PSA: Delete your DNA from 23andMe right now.
It just declared bankruptcy. And California’s attorney general has issued an unusual “consumer alert” about how to protect your privacy.
Instructions and details in my @washingtonpost.com column: wapo.st/4kUsBEF— Geoffrey A. Fowler (@geoffreyfowler.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Washington Post gift link:
If you’re one of the 15 million people who shared your DNA with 23andMe, it’s time to delete your data.
The genetic information company, best known for its saliva test kits, announced Sunday that it is headed to bankruptcy court to sell its assets. And 23andMe’s financial distress prompted California Attorney General Rob Bonta to issue an unusual privacy “consumer alert” about it Friday.
“I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company,” he said in a statement…
The company said there will be “no changes” to the way it protects consumer data while in bankruptcy court. But unless you take action, there is a risk your genetic information could end up in someone else’s hands — and used in ways you had never considered. I have instructions on how to do it below.
It didn’t take me long to delete my data. The company’s website was not working for some users on Monday morning — perhaps because of the number of people trying to scrub their information. But it appeared to improve in the afternoon…
Founded in 2006, 23andMe was a pioneer in the quest to unlock knowledge from the human genome. It offers customers information about their family tree and hereditary characteristics, while researching new kinds of treatments.
But in recent years, 23andMe has been slammed by simultaneous business and security challenges. It went public in 2021 but burned through its cash and watched its value drop from about $6 billion to around $50 million now.
In 2023, it suffered a data breach that affected some 7 million customers. Hackers used customers’ old passwords to gain access to information that in some cases included family trees, birth years and geographic locations.
In September, 23andMe’s board of directors quit after rejecting CEO Anne Wojcicki’s proposals to take the company private.
On Sunday, Wojcicki resigned from her position as CEO, but she is still a member of the company’s board. She resigned to pursue another bid to buy the business, she said in a post on X.
23andMe didn’t immediately respond to my questions. But in its Sunday filing announcing bankruptcy, it said it “intends to continue operating its business in the ordinary course throughout the sale process.”…
Bonta, the California attorney general, didn’t specify the risks of leaving your “trove of sensitive consumer data” with 23andMe. But privacy advocates I’ve spoken to have been watching the company’s challenges with concern on several fronts.
First, you are relying on 23andMe to keep your DNA safe from hackers. But that could be hard for any company to do under bankruptcy proceedings — and 23andMe has had plenty of security trouble in the past. (On its website, 23andMe says the company has achieved three certifications to demonstrate the strength of its security program.)
There’s also a risk that your data could get sold or transferred to a new company, which might want to use it for new purposes. The privacy statement of 23andMe seems to treat your data as a company asset that’s on the table like anything else. It reads: “If we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction.”
On the website page to delete your data, 23andMe says: “If the company does change ownership in the future, your data will remain protected under the current 23andMe Privacy Policy unless and until you are presented with materially new terms, with appropriate advanced notice to review those material changes as required by law.”…
When you request to delete your data, a confirmation email from 23andMe says it also automatically discards your sample and unenrolls you from research programs.
Before you delete your data, you might want to choose to download some or all of it. If you do, just make sure you have a good way to store and keep it safe. Unlike a password or telephone number, this is data you’re stuck with for the rest of your life.
Baud
I hope you’re feeling better, AL.
schrodingers_cat
No need to delete. Never gave them any DNA. I don’t get this fascination with ancestry.
Scout211
Reposting Attorney General Bonta’s urgent message.
And step by step instructions:
I had already deleted my data in 2023 when 23andMe had the big data breach, but I deleted my husband’s today.
Old School
Is the assumption that this will not be honored?
A Ghost to Most
I would if I could. My sister did it, and I doubt she’s inclined to do something about it.
Baud
I was sad to delete my info. They said my genes were in the top 1%.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Hello Trump! Did the big burly men of 23 and me also cry?
Nah you couldn’t be Trump, too funny and too smart.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
“Only the best genes! My uncle was an MIT professor so he had a very good brain!”
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Heh. Yes, they had tears in their eyes when they said, Sir, please don’t go, your genes are a perfect specimen of humanity.
Scout211
That is what I am reading from privacy experts. It just depends on who purchases the data and how they plan to use it.
Also too, does anyone really read the emails sent to them regularly to inform us of the “changes in our privacy practices?”
Scout211
Everybody is saying my jeans are top notch, too! Perfect fit, they say.
Baud
@Scout211: Mine keep ripping in the crotch. Not sure what’s going on with jean making these days.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
No joke, a lot of jeans/pants these days suck. I’m lucky if mine last 6-7 months before ripping
WaterGirl
I’m so glad you put this together, Anne Laurie. This is important. I was meaning to do it but hadn’t gotten around to it. Go you!
Trollhattan
Not to worry, they’ll be picked up by CVS for pennies on the dollar and thus, in good hands. The best hands, really.
pika
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t feel it myself. But I have friends whose families were destroyed by pogroms and the Shoah for whom finding relatives has been very important
cmorenc
My 30-something daughter gave me a 23-and-me kit for my birthday several years ago, and though i long felt a bit guilty not getting around to actually submit my sample because I felt uneasy about the potential for exposure to insurance companies etc, I am now extra glad for having drug my feet and never getting around to it.
Jay
On both sides of my family, we had a family tree. My Dad’s went back to 1280, my Mom’s to 1920*,
On T’s side, her Dad’s goes back to 1412, her Mom’s goes back to 1575 BC.**
If you knew of the case of Henrietta Lacks, why would you exchange a genetic sample, with no rules on it’s use, for something as common as a family tree?
*Both my Mom’s Mom, and Dad, came to Canada as war orphans. My Grandfather from a Slovak village from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire that no longer existed, age 12, straight to the coal mines. My Grandmother, an English Orphan, sent to Canada at age 14 as an indentured Domestic Servant.
**on T’s Mother’s side, they are Assin’skowitiniwak.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
BTW, hope you’re feeling better AL. Thanks for the PSA.
I’m glad I never had anything to do with 23andme
Scout211
When we first signed up for 23andMe, my husband’s health prediction included a slightly higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease in his gene profile. We didn’t think anything of it because there was no family history of Alzheimer’s. But he did develop Alzheimer’s so the health predictions were not wrong.
I really liked the health sections but was never interested in any links to family members with similar profiles so I never signed up for those. And I never allowed them to keep my DNA sample.
I was happy to delete everything in 2023, though.
scav
@Baud: We’re just surprised you’re wearing any honestly.
schrodingers_cat
@pika: I can see why they might want to find out more.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Heh mine as well! I think its the stretch that they add to the denim. Because the old ones without stretch haven’t ripped yet.
bjacques
My genes are comfortable because they’re dad genes (and I’m not even a dad).
Seriously, I never could be bothered.
schrodingers_cat
I have been watching the best picture nominees for the Oscars this year. So far I have watched the
Conclave and Anora. Wondering what to watch next, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown or I am still here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Scout211:
Sorry about your husband having Alzheimer’s. My grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s/dementia and it was so hard on the family, especially my mother who his healthcare decisions fell to. It was pretty heartbreaking.
Scout211
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Thanks, Goku. It’s a challenge for sure.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: What did you think of Anora?
sentient ai from the future
so at the beginning, these companies were trying to get into the “diagnose genetic suceptibilities” game. FDA and GINA said no dice, so they pivoted to “ancestry” which was always somewhat bullshit since the models of human migrations they use are not exactly open and public, so they rely on network effects to have some kind of current relevance.
they’ve always been kind of a scam, so i’ve been expecting this for like 20 years.
but my sibling, who i am estranged from, got this test done (without consulting me about the potential downsides, or getting my permission) so i have data in there, but no way of removing it as i didnt surrender it to them in the first place.
does anyone have suggestions for what i might be able to do, other than get a lawyer?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I liked it . I have a MIL from hell so I could empathize. Mikey Madison gave a great performance. I thought the middle dragged a little.
Reminded me a little bit of Eastern Promises which was grittier.
I would say it was good but not great. What did you think of it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: Does that problem with your jeans have anything to do with your no-pants plank in your Presidential campaign platform?
cmorenc
One of the major practical uses of the 23andme database was law enforcement using it to help solve cold cases where the only lead they had was some DNA from the perp, but no clue who the perp was or where they mighg be located. They would use the 23andme database to hunt for potential familial relatives of the perp – and then contact them to find out who and where related family members were who were not themselves in the database. The perp’s relatives sometimes, but not necessarily, have had any reason to suspect their kinfolk had been involved in any sort of serious crime. Don’t have a link, but I recall a documentary about a detective researcher who solved several otherwise cold-cases using this technique.
Even if your submession to 23andme didn’t result in any adverse consequences for you, it created the possibility you may have thereby unknowingly ratted on one of your relatives. Perhaps deservedly so.
eclare
I hope you’re feeling better, Anne Laurie!
NotMax
@Baud
Pro tip: the zipper goes in the front.
:)
Martin
@Old School: Yes. If the buyer is a foreign corporation, you may not even having the ability to sue for breach of contract. The data is still _their_ asset, not yours.
And if you want a really evil thought to stick in your head for the rest of the day, some of the entities that are likely the most interested in the 23andMe data are US and foreign intelligence services, and good luck suing them. Kash Patel would cream his pants to have your DNA and that connected to all of your personal data for the cost of a couple million dollars, and he’s not the kind of public servant that would see what a misuse of trust that would be.
eclare
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Really? Mine last for years, multiple years. I spend a bit so that (hopefully) I have to shop less. I hate to shop.
Martin
@sentient ai from the future: Don’t see how a lawyer would help you. We have no laws giving you any kind of rights due to DNA that a relative has given up.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
I usually like to watch at least some of the Best Picture nominees, but this year the only one that interests me at all is Wicked. And I will not see a film if it doesn’t interest me.
I haven’t seen Wicked yet because it’s part one and part two will be out this November. I’ll wait til that gets closer to watch.
Baud
@scav:
It’s hard to ride horses without pants.
SpaceUnit
I’ve never taken one of those DNA tests. I’m not somebody who ever fantasized that I was descended from Scottish kings. Some things you’re better off not knowing.
Baud
“Only the President decides what US secrets to share with Putin.”
Trollhattan
@Baud:
OTOH those horse pants cost a lot “pants so large.”
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I liked it too. I actually only got interested in the middle part! She and Borisov gave great performances.
scav
@Trollhattan: Plus the whole question of which two legs go into them . . . .
Mai Naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: i know a woman whose much older half brother ended up finding her through ancestry and dna. The half brother was born while both parents were in high school and the bio-dad had denied paternity. This was during the early 60s when having a kid out of wedlock was a huge scandal.
Baud
Maybe all those young people who emailed me really were my children.
Geminid
@Baud: This sloppy-ass national security team reminds of Casey Stengel’s question:
H.E.Wolf
There are also alternate viewpoints. Here’s one:
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ocsbmyulc2grbq3esflddyj6/post/3ll6g5plrpc2f
(I don’t have a viewpoint; I’ve never used a DNA testing service.)
H.E.Wolf
We had genealogy buffs on both sides of the family, a couple of generations earlier. It has come in useful (and interesting) on multiple occasions, including the filling-out of weird bureaucratic forms….
Timill
@Mai Naem mobile: That’s roughly what my wife did, and it got a phone call that went roughly:
Hi. Did you give up a baby for adoption around <date>?
Yes…
Hi, Grandma!
Mission accomplished…
brendancalling
I was always a big NOPE on 23&Me. Looks like I was prescient.
mayim
@cmorenc:
23andMe doesn’t participate in forensic genetic genealogy. Neither does Ancestry. Both require a sample sent in to be tested in order to be in their database, so that’s not much use for law enforcement, as their data is in other formats.
Gedmatch [which doesn’t do testing] and Family Tree DNA [which does do testing for autosomal, yDNA, and mitochondrial DNA] both allow results from tests from other companies to be uploaded to their databases and allow law enforcement to upload DNA results from both John/Jane Does and criminals for forensic genetic genealogy. I have not opted in to having my GEDmatch account used for law enforcement searching. I have no issue with using the data for identification of John/Jane Does, but I think that law enforcement should need a warrant for using the data in a criminal investigation, especially if it’s in the recent-ish past [say the last 10 to 20 or so years].
The ethnicity estimates from consumer DNA tests are very much still science in development ~ and not much use to genealogists except on a big [continental-level] scale. The tests are fairly good at distinguishing Asian from African from European, and within good-sized European regions ~ NW Europe from southern Europe from eastern Europe. Much less good at distinguishing Italian from Greek or Irish from English/German/Swedish, as people moved around and mixed with each other.
The information most useful for genealogy research is the matches with relatives. I’m currently working with some distant cousins on a project to see what we can find about our common ancestors, a couple who got married in southern Scotland in 1785. Some other DNA relatives and I are making progress on a mysterious ancestor who showed up in Massachusetts in 1808, married and had two kids, then left on a sea voyage to the West Indies, where he died of yellow fever ~ it’s looking like he was Portuguese from the DNA connections. It’s a fascinating puzzle!
Eyeroller
I’m downloading my data so I can post it to GEDMatch (a very public site). If there are any distant relatives of mine who are criminals or unknown deceased, I want to help identify them.
At the present time, there is very little useful information that can be obtained from raw DNA sequences other than familial relationships. (And it is true that can be an issue itself.) They weren’t able to provide any information I had hoped to learn about some familial vulnerabilities to certain cancers and perhaps heart disease, because too many genes are involved and/or they have not been identified and/or epigenetic factors are also involved.
So I don’t really understand this freakout. As noted in H.E. Wolf’s reference, cell-phone data is orders of magnitude more intrusive but we just accept it.
karen gail
Never did DNA testing but had excellent genealogy since family member had been writing down in bibles and journals for generations. Even managed to track down relative in Ireland once had access to internet; she had some interesting things to share. Like until 1600’s they usually only tracked the mother since the father could be questionable; even after the country became highly religious there were no guarantees that man woman was married to was actually the father; especially, when there was fighting and victors celebrated with rape.
There is another thing rarely thought of if you have had cancer or tested for cancer and the results were either taken at a university hospital or sent to one the university often keeps DNA records of cancer patients. One of my oncologists told me that it was standard practice and helped them track family members who had same cancers.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: The middle part was fun, just a tad long.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I’m not a good judge of movies, because I watch them in 20-minute segments!
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Ah I watched it in one sitting.
Marc
Since Alzheimer’s and dementia have come up, I wanted to pass on a link that came from one of the kid’s medical buddies:
Common anticholinergic drugs like Benadryl linked to increased dementia risk
This includes Benadryl, Unisom, NyQuil, and lots of other OTC drugs (anything with diphenhydramine as an active ingredient). The issue is people (like myself) who take even a small quantity on a daily basis, in particular as a sleep aid. It apparently disrupts the sleep cycle to an extent that the brain can’t fully recover on a day to day basis once you hit your 60s.
moonbat
Good to see you posting, AL.
I hope you are all well soon.
Marc
Some members of my family are known to have a rare genetic mutation called Lynch syndrome, which pretty much guarantees you will have a series of colon or other related cancers starting at as young as 25. My otherwise wonderful sister did an ancestry DNA test (luckily, not 23andme), without thinking that, of course, it would show up there. At the moment, there is the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), but at some point DOGE will figure out this is “inefficient”. Once that (and ACA) is gone, members of my family will essentially be un-insurable for cancer risks, as was the case for some of us prior to 2008. Luckily there was CA state program that provided (mediocre, but better than nothing) insurance after my first cancer encounter, so it did not bankrupt me. Who know what other things might show up in your DNA as time goes on.
glc
@H.E.Wolf: I suppose that is indeed a viewpoint. In the broad sense of the term.
(I was expecting to see something a bit more coherent, I confess.)
NaijaGal
Deleted mine. Used it because when we first got married, my husband really wanted to understand his roots (communist paternal grandfather migrated from Spain to Mexico and married his indigenous grandmother, who forbade him from returning to fight Franco because she was pregnant with their first child. All his friends who went back from Mexico to Spain to fight died!). He wanted us both to try it out, so I did.
I knew it was a waste of time on my part (100% Nigerian) but it was amazing to find out that he has ancestry from every continent, has Ashkenazi ancestry (he expected Sephardic) and is 3% Nigerian! We still joke about that one because no one saw it coming. He certainly doesn’t look it.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
I was told at a Crohn’s and Colitis conference to never have my DNA analysed JIC. Glad I followed that advice.
Alice
My oncologist sent me for DNA testing, and it was a great relief to be able to tell my family members that my cancer wasn’t tied to any known heritable factors. The company gave me the option of deleting my info and sample, but I decided not to as it will keep checking as new gene-cancer links are discovered. To me it is well worth the risk of scoundrels getting access to the data.