this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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136
A giant biotechnology company might be about to go bust. What will happen to the millions of people’s DNA it holds? (theconversation.com)
submitted 1 month ago by Dot@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Most likely it will all be bought and sold like everything in the world these days. No one cares about privacy or rights especially if it means millions of dollars of profit are on the line.

The biggest take away from all this is ..... never ever trust a corporation with your privacy.

Because eventually they will give up your privacy if it means they stand to lose millions or gain millions.

Be careful and always leary of new services and conveniences that will affect your privacy because eventually it will be bought and sold to the highest bidder no matter how you feel about it.

[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No one cares about privacy or rights

First Cambridge Analytica data scandal happend, then the whole world suddenly voted for right wing extremes.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I guess I should have worded that differently .... no one cares if you can maintain your own personal rights or privacy because corporations view your rights and privacy as just another commodity ready to be bought and sold.

[–] danekrae@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

That's how I understood it and what I'm agreeing with. It's how companies like Cambridge Analytica came to be. How people came to be so manipulated.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have a relative who considered doing this test. I'm glad that the family talked him out of it. (Surprisingly enough, not just me.)

Anyway, my [hopefully not "hot"] take: for most part the data should be destroyed, as it involves private matters. If there's data that cannot be reasonably associated with an individual or well-defined group of individuals, perhaps it could be released into the public domain, but I'm not sure on that.

[–] SGG@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Stakeholders that want a payout will demand the data be sold to the highest bidder.

And other companies will probably be interested in said data and willing to buy.

I would like for it to be destroyed as well, but capitalism going to capitalism.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 21 points 1 month ago

You're right. And IMO they should be legally banned from doing so - because the people who signed up for this crap agreed with 23 and Me's ToS, not with someone else's.

But, well... as you said, capitalism going to capitalism. The "right thing to do" is often out of the table of options.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 1 points 1 month ago

Cute of you to assume it wasn't sold tho... JFC some "faith"

[–] ouRKaoS 13 points 1 month ago

They should just make all their data open source and release it to the public so it can be properly preserved!

/s

[–] errer@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’m going to posit an alternative theory: the data is actually pretty worthless and that’s why this company is going under. I don’t think these origin websites and the limited DNA sequencing they did is really worth as much as people might think.

[–] Zron@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

There was a big idea a couple decades ago that corporations were going to copyright natural genes and sell them for massive profits to other biotech companies that could use them to make cure for diseases and other things.

Michael Crichton wrote a few books about it, pretty good reads.

They did do the gene copyright thing in the real world, but it turns out that doing anything with a random gene is pretty hard and the genome isn’t just something you can copy paste a gene into and have it cure aids or cancer, so no one wanted to buy genetic sequences that they would then need to do a whole bunch of work on anyway to make it useful.

Pretty much all 23andMe did was increase the size of the Law Enforcement dna database by letting cops send in samples of suspects and get back their family members info. Of course the company said that was very naughty, but no one got into real trouble for it. And now 23andMe owns a lot of other people’s genetic code, and it’s not worth the hard drives it’s stored on.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 2 points 1 month ago

Same thing that happened before that... The dsat got sold, at best "anonymized" 🤡

[–] Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee -1 points 1 month ago

I am willing to step forward to solve this problem. Meesa propose unlimited emergency powers. Store all DNA in buckets, shrink wrapped to perfection. Most kind.