Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on 23andMe being fined millions by UK watchdog

Genetic testing giant 23andMe is being fined millions of pounds by the UK's privacy watchdog following a high-profile data breach.

The breach saw the personal information of seven million people stolen.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says this is the most severe punishment the watchdog can impose.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gevin Gray UK correspondents with US right now, hiy Gevin,
either have right, So we have an answer on what
caused that mess of power cut and span and Portugal?
What is it?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah? Well it kind of asks more questions than it
answers in one sense. So back on the twenty eighth
of Able, that massive power cut disconnecting thousands of people
shortly after midday from the European electricity grid. People stuck
in lifts on trains, electric trains, couldn't get out the doors,
et cetera. So now we hear that apparently the state

(00:32):
owned grid operator had miscalculated the power capacity requirements for
that day and didn't quote have enough dynamic voltage capacity.
What does that mean? Whether regulator should have switched on
another thermal plant to power plant but miscalculated it and
decided it wasn't necessary. Then when there was the surge

(00:53):
in demand, it couldn't keep up and everything shut down.
Now the Minister responsible blamed private Jeffertors for failing to
regulate the grid's voltage shortly before the blackout happened, saying
that should have prevented the blackout. Either way, it isn't
some kind of a cyber attack. It isn't anything like terrorism.
It was quite simply a miscalculation. Plenty of demands for

(01:18):
some serious retribution on the socialist government.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
But what we're talking about here is an overreliance, isn't
it unrenewable energy and not factoring enough of the of
the burning stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, well that's what the government is denying, saying no, no,
we do have enough renewable, we do have enough thermal
as it were burning, But it was just miscalculators incorrectly
and we you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough, I understand.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
There's just a little listen for us. They keep those
guests burners ready. What's the fine that twenty three and
me has been lumped with.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, this is a very very substantial fine, in fact,
one of the toughest that the UK's privacy watchdog can issue.
We had a data breach back in twenty twenty three.
It's a genetic testing company and seven million people had
data stolen, including one hundred and fifty thousand Britons. And
that personal information that was taken by hackers included all

(02:14):
sorts of things family trees, health reports, race and ethnicity
information may all have been stolen along with addresses, dates
of birth and profile pictures. Now I think, well, why
should that really matter? Well, because the database shared on
dark web forums contained a list of almost a million
people who had had Ashkenazi Jewish heritage according to the

(02:39):
genetic profiling, and of course that could be used by Nazis,
far right wingers, anti Jews in order to establish where
somebody lived that they were of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and
that could therefore lead to them being attacked. So the
ico's fine here in the UK of roughly four point

(03:00):
seven million New Zealand dollars is pretty big, but it's
the most severe punishment the watchdog can impose, and twenty
three and ME also faces other countries doing a similar
set of privacy watchdog review. The company's defenses only became
strong enough to halt the attack by the end of
the year a p. Twenty three it happened. So by

(03:23):
the end of twenty three they're in a better position.
And well, it looks like it's now sold or going
to be sold for roughly four hundred and fifty million
New Zealand dollars to the original co founder and her
nonprofit TTAM company as it's called.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Wow, hey, really quickly, has British steel been saved?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
It looks like it's okay for the time. So the
government tro took it out the hands of a Chinese
firm jing Yi, believing that they were deliberately running down
the stocks of the ingredients and we're going to simply
switch the furnaces off. So the government would desperate to
try and get it some contracts and they have. They've
got a contract with the British rail Network, so it's

(04:07):
rather hand in hand with the government here for three
hundred and thirty seven thousand tons of track that will
secure thousands of jobs. Two months after the government used
emergency powers to prevent the blast furnaces from closure. But
the question is what next? What other contracts are on
the route?

Speaker 1 (04:24):
Interesting? Devin, Thank you very much, appreciate it. Gavin great
Are UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
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