Paul Stenhouse: DNA is up for sale now that 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy

DNA is up for sale, now that 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy

It has the DNA of 15 million customers - that's the major asset of the company - so what's next? The company says it intends to continue operating during the sale process, with no changes to the way it stores, manages or protects customer data, the statement said. It's always important to read the fine print! The privacy policy says if users’ data is sold as part of a bankruptcy or acquisition, the same provisions will apply to the new entity.. but the policy also states it can be changed at any time.
New York's Attorney General issued an alert encouraging customers to “take action to safeguard their data” and people are - with the website going down multiple times this week.
California has the toughest privacy protections in the country, but that legislation is being tested. If the company has no employees, who is there to help process the delete request and physically destroy samples? How would a company handle tens of thousands of requests in a week?

The AI note-taker in your meeting now has opinions

OtterAI is slowly rolling out the ability to take actions in your meetings. You can summon it like Siri and ask it to send emails, or lookup meeting information in the call. The company is also launching live sales coaching assistance during calls to help close deals and handle complaints.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
B DNA is up for sale. Yep, that really popular
company for DNA testing twenty three and meters has filed
for bankruptcy, which means the DNA results of fifteen million
customers are potentially out for sale. Our textbit paulstine House
has the details. Paul, should we be worried?

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Is it just first of all, isn't it just like
a dystopian line to say? It's kind of like something
out of the Black Mirror episodes on Netflix? Yeah, you know, yeah,
what are we going to do? It's actually DNA is
for sale And it's crazy that that is the major
asset of that company, right, Yeah, that is the thing
that they have and they sell. And here's where it

(00:52):
gets crazier, Jack. Not only have they you know, sequenced
the DNA, you could actually opt and I guess you
still can opt to actually have them store your saliva sample,
your physical saliva sample. Yeah. So people are now and
on the advice of very big figures. New York's Attorney

(01:13):
General basically said to customers it might be time to
take action to safeguard your data and people are doing that.
They're going to the website, they are trying to delete
their data and trying to get them to remove their
samples from I don't know the vault or the cold
storage or whatever they're stored in, but the website's been

(01:33):
going down. And there's a really interesting point that one
of the lawmakers in California who put in some of
the US's most strict privacy laws, right, he's made a
very interesting point. He's that great. I love that we
have the privacy laws, but they are now being tested
because if you've got a company that's filed for bankruptcy, Yeah,
what happens if the numbers of employees are cut? Who

(01:58):
is there to actually help process the electronic delete request?
But who's going to be there to actually physical In
this case, there's physical person data that you need to
destroy it as well. And if you think about all
these people going to this website to delete their data,
can a company actually handle tens of thousands of requests

(02:21):
in a couple of days, a couple of weeks like
whatever it might look like. Because I don't know if
you know this, there are some really old systems around there.
If you ever unsubscribe from an email and you think,
why am I still getting emails? Or it says it's
going to take seven to ten business days. Sometimes it's
because that involves an actual person getting maybe an email
themselves that says, go and delete Jack Tame from this database,

(02:44):
this database, this database.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
So I'm not saying that is how twenty three and
meters is, but like you can.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Imagine, yeah what I really get it like it could
be chaos, definitely. Yeah, it's it is a bit kind
of dy stopian. Ah, and you can just imagine for
insurance companies or anyone else how bad matteriformation might be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, Hey, the AI note taker otter, which I've

(03:10):
used a little bit that it gets used by companies
and meetings and that kind of thing, you know, to
listen to the conversations and write up notes, but now
has opinions.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
It does. I mean, it's very handy. It takes notes.
I don't know about you, but people, I'm not very
good at taking notes. Yeah, you know, I always forget
that you're supposed to do something, but the AI helps
with that. But it's been listening and yes, it's been deciding,
and it's been analyzing data and otter AI is now
slowly rolling out some new tools that some of these
are kind of creepy. So you can actually summon the

(03:41):
AI kind of during the meeting because it's there. You
see it in yeah participants list, so you can kind
of ask it like Siri to do things now like
send an email or look up meeting information and things
that it has in its database. Wouldn't it be great
if you were like, hey, AI, didn't Jack actually do
that thing he said he was going to do in
the last meeting?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
No?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Oops? But also this is the one that got me.
It also cares and do live sales coaching. So you're
on the call and you know, there's you Jack, the salesperson.
You know you're doing your best pitch, and the ALI
is chirping and giving you messages and things saying, actually, Jack,
you shouldn't be talking so much. Actually Jack, remember here's

(04:24):
the line you should be saying. Yeah. And it also
gives you information on how to handle complaints. Isn't that funny?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
That's amazing?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, it's so ridiculous. I mean it's great, but it's
ridiculous and scary and terrifying and cool all exactly the
same yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's like a way to sum it that.
Thank you, Paul. That's our textbot Paul Stenhouse.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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