23andMe Bankruptcy: what happens to your DNA data?

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The recent bankruptcy filed by 23andMe has raised concerns over whether or not the company can protect the data or the D-N-A samples of its customers.

"This is definitely a wake-up call. So at this point, you know, hopefully people are starting to realize the importance of taking, you know, of sharing your data online, and the risk associated with that," explained Aaron Rose, a security architect manager with Checkpoint Software Technologies.

Rose says you may not think one small piece of data about yourself is a big deal, but it can be when you combine something like eye color with info that is readily available.

"You pair that up with your family data that's sitting there, information about you that they might find on social media. All of these things are incredibly personal. It starts to build a story, and that story can be used to create very, very creative, you know, phishing attacks and emails, text messages or calls, if the likes that we've never seen before, you know they now know, or could know your family information, who you're related to, how you're related," explained Rose.

Rose says that there needs to be regulations to protect against other companies acquiring people's data and D-N-A.

"Our legislatures, our enforcement agents, etc., all start a conversation and start thinking about guardrails. Is this something we could potentially put guardrails around to, you know, prevent people that might have, you know, commercial interests that were outside of kind of the genetic research in the ancestry portion of 23andMe can we prevent them from actually acquiring this data through the bankruptcy proceedings."

If you have used 23andMe tips:

Log into your account and see if you agreed to share data.

Download a copy of your data.

Request your data be deleted and your D-N-A sample be destroyed.