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Cnn
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23Andme, a normal holder for the home health movement, announced on March 23 that it had filed a bankruptcy of Chapter 11 to facilitate a sale, encouraging many of its 15 million customers to ask: what is going on to my genetic data now?
Privacy defenders and two state -of -the -art prosecutors have urged Americans to delete their data on service, even if 23andme said that Bankr’s Upty will not change the way it manages user data.
We do not know what is the next step for 23andm, but experts say that there is a strong incentive for companies and researchers to get their hands on the free genetic data.
Genetics can reveal a lot about a person, from their health predispositions to their food preferences, offering a rare overview of details on a person and their family for future generations. Despite any confidentiality problems, genetic data offer enormous potential for everything, from medical research to advertising.
“The genetic data is permanent and unique,” said Katie Hasson, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society. “This could reveal information on people who do not exist before many years.”
23andme says on his website that any buyer must comply Laws on customer data management. The company plans to continue to sell kits and offer subscriptions.
Gideon Nave, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton school of the University of Pennsylvania The company seeking to personalize its products or their advertising would find such useful data.
For example, genetics can be linked to certain taste preferences in food. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh and human technology, Milan, found that hundreds of genetic variants were linked to specific food.
Nave, which co-wrote an article on potential use of genetic data in marketing, said genetic data can Be more revealing than there is in your grocery cart, because the items purchased could be for someone else.
“In some cases, genetic data is more informative than even what people say they eat,” he said.
The most obvious use for genetic data is to discover its health predispositions; 23Andme offers a subscription that shows if a person’s DNA is associated with a probability for certain diseases, such as type 2 diabetes or celiac disease. This is why this type of data could also be useful for research on health care and the development of personalized medicine, said Nave.
According to Vasant Dhar, professor of companies and data from the Stern School of Business, the business and data teacher at New York University. This is why he thinks that 23andme tenderers will most likely be interested in using health and medical research data.
“Doctors (are) guess. They respect the rules. They do tests and try to understand what is wrong with you, “said Dhar.” But you know, many diseases have very similar symptoms. “”
This also raises the question of whether genetic data could be used elsewhere in the health care industry. The law on the non-discrimination of genetic information prevents genetic information from being used for discrimination in health insurance coverage or employment.
But there are not many rules or restrictions in place to prevent genetic discrimination in other scenarios, such as disabled insurance, according to Hasson. Online use genetic databases by the police has also raised concerns about personal privacy rights.
A sale of 23andm would not be the first time that a genetic test company has been sold in recent years; The Blackstone Capital-Investment Company acquired Ancestry.com in 2020.
But as genetic data have no expiration date, companies could use it well in the future, even if it is not used now, said Hasson. If genetic data were to be used in advertising, concerns are not concerns, they could potentially be used to target consumers according to certain health traits – perhaps those they do not even know.
“One of the dark sides of this space is that with genetics, people know a lot about you,” said Dhar. “And, yes, they could exploit this.”