:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/56801565/456931028.0.jpg)
23andMe has been around for more than 11 years, but it’s just now getting to “critical mass,” CEO Anne Wojcicki says, thanks in part to a recent $200 million funding round.
But as the personal genomics company grows, convincing more and more people to send their spit off to a lab in exchange for data about their DNA, what is it doing about privacy? We got a lot of questions to that effect when we announced that Wojcicki would be talking with Kara Swisher and Lauren Goode on the latest episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask.
“Privacy and your ownership and control of your genome is the most important — it’s the foundation of this company,” Wojcicki said. “If you were to participate in a research study at, let’s say, UCSF — once you participate, you can’t easily pull your data out. At any point in time, you call 23andMe, or you email in, and say, ‘I want to delete all my data,’ we’ll delete all your data. We can’t undo a research project or something we’ve done, but you can delete your data at any time.”
She stressed that the company does not work with insurance companies in any way, but does partner with universities and pharma companies, offering the data of customers who have explicitly opted in to help with genetic research.
“Usually, those are people who have a specific disease, and usually, they’re very enthused,” she said. “... People who have Parkinson’s Disease, they want us to do programs all day long because they want to advance the disease [research].”
You can listen to the new podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
On the new podcast, Wojcicki also addressed questions about what might happen if 23andMe changed ownership, or if it was attacked by hackers, a la Equifax. She said its databases are built such that DNA info is “totally separate” from personally identifiable info — but she also questioned whether the company would really be of value to hackers.
“Knock on wood, we’ve never been hacked,” Wojcicki said. “I doubt there will be interest in it. Your bank account is inherently interesting, your passwords are inherently interesting.”
“If I come and get your DNA: ‘Oh! Kara’s not great at basketball! And she’s got brown eyes and she’s European!’ There’s the interest element and what I’ve seen is that privacy breaches happen more within a family, where people will say, ‘I want to see, is my sibling related to my other sibling?’”
Have questions about 23andMe or personal genomics that we didn’t get to in this episode? Tweet them to @Recode with the hashtag #TooEmbarrassed, or email them to TooEmbarrassed@recode.net.
Be sure to follow @LaurenGoode, @KaraSwisher and @Recode to be alerted when we're looking for questions about a specific topic.
If you like this show, you should also check out our other podcasts:
- Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- And finally, Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, such as the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on Apple Podcasts — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara and Lauren. Tune in next Friday for another episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask!
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
