4 ms·

DNA Testing Firm Goes Bankrupt; Who Gets the Data?

28 points by phsr 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
Another candidate for an 'up-front' end of life policy or a we we-destroy-your-data guarantee. Imagine this companies assets get bought up by a health insurance company. What is the status of a privacy policy anyway if companies as a whole can be bought and sold.
- dschobel 17y ago
  A privacy policy probably doesn't have much standing but if the privacy clauses were terms of the contract which both parties agreed to then any purchasing company would still have to abide by them.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Sure, but the privacy policy is already broken at that point. The data is already in the hands of a third party, the one that bought the assets. Bankruptcy is weird that way, stuff that normally would not be transferable can suddenly end up in the weirdest places. Foreign companies could buy up the assets, and not be bound.
mstahl 17y ago
The Wired article references the below quote from timesonline.co.uk: "Industry experts said that Saga would want to maximise returns on its investment, and could still make wider use of data that some subscribers may find uncomfortable. Pooled and anonymised information, for example, could be sold to academic researchers or pharmaceutical companies." Personally, I find the concern to be a little premature based on the terms of deCODE's privacy policy. "deCODE will under no circumstances provide any 3’rd party, including insurance companies, health management organizations, hospitals, and government agencies, access to any of your personal data or data derived from your samples" Pooled and/or anonymised information would fall under "data derived from your samples" and therefore would be a breach of the policy.
- sokoloff 17y ago
  Yes, but if someone (say a health insurance co) were to buy deCODE, that purchasing entity would no longer be a 3rd party.
leelin 17y ago
Academic researchers have shown that anonymized data can be correlated with other data to identify people. Very true. Just in the last year or so, the credit reporting agencies figured out how to match anonymized subprime mortgage borrower information with their own database of individual credit scores. http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childpagename=US/EFX_News_C/PressReleasePage&cid=1187889849347&p=1182374863790&packedargs=locale%3Den_us&pagename=EFX/Wrapper http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childp... Then they sell the joined database to hedge funds and banks (still anonymized). They that before a borrower defaults on his mortgage, he'll first max out all his credit cards. Also, late credit card payments appear within 30 days. Late mortgage payments tend to take 60 days of delinquency before blipping on any radars. Fortunately it's hard to argue today that this practice is hurting anyone. In fact, some day this could help good borrowers stand out better and receive a lower interest rate.

28 points by phsr 17y ago

Another candidate for an 'up-front' end of life policy or a we we-destroy-your-data guarantee. Imagine this companies assets get bought up by a health insurance company. What is the status of a privacy policy anyway if companies as a whole can be bought and sold.

dschobel 17y ago
A privacy policy probably doesn't have much standing but if the privacy clauses were terms of the contract which both parties agreed to then any purchasing company would still have to abide by them.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Sure, but the privacy policy is already broken at that point. The data is already in the hands of a third party, the one that bought the assets. Bankruptcy is weird that way, stuff that normally would not be transferable can suddenly end up in the weirdest places. Foreign companies could buy up the assets, and not be bound.

mstahl 17y ago

The Wired article references the below quote from timesonline.co.uk: "Industry experts said that Saga would want to maximise returns on its investment, and could still make wider use of data that some subscribers may find uncomfortable. Pooled and anonymised information, for example, could be sold to academic researchers or pharmaceutical companies." Personally, I find the concern to be a little premature based on the terms of deCODE's privacy policy. "deCODE will under no circumstances provide any 3’rd party, including insurance companies, health management organizations, hospitals, and government agencies, access to any of your personal data or data derived from your samples" Pooled and/or anonymised information would fall under "data derived from your samples" and therefore would be a breach of the policy.

sokoloff 17y ago
Yes, but if someone (say a health insurance co) were to buy deCODE, that purchasing entity would no longer be a 3rd party.

leelin 17y ago

Academic researchers have shown that anonymized data can be correlated with other data to identify people. Very true. Just in the last year or so, the credit reporting agencies figured out how to match anonymized subprime mortgage borrower information with their own database of individual credit scores. http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childpagename=US/EFX_News_C/PressReleasePage&cid=1187889849347&p=1182374863790&packedargs=locale%3Den_us&pagename=EFX/Wrapper http://www.equifax.com/cs7/Satellite?c=EFX_News_C&childp... Then they sell the joined database to hedge funds and banks (still anonymized). They that before a borrower defaults on his mortgage, he'll first max out all his credit cards. Also, late credit card payments appear within 30 days. Late mortgage payments tend to take 60 days of delinquency before blipping on any radars. Fortunately it's hard to argue today that this practice is hurting anyone. In fact, some day this could help good borrowers stand out better and receive a lower interest rate.