New York attorney general will warn 23andMe customers to delete their data after bankruptcy filing
New York Attorney General Letitia James' office plans to warn 23andMe customers to delete their data from the site after the company announced Monday it is filing for bankruptcy and will seek a buyer.
The attorney general of California has already urged people to delete their data from the DNA testing site, and CBS News New York has learned James' guidance is expected soon.
Should I delete data from 23andMe?
23andMe has tested the DNA of more than 15 million people who provided saliva samples for analysis of ancestry, family traits and potential health risks.
The bankruptcy filing has led to privacy concerns as customers in New York and beyond wonder how a potential buyer would handle their data.
"It gave us a lot of really good information, but it is really concerning," said Jordan Bolden, a 23andMe customer.
"I'm kind of just gonna live. I'm gonna enjoy what it gifted me in some knowledge and some heritage, and I think that's what we have to do. I don't know what we can do about it," Justin Showell added.
Justin Cappos, a professor of computer science and engineering at New York University, says customers should delete their data from 23andMe.
"Delete. Delete. Delete. Stop them from having your information. You should have deleted it as soon as you got whatever curiosity you got out of it, that you found out what you wanted," Cappos said.
To delete the data, customer should log into their 23andMe account and head to the settings page. Scroll to "23andMe data," click "view," scroll to "delete data," click "permanently delete data," and confirm the request.
The genetic sample will also be destroyed, according to the company.
Click here for more details about how to delete your 23andMe data.
Is my 23andMe data safe?
23andMe previously said any customer data it shares with other parties is anonymous and cannot be traced to individual users.
Data privacy advocates, like David Siffer with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, are nonetheless concerned about whether information about generic health risks could wind up in the hands of insurers or employers.
"Probably within a few years of purchase, if a company decides, 'OK we wanna sell this data,' there's a lot of people's data who could be sold," Siffer said.
23andMe says any buyer of their assets will have to abide by data privacy laws.
