What the 23andMe Bankruptcy Taught Us About Who Owns Your DNA
What the 23andMe Bankruptcy Taught Us About Who Owns Your DNA
Millions of people mailed a tube of saliva to 23andMe for a fun ancestry breakdown or a health-risk report. What they may not have pictured is the question that arrived years later: when the company collapsed, who would end up owning the most personal data a person has, their genetic code?
When a company fails, your data is an asset
In March 2025, 23andMe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company held genetic data from more than 15 million customers, and in bankruptcy, customer databases are treated as assets that can be sold to help pay creditors. That is the uncomfortable reality the case exposed: the privacy promises a company makes can outlive neither the company nor its ownership, and your DNA can change hands as part of a deal you are not party to.
It got messy fast: A bidding war followed, and a nonprofit founded by 23andMe's own co-founder ultimately won the genetic database for 305 million dollars. Along the way, more than two dozen state attorneys general sued to block any transfer of genetic data without explicit customer consent, and lawmakers proposed new rules, because existing law was never built to handle DNA changing hands in bankruptcy court.
Why DNA is different from any other data
A breached password can be changed. A leaked card can be reissued. Your DNA cannot. It is permanent, it is uniquely yours, and it implicates your blood relatives who never signed up for anything. Add an earlier breach, in 2023 attackers accessed the accounts of roughly 7 million 23andMe users, and you have a picture of how exposed this category of data can be. Protections exist but are patchy: federal law guards against some genetic discrimination, and a few states require consent to transfer genetic data, but coverage is inconsistent.
What you can do
If you have used a DNA service, log in and download your raw data for your own records, then request deletion of your account and, where offered, destruction of your stored saliva sample. Review the privacy settings and turn off research or data-sharing options you did not intend to enable. Our free privacy tools page has more.
DNA may be the data you can least undo, but it is not the data most likely to be used against you day to day. That distinction belongs to the ordinary details, your name, addresses, phone numbers, and relatives, sitting on data broker and people-search sites right now. Unlike your genome, those listings can actually be removed.
What can a stranger find about you today?
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Getting that broker data down is harder than it sounds, and most people give up before they finish. In Consumer Reports' testing, automated and self-service tools removed only about 27 percent of listings, while people doing the work by hand reached around 70 percent. That hands-on coverage is the whole reason Privoria uses real people instead of a bot.
Frequently asked questions
Can a DNA company really sell my genetic data?
In bankruptcy, customer data is generally treated as a transferable asset, subject to the company's privacy policy and applicable law. That is precisely why the 23andMe case drew lawsuits and proposed legislation.
Should I delete my DNA account?
If you are uneasy about where your genetic data could end up, downloading your raw file and then requesting deletion and sample destruction is a reasonable step. Decide based on your own comfort level.
Is my DNA protected by privacy law?
Only partly. Some laws limit genetic discrimination, and a few states require consent to transfer genetic data, but there is no single, comprehensive federal rule, so protection varies by where you live.
You cannot change your DNA. You can clear the rest.
Let real people remove your information from broker sites and keep it removed.
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