To Delete or Not to Delete

That’s the burning question this week for millions of people worldwide who have submitted their DNA for testing at 23andMe, which announced Sunday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, or corporate reorganization.

According to Reuters, the company’s decision cites “weak demand” for its direct-to-consumer test kits, on top of the 2023 data breach that damaged it’s reputation for confidentiality. Reuters reports that co-founder Ann Wojcicki had made several unsuccessful bids to take over the company and has resigned as its Chief Executive Officer. The company obtained $35 million in financing and plans to keep the doors open for the time being. 

In the meantime, however, California Attorney General Rob Bonta fears that the company’s data could be compromised if it is sold to another firm or firms. The company maintains that the filing won’t affect its consumer data, but Bonta has issued a consumer alert for California residents using the service to “consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy [remaining] samples of [customers’] genetic material held by the company.”

Many news organizations, including TheVerge.com, reporting this today have added posts to their websites providing the steps to do just that. have posted the steps to take to do just that. But is it necessary? And as genealogists who may be working with clients and others who have taken these tests, what should our advice be? 

UPDATE: Well, hours after I posted this, expert Roberta Estes posted on her "DNAExplained" blog this excellent piece that pretty much lays this all out for everyone.

In my own opinion, staying or leaving depends on what you really hoped to gain from testing at that company. Did you do it for genealogy and family research? Or did you really do it to see what kind of health and wellness features it might have that could benefit you? Personally, I never saw it as something useful for the latter, and would say that deleting your information might be the way to go.

Professionally, on the other hand, it has been very useful for the genetic genealogy research I have done for myself and my clients. I have DNA matches at 23andMe who haven’t tested anywhere else; and the company offer the one tool that Ancestry has stubbornly refused to offer: a chromosome browser to show which segments you share with your matches, and how you and your matches triangulate with sharing the same DNA segments. For that reason, I’m going to wait and see. 

But as Estes says, this is a for-profit company, and the information from our DNA tests and wellness-research questionnaires are also their corporate assets. And we just don't know what might happen if they are bought out by another corporation that may or may not respect the privacy of the real people behind those assets.