How to… delete your 23andMe data

23andMe’s enterprise is constructed on taking saliva samples from its prospects. The DNA from these samples is processed and analyzed in its labs to supply personalised genetic reviews detailing a consumer’s distinctive well being and ancestry. The uncertainty swirling across the firm’s future and potential new possession  has prompted privateness campaigners to induce customers to delete their knowledge.

“It’s not simply you. If anybody in your loved ones gave their DNA to 23&Me, for all your sakes, shut your/their account now,” Meredith Whittaker, president of the encrypted messaging platform Sign, posted on X after the board’s resignation. 

“Prospects ought to think about present threats to their privateness in addition to threats which will exist sooner or later—a few of which can be magnified if 23AndMe have been bought to a brand new proprietor,” says Jason Kelley, activism director on the Digital Frontier Basis. “23AndMe has protections round this a lot of this. However a possible sale might put your knowledge within the fingers of a far much less scrupulous firm.”

A spokesperson for 23andMe mentioned that the corporate has robust buyer privateness protections in place, and doesn’t share buyer knowledge with third events with out prospects’ consent. “Our analysis program is opt-in, requiring prospects to undergo a separate, knowledgeable consent course of earlier than becoming a member of,” they are saying. “We’re dedicated to defending buyer knowledge and are constantly centered on sustaining the privateness of our prospects. That won’t change.”

Why deleting your account comes with a caveat

Deleting your knowledge from 23andMe is everlasting and can’t be reversed. However a few of that knowledge can be retained to adjust to the corporate’s authorized obligations, in accordance with its privacy statement. 

Which means 23andMe and its third-party genotyping laboratory will dangle onto a few of your genetic data, plus your date of delivery and intercourse—alongside knowledge linked to your account deletion request, together with your e-mail tackle and deletion request identifier. When MIT Know-how Overview requested 23andMe concerning the nature of the genetic data it retains, it referred us to its privacy policy however did not present some other particulars.

Any data you’ve beforehand supplied and consented to being utilized in 23andMe analysis tasks additionally can’t be faraway from ongoing or accomplished research, though it won’t be utilized in any future ones. 

Past the laboratories that course of the saliva samples, the corporate doesn’t share buyer data with anybody else until the consumer has given permission for it to take action, the spokesperson says, together with employers, insurance coverage corporations, legislation enforcement businesses, or any public databases.