Popular DNA testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com are being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over their policies for handling personal info and genetic data, and how they share that info with third parties.
Privacy issues in the use of such DNA testing kits came to the forefront last month with the arrest of the notorious Golden State Killer, when it was revealed that police had used data from GEDMatch, a genealogy research site where users upload genealogical and genetic information, to help identify the suspect.
[Earlier this month], Israel-based DNA testing service MyHeritage announced a security researcher had uncovered tens of millions of account details for some 92 million customers, including email addresses and hashed passwords. (Fast Company, June 2018)
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Submitting your DNA to these types of companies creates a privacy risk not only for you, but for others who are related to you. As with any large database containing personal information, these DNA databases are targets of criminals. It is not so much a matter of "if" your data will be stolen, it is only a matter of "when".
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