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As an aside I actually regret signing up for 23andMe, not because this isn't a great idea but more because I find the idea that the future having copies of your

As an aside I actually regret signing up for 23andMe, not because this isn't a great idea but more because I find the idea that the future having copies of your DNA around we might end up in some weird sci-fi universe where people can be specifically targeted with viruses or profiled in some other way. Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen but it feels like an invasion of privacy having such personal data lying around in a small text file. To some degree it's a copy of who you are. Who knows who will buy all this data after bankruptcy... Does anyone at 23andMe know if when DNA data and account is deleted by them that it is really deleted/purged from all backups and systems? Anonymous accounts are available, thanks!

mentalgear 2y ago
> Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen Once cheap enough, be sure DNA analysis is used for better ad-targeting at scale, just as users' web traffic is analysed. All is done once economically feasible and grey-legal enough.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Sure hope GDRP would cover that since it's involving "general data"/
mathgeek 2y ago
> Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen Not that it keeps me up at night, but it’s fascinating to me that if we ever get to the point where a machine is in a position to care about your DNA, it probably will have enough resources to not need to rank anyone by importance.
napolux 2y ago
exact same reason why I never fell for their scam ads.
aucisson_masque 2y ago
> Who knows who will buy all this data after bankruptcy... People who think having millions of people dna is worth something. I could think of company working with private investigators or even governments. Your dna sample is part of 23andMe valuation right now, I wouldn’t have hope even if it says your data is removed on their website, there are still backup.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  The famous US data delete that is just a "soft delete". Maybe different in California. In the EU with GDPR, companies are required by law to have all your data deleted after a month from user deletion request.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    How is this done in practice? Do you all just do backups different? What percentage of deleted data still exists, obfuscated as user1029387 in the tables? With "deleted" boolean column obviously set to true. The very idea that it's possible to delete all your data from any service not running everything on tmpfs is funny to me.
    - jajko 2y ago
      Its not even funny, its just dangerously naïve, on hacker news from all. I can bet half of my salary that absolutely none of those records are deleted forever, and even anonymization is probably very soft and reversible, if done at all. I work at a bank, one of major ones. We have various regulations stating to keep client records for 5 years. We have trainings that specifically say that we shouldn't keep client records longer than 5 years (additional costs, generally just a risk without any reward). Guess what - main core banking system's DB holding all client data and transactions is ever-growing, no data were ever purged from it in past 30 years. Nor will it ever happen in future. Too complex, nobody owns removal process, nobody rally cares about those data. This is situation with 0 good reasons to keep data. 23 has massive valuation reasons to keep them. Its not what it can be used for now but the vast unknown potential in future, of data that are inheritable and thus useful for hundreds/thousands of years. Don't hold your/parent's breath, be reasonable in current climate.
ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
As we constantly leave bits of our DNA around the environment, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for an unscrupulous company to just collect DNA for nefarious purposes. I'd guess that they'd need the DNA linked to a person for it to be worthwhile, so maybe an easy collection device would be to send out a return addresses envelope for entering a prize draw or something, and then collect the saliva used to seal the envelope (i.e. not a self-sealing one, but one that you have to wet/lick).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
TechDebtDevin 2y ago
Download your raw data. You have to request it from them so people should do that asap
ornornor 2y ago
There was a US government entity (can’t remember which one) post on here a couple days ago warning that 23&me was about to file and showing how to delete your data and opt out of ever selling it to anyone. Look it up on hn.algolia.com there weren’t very many steps.
- andy_ppp 2y ago
  I deleted my account and data (in theory) maybe several years ago.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  It was actually the California State Attorney General.

mentalgear 2y ago

> Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen Once cheap enough, be sure DNA analysis is used for better ad-targeting at scale, just as users' web traffic is analysed. All is done once economically feasible and grey-legal enough.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Sure hope GDRP would cover that since it's involving "general data"/

mathgeek 2y ago

> Not that I'll ever be important enough for that to happen Not that it keeps me up at night, but it’s fascinating to me that if we ever get to the point where a machine is in a position to care about your DNA, it probably will have enough resources to not need to rank anyone by importance.

napolux 2y ago

exact same reason why I never fell for their scam ads.

aucisson_masque 2y ago

> Who knows who will buy all this data after bankruptcy... People who think having millions of people dna is worth something. I could think of company working with private investigators or even governments. Your dna sample is part of 23andMe valuation right now, I wouldn’t have hope even if it says your data is removed on their website, there are still backup.

mentalgear 2y ago
The famous US data delete that is just a "soft delete". Maybe different in California. In the EU with GDPR, companies are required by law to have all your data deleted after a month from user deletion request.
- genewitch 2y ago
  How is this done in practice? Do you all just do backups different? What percentage of deleted data still exists, obfuscated as user1029387 in the tables? With "deleted" boolean column obviously set to true. The very idea that it's possible to delete all your data from any service not running everything on tmpfs is funny to me.
  - jajko 2y ago
    Its not even funny, its just dangerously naïve, on hacker news from all. I can bet half of my salary that absolutely none of those records are deleted forever, and even anonymization is probably very soft and reversible, if done at all. I work at a bank, one of major ones. We have various regulations stating to keep client records for 5 years. We have trainings that specifically say that we shouldn't keep client records longer than 5 years (additional costs, generally just a risk without any reward). Guess what - main core banking system's DB holding all client data and transactions is ever-growing, no data were ever purged from it in past 30 years. Nor will it ever happen in future. Too complex, nobody owns removal process, nobody rally cares about those data. This is situation with 0 good reasons to keep data. 23 has massive valuation reasons to keep them. Its not what it can be used for now but the vast unknown potential in future, of data that are inheritable and thus useful for hundreds/thousands of years. Don't hold your/parent's breath, be reasonable in current climate.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago

As we constantly leave bits of our DNA around the environment, I wonder if it would be worthwhile for an unscrupulous company to just collect DNA for nefarious purposes. I'd guess that they'd need the DNA linked to a person for it to be worthwhile, so maybe an easy collection device would be to send out a return addresses envelope for entering a prize draw or something, and then collect the saliva used to seal the envelope (i.e. not a self-sealing one, but one that you have to wet/lick).

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

TechDebtDevin 2y ago

Download your raw data. You have to request it from them so people should do that asap

ornornor 2y ago

There was a US government entity (can’t remember which one) post on here a couple days ago warning that 23&me was about to file and showing how to delete your data and opt out of ever selling it to anyone. Look it up on hn.algolia.com there weren’t very many steps.

andy_ppp 2y ago
I deleted my account and data (in theory) maybe several years ago.
dragonwriter 2y ago
It was actually the California State Attorney General.