Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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I hate this understatement so fucking much. No, those 15 million are just the people that directly gave their dna to 23 & me.
In reality, you only need to sample the genetic data for a small sample of the population to get the genetic information for the majority of the population. These people have relatives, and 23 & me has their data, too. They have most of ours.
Saying it just affects those 15 million is such an abysmal misunderstanding of genetics.
That's what pisses me off. I'd never give my data willing, but it's unwillingly given through any relatives that did do this.
How many gigabytes of data is that?
but when it happens on the dark web it's so incredibly illegal, but when a company does it...
You can remove the data yourself but you need to log in with biometrics. A retinal scan, a face recognition scan and a fingerprint. /s
Does whoever purchase the company's assets have full rights to the DNA data though? Wouldn't there be some kind of restriction for that kind of thing?
I'm going to buy it all and work on my super human...
No one has any right to complain, this possibility is clearly outlined in the t&c's every person agreed to.
Shouldn't have handed out your defining essence to a corporation.
What about those of us who are related to the people who took the test, and never consented to the t&c? They have our data, too.
Blame the person you are related to. Duh.
Kinda wacked out take. Onus shouldnt be on the individual
While I do agree its a bit whack, I question if everything needs 100% safety to be legal?
If someone offers a dangerous thing and you sign a waiver, maybe motocross, if you get injured is it the owners fault? Why should an individual be free from onus?
New Zealand understands this, you can sign away a companies liability to yourself. For adventure tourism stuff mostly. It's a good and fair way to do things I think.
Yea that's kinda what I was thinking. Digital safety should be up to the individual, big companies should be fined and held accountable to the data they collect.
Its why I'm on Lemmy, I host my own instance and thus I own the data. I've moved my email and cloud backups to instances I own as well. I understand I'm a bit privileged that I can do such things, but I plan on helping others setup their own needs online if I can.
Unfortunately we've been on autopilot just taking online products and folding them into our lives without much forethought to the outcomes. Didn't know democracy was at threat, but with hindsight it makes sense. Power is moving up the chain of command and could be lost to us labourers for the foreseeable future unless we take it back through our data.
Who should be responsible for these people agreeing to a contract and then not wanting to honour the contracts terms?
If personal responsibilty is "a whacked out take" then I'll take that.
I don't think it is reasonable to expect every individual to become a privacy / legal expert. I think people should have reasonable protections and assurances given to them without needing to study the details of everything they do on a case-by-case basis.
We have laws about what food can and cannot be sold - so that individuals don't have to personally test and monitor every product for safety. Privacy & data could be done like that too.
I don't agree with that at all, if you don't or can't understand the terms of a contract, you sign at your own peril, expecting the government to step in everytime a person decides to excercise their stupidity is authoritarian and leads to a bloated, innefficient system. This thinking just makes contracts meaningless, it just means you can claim ignorance everytime you sign into a contract you don't like.
Regulating food is whole different game for a number of reasons, i dont think it's a reasonable comparison.
Ok, either you let this slide, or I personnally strangle every living lawyers.
What?
What, "what? "
What did you not understand? I think I was very clear, use your words.
Nah, can't have been too important.
"The fuck else were these people expecting" is also my visceral reaction whenever shit like that happens, but if I think about for a bit longer, I realize that it's not much different than saying "The fuck else were you expecting" to a rape victim who went alone into a dark alley. Sure, people are stupid for engaging with this obvious scam, but the bad guy is still the scammer, not the victims.
A rape victim didn't sign a contract saying that would happen if they went dont that alley. That's the difference.
There is no bad guy in this case, just an idiot and a company.
This was just waiting to happen tbh
I’ve been telling people since this dna testing started that sooner or later that data will be for sale, an insurance company will buy it, and then get used against people to increase their health insurance rates or deny claims.
But I’m a crazy conspiracy theorist according to everyone ;)
Same reason I don’t want to buy a new car anymore…
GATTACA! GATTACA!
Same reason I don’t want to buy a new car anymore…
Because of the "driving behavior" data that gets sent out via secret cell connections and bought by insurance companies?
Yup. Go ahead and try turning that cell phone radio thing off. Why do you need an app for remote start? Why can’t it be on the keyfob anymore? But again, nothing to see here - just the continued enshittification of everything.
Even if a relative has shared their DNA, it can be used to make some fairly safe assumptions about yours.
My car's computer doesn't transmit. It doesn't log anything more than engine fault codes. That's how I like it.
I knew the whole idea of letting a company get your genetic fingerprint was a bad idea from the start. Being curious about my ancestry wasn't worth it.
Not just yours, but your family 's DNA. You are not much different from your siblings and parents. I was pissed when my brother told me he did one of those stupid DNA tests.
You could have the exact opposite combination of if genes from your sibling...
That’s great but all it takes is some of your blood relatives to submit their genetic data and they can calculate your genetics to a degree that is accurate enough.
This is the perfect example of why privacy matters. No matter how much you trust a parent company one day when the investors come knocking they are legally obligated to liquidate all assets to the highest bidder. Today its 23andme tomorrow it could be discord, google, amazon, Facebook or any other tech company.
In case people only saw the headline....
The sale is because a breach already happened: "hackers obtained personal data of about seven million of its customers in October 2023".
They cannot afford the lawsuits.
Hmm.
One of the notable issues is that this process also won’t delete all of your data — according to 23andMe’s privacy disclosure, your genetic information, date of birth, and sex will be retained for an undisclosed amount of time to comply with the company’s legal obligations,
What a pile of fuck, not a decent person at that company to deep-six the data before they left