“Discover what your DNA says about you and your family.” This is how 23Andme, a company that proposes something as simple as sending a saliva sample and receiving information about the origin of your ancestors or possible relatives lost over time. No needles, without blood: a domestic genetic test that promises personal answers to ancestral questions.
A few days after registering on the platform, the user receives at home a small box with a collection tube. You just have to deposit a saliva sample and return the package by mail. From there, the DNA is digitized and analyzed by algorithms. Three or four weeks later, the results appear directly on the entrance tray.
In bankruptcy. Open the door to the past for less than $ 120 seemed a proposal for success. However, things did not go as expected. Last Sunday, 23 Andme accepted Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Law, that is, he declared himself in bankruptcy, and his CEO, Anne Wojcicki, soon presented her resignation.
This outcome was not sudden. 23Andme had been facing doubts about his business model, disputes with investors and a concern for the property of his huge genetic database. Has never reported net benefits And its stock market value has collapsed in recent yearsentering a complicated field.
Wojcicki tried to get the company several times, but its proposals were rejected again and again. “Although it disappoints me that we have reached this situation and that my offer has been rejected, support for the company and I intend to participate as a bidder,” The executive said in a shared message this Monday in X.
Privacy nightmare. More than 12 million people, according to figures that we found on their website, shared their DNA with 23andme. Now, they could see how their data end up in the hands of another company. It is a very real possibility: the restructuring process includes the sale of assets with the objective of “maximizing the value of the business.”
The situation has lit the alarms of the Attorney General of California, Rob Bonta, who issued an consumer alert focused on privacy. In it, he recalled that any citizen has the right to ask the company to eliminate their data and the destruction of any genetic sample that still retains.
The company, on the other hand, has assured that there will be no changes in the way it protects user data during the bankruptcy process. However, your security history is far from being impeccable. Without going any further, last year One of its databases with millions of profiles on the Dark Web was leaked.
Images | 23ndme
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