You may be one of the millions of Americans who have submitted their
DNA sample to a genetic testing company to find out more about their background. We
all rely on the company of our choice to respect our privacy at the time.
But what happens when it decides to say go public? Well, that's the dilemma 23andMe could be facing
following a merger with a company owned by controversial billionaire Richard Branson.
So joining me now to go further in depth on this story is Sara Papantonio,
associate attorney at Levin Papantonio Rafferty. Sara, it's great to have you on the show today.
I want to start by looking at the details of this case. So 23andMe is merging with
VG Acquisition Corp, which is owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group. How much control does he
now have over a company that many of us have used and trusted with sensitive information?
Well, control is the major issue here because Richard Branson's company now has control
over people's private information as a majority shareholder here. You know, see when most of us
got the 23andMe test, we, it was fun. You know, we were looking to see who our ancestors were,
what the genes in our family were like. It all seemed harmless, but what we didn't expect was
for that information to then go public. See, this is essentially a massive attempt at data
mining involving all of our health data, with that data being sold to the highest bidder and
Richard Branson is sitting at the head of the table with that control.
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I know we talk a lot about Facebook and social media and how
much data they gather from us. But we're talking about a company that literally has our DNA samples
along with information about who we may be related to, our conversations with those
people. There's definitely a lot going on there. Now, of course, when we're talking about money,
this merger will allow 23andMe to go public with a valuation of $3.5 billion.
Many are seeing the dollar signs here, of course, but are there legitimate concerns
that a quest to continue to grow could change the privacy standards that customers have relied on?
Yes, absolutely. Now understand that health virtually controls every aspect of our life.
That if you have access to our health information, that data can effectively be used to control
the market for anything. If you have that information, then you can market based on
our nutrition, our medical care, you can market all the way to our grave. So this data can now
be broadly given to anyone willing to pay for it. And the problem with that is that once the
public understands this and reacts to it, that there's going to be a potential for backlash,
both in the public and popular realm of backlash, as well as legislative backlash. And what that's
going to do is it's ultimately going to affect the value of this company in the long run.
Yeah, certainly. And that could be, you know, backlash of the company,
as it's hoping that it's going to make even more money by going public. Now, when we're
talking about companies like 23andMe, they have become increasingly in recent years with many,
not necessarily considering the privacy aspects of, you know, handing over their DNA at the time.
What legal standings do customers have over the protection of their information in the long run?
At this point, customers don't really have much legal standing or really any protection
at all. And I anticipate that this is going to be huge. It's going to be a huge field of law that's
going to be litigated in the years to come and that's basically mostly because our Congress and
the department of justice just seems so unwilling to aggressively protect those privacy rights for
individuals and protect consumers in this route. Yeah. I know there have been a lot of concerns
about exactly what our privacy is and where it stands when it comes to social media. Now,
when it comes to these genetic testing companies moving forward. So we'll see exactly where that
goes. But Sara Papantonio, thank you so much for your time and insight on this one.
Thank you.