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Comment by accrual | Hacker News Reader

I checked the "destroy my sample after analysis" checkbox. So the analysis is there but not the actual sample. Maybe this is somewhat better?

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You're confident that the sample was destroyed?

If they say they will destroy it, then I later find it wasn't destroyed and it was used in some way that was harmful to me, doesn't that make the company massively liable?

That's the only reassurance I have. It would be like illegally collected evidence. Sure, you may have some evidence (my DNA), but it's not admissible because you're not supposed to have had access to it.

IIUC, there are hard rules about admissibility of evidence, and you're aware when an attempt is made to use evidence that way, and have an opportunity to argue it, in a very enforceable way.

Are there analogous rules around the DNA sent to 23andMe, would you have an enforceable opportunity to block uses of that, and would you even know when they're using it that way?

I thought you could have them delete everything at any point, and that you just needed to request it? Article seems to imply that.

I looked it up, and I’m mistaken, in their “privacy” statement they say they retain your “Genetic Information” because it’s required by law, which from my perusal of the law seems like an extreme stretch of what the law says. It should be enough that they retain your contact info and a brief statement that they took your genetic information, there is no reason to keep all the genome info.

I'll bet everything I have they haven't destroyed the sample.

Honest and sincere question: why would you even use their service in the first place?

I assume anytime a company says they will delete my data that they will just remove the ability for me to access it.

This is the way.

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