writing articles that blame pharma and biotech for stealing people private data is the hot thing now. It increases page hits. Same with blaming google, facebook for stealing user data; it's the fear du jour.
While there are legitimate concerns, 23&Me is pretty good in terms of privacy practices and their founders/employees are working in good faith to improve the health of humans. It's kind of sad that gets twisted into "compabnies are profiting from your personal data", because while that is true, it's not nearly as invasive or gattaca as people seem to think.
In this case, nobody's stealing anything. People are opting to give them not only their information, but those of their descendants as well. Apparently they think that some sort of "privacy clause" (written by the corporation's lawyers no doubt) will remain intact if things get financially tight, and that the courts and governments will step in if the businesses try to take advantage of their knowledge in a way detrimental to the customer.
But we all understand that technology is only going to make more information available from those samples over time. The board has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, and it doesn't take a great imagination to see that if the information becomes valuable in new ways then there will be pressure to use it however they can.
While there are legitimate concerns, 23&Me is pretty good in terms of privacy practices and their founders/employees are working in good faith to improve the health of humans. It's kind of sad that gets twisted into "compabnies are profiting from your personal data", because while that is true, it's not nearly as invasive or gattaca as people seem to think.