{"id":9186,"date":"2025-09-11T09:31:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/9186\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T09:31:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:31:21","slug":"why-i-regret-using-23andme-i-gave-up-my-dna-just-to-find-out-im-british-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/9186\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I regret using 23andMe: I gave up my DNA just to find out I\u2019m British | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

23andMe is facing implosion. As the once-promising genetic<\/a> testing company flounders \u2013 losing 98% of its $6bn value, all its independent board members, nearly half its staff<\/a> \u2013 many of its 15 million customers are scrambling<\/a> to delete their DNA data from the company\u2019s archives. I am one of them.<\/p>\n

My reluctant path to 23andMe began in 2016, when I ordered a kit in the mail. After letting the box sit on my desk for weeks, I finally spit in a tube and sent it to the company for analysis. I am a technology<\/a> journalist \u2013 I like to think I am thoughtful about what data I share with corporations. When it comes to genetic data, which unlike a password or credit card number cannot ever be changed, I was particularly wary.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s side of the family is meticulous about tracking our ancestry, with records that hold the name of the exact small village in Ireland our ancestors hail from. My mother\u2019s side is less thorough. Although I know my grandmother\u2019s great-grandparents came to the US from Denmark and spoke little English for much of their lives, I have no idea from what country our surname, Galusha, originates. I wanted to know more. So despite my misgivings \u2013 and there were many \u2013 my curiosity won out, and I sent in a test.<\/p>\n

What did I get in exchange for handing the company $119 and indefinite access to my genetic data? Confirmation that I am 63% British and Irish, 17% Danish and otherwise \u201cbroadly north-western European\u201d. I felt a resounding ambivalence about the results, including some disappointment that I had not discovered a newfound heritage \u2013 a piece of information that would give my identity new dimension. I was also surprised to find out that some parts of my identity present in the family lore \u2013 a Czech heritage \u2013 was not actually present in my genes. Now, as the looming collapse of the company raises serious concerns about what will happen to the database of users\u2019 genomic information, I am struggling to reconcile the fact that I traded away my genetic privacy to find out that I am mostly British.<\/p>\n

Timothy Caulfield, a professor at University of Alberta who has studied motivations for undergoing genetic ancestry testing and how consumer respond to their results, said my reaction \u2013 one of ambivalence \u2013 is actually the most common.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are told by pop culture that we are supposed to care \u2013 that your genes matter,\u201d he said. \u201cBut a lot of people get their results and find it very underwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 23andMe\u00a0DNA genetic testing kit. Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In addition to finding my results inconsequential, I have always found the idea of genetic testing for ancestry to be fraught, and was hesitant to buy into the idea that my genetic origins have any bearing on who I am as a person. Caulfield, who had his own ancestry tested<\/a> despite similar misgivings, is of the same mind. He asserts that race is \u201ca biological fiction\u201d, one that these companies promote, marketing the idea that our genes are relevant to how we view ourselves as individuals. This mindset, Caulfield says, is \u201cthe essence of racism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one hand, I am enraged by it \u2013 I think it is an incredibly harmful trend, especially in this polarized world that we live in, where we\u2019re becoming more tribalistic,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the same time, I get it. People are looking for roots. They\u2019re looking for meaning. They\u2019re looking for a tribe to belong to. And I think the marketing plays into that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

That marketing was wildly successful for the better part of two decades. 23andMe was co-founded in 2006 by Anne Wojcicki. By the time it went public in 2021, the company was worth $3.5bn, and its value reached a peak of $6bn shortly thereafter. Competitors like Ancestry.com and MyHeritage entered the sphere, and by 2024 more than 40 million people<\/a> in the world had taken consumer genetic tests.<\/p>\n

The individual appeal of these tests varies widely, but many consumers expressed an explicit desire to understand personal origins that inform their identities, said Muriel Leuenberger, a postdoctoral researcher at University of Zurich whose work centers on philosophy of identity and genealogy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne hope I see in people pursuing these tests is to develop a richer self-conception,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is a thought that you get this information, and then suddenly things you did in the past or character traits that you have might fall into place and make sense in a different way that they haven\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many people, those tests can reframe a sense of identity, for better or worse. Many have shared stories about a genetic test disproving longstanding family lore \u2013 like a long-cited story of Native American roots being negated, for example. I had always heard my family was Czech \u2013 a heritage that did not show up in any percentage in my results. This identity was not part of my upbringing beyond passing references, so discovering it did not exist make a huge impact on me. However, similar discoveries can lead to existential crises for those who have closely associated with a certain identity, said Leuenberger.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, you have a whole cultural background with which you really identify, maybe it was even part of your upbringing, and suddenly you\u2019re kind of cut off from it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt can lead people to question this connection and whether they have a right to it if it is not proven by a genetic test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such desires for certain cultural connections differ substantially by country, noted Caulfield \u2013 whose research found that in places like Canada and the US, consumers take tests hoping for an \u201cexotic\u201d background that aligns with the cultural understanding of our countries as a genetic melting pot. Black Americans have used<\/a> genetic testing to trace a lineage violently fractured by the transatlantic slave trade, though some Black Americans have expressed<\/a> concerns about privacy \u2013 as well as the ways in which DNA testing risks reifying racial stratification. In markets like China and Japan, he said, advertising campaigns instead seek to appeal to reaffirmation of ancestral purity.<\/p>\n

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With the future of 23andMe in peril, the overarching question among previous customers now is what will happen to the data that has already been collected. Leuenberger noted that by entering DNA into a database, users sacrifice not only their own privacy but that of blood relatives. Because an individual\u2019s DNA is similar in structure to that of their relatives, information about others can be gleaned from one person\u2019s sample. This is especially pronounced with the rise of open-access DNA sites like GEDMatch, on which users can upload<\/a> genetic data that can be compared to other samples. A consumer genealogy test contributed<\/a> to the identification of serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is ethically tricky with genetic data is that it\u2019s not just about self-knowledge \u2013 it\u2019s also knowledge about all of your relatives,\u201d Leuenberger said. \u201cMorally speaking, it is not necessarily information that is yours to give \u2013 and this risk is exacerbated if this company goes down and the fate of the data becomes more perilous.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an attempt to minimize these risks, I requested that my account be deleted and the company send me a copy of my data. I received an email confirming my deletion request \u2013 with some caveats. While samples I consented to have stored would be discarded, if I had opted into having my data used for research, that information could not be withdrawn or undone. Luckily, I had not. 23andMe and its genotyping labs are required under the federal Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 and California laboratory regulations to retain my genetic information, date of birth and sex. In other words, the company is required to retain some portions of the information I am asking it to delete. The company will also retain \u201climited information\u201d related to my deletion request.<\/p>\n

23andMe declined to respond to questions regarding the nature of genetic information it is required to retain. In a statement, spokesperson Katie Watson cited 23andMe\u2019s \u201cstrong customer privacy protections\u201d, including not sharing customer data with third parties without customer consent. Many privacy concerns center around what will happen to the data if 23andMe changes ownership or goes bankrupt. Regarding those concerns, Watson noted that the company\u2019s CEO, Wojcicki, has stated she intends to take the company private, and is not open to considering third party takeover proposals \u2013 thus maintaining the current privacy policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to protecting customer data and are consistently focused on maintaining the privacy of our customers,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThat will not change.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for my genetic data, I received a copy of my ancestry report \u2013 confirming my largely British heritage \u2013 and a 17MB text file containing my entire genome. While being able to receive such data is compulsory under many privacy laws, it raises the question of how useful reclaiming our data from tech companies really is, Caulfield said. Referencing a study conducted<\/a> in 2020, he said consumers at a fundamental level feel they should have a right to their genomic information \u2013 even if they cannot understand the raw mass of millions of As, Cs, Ts and Gs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to people to have a right to this data dump with their whole genome, even though for virtually every human on the planet it is meaningless,\u201d Caulfield said.<\/p>\n

So what will I do with my newfound understanding of self and long list of genotype identifiers sitting on my computer desktop? Nothing. I have traveled little in Europe, and thus have yet to visit any of my disparate homelands. Perhaps if I make my way over to London in the near future, I will be overwhelmed with a sense of belonging, and all my angst over who owns my genomic information will all be worth it. But I am doubtful that the tradeoff resulted in anything but a resounding ambivalence and the sacrifice of my genetic self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"23andMe is facing implosion. As the once-promising genetic testing company flounders \u2013 losing 98% of its $6bn value,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[377,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-9186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-genetics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}