4 million of 23AndMe's customers have had their records leaked.
👉 Background: 23AndMe is one of the new-age genetic testing company founded in 2006. It has over 14 million customers globally. It's part of the new-age direct-to-consumer DNA testing companies like AncestryDNA.
👉 What happened: 23AndMe is able to provide its customers with a wealth of personal information based on their DNA, including origin, heritage and familial relations. That means it stored a LOT of your personal data. But now, 4 million of 23AndMe's customers have had their records leaked.
👉 What else: A person's DNA is essentially the source code to them; there's nothing more private than your personal genetic information. And, this may be cause for concern about sharing people's data.
💡When a business holds sensitive personal data, a breach doesn't just hurt the company's reputation, it also fundamentally undermines the business model.
💡Companies like 23AndMe rely on the data they collect both for the DNA service they offer and for other revenue streams, like selling anonymised data for research or even marketing.
💡So this loss of consumer trust for 23AndMe will likely lead to loss of existing customers who want their data wiped, and definitely new customers who would be fearful of another breach.
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