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA), California Business and Professional Code Section 1265, and College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation requirements.

23andMe will retain limited information related to your data deletion request, such as your email address and Account Deletion Request Identifier, as necessary to fulfill your request and for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims."

So they'll retain your DNA info and personally identifying info that you provided, forever. But the physical sample will be destroyed.

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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by phkahler on Thursday January 23, 2020 @08:37PM (#22134535)
>> date of birth, and sex

That's enough to identify people in some zipcodes.

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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by travisjungroth on Friday January 24, 2020 @12:20AM (#22135606)
Most people in most zip codes. 70 years * 365 days * 2 sexes = 51,100. The average zip code has about 10,000. Never thought of this before.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by zimpenfish on Friday January 24, 2020 @07:37AM (#22137535)
John D Cook did a couple of good blog posts on this

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/12/07/no-funding-for-unw...

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2018/12/07/simulating-zipcode...

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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by jjeaff on Thursday January 23, 2020 @10:02PM (#22135009)
I'm pretty sure I didn't give them my birthdate. I also didn't give them my full name. If birthdate is required, I would have given a fake one.

I don't see any reason to give them your exact birthdate.

They could obviously dig into the billing data and get my info, but at least it's not right there together.

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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by testplzignore on Thursday January 23, 2020 @07:08PM (#22133869)
This is not correct and in fact is the exact opposite. By default, they destroy the sample after analyzing it.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by prepend on Thursday January 23, 2020 @08:58PM (#22134680)
Not anymore, their new kits retain the sample for additional testing in the future.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by jjeaff on Thursday January 23, 2020 @09:59PM (#22134995)
Not sure if it has changed, but I was given the choice for them to keep or destroy the sample.
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Re:23andMe lays off 100 people as DNA test sales decline by ianferrel on Thursday January 23, 2020 @05:59PM (#22133239)
This is definitely worth doing.

It won't protect you from nefarious actors with the data right now, but it will potentially protect you from nefarious actors who may someday get ahold of the db.

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