23andMe Users Fear Data Leak After Company Goes Public - YouTube

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.