Katie Britt Questions 23andMe CEO on Gender Identity and Data Privacy

23andMe's Genetic Testing and Privacy Standards

• 🧬 23andMe tests for genetic traits, ancestry, and health conditions, analyzing over 600,000 variants.
• ⚠️ The company can highlight disease risk but cannot definitively predict if an individual will contract a disease.
• 🔒 The interim CEO committed to ensuring that any buyer of 23andMe maintains the same privacy standards as per the asset purchase agreement.

Sex Identification vs. Self-Identified Gender

• 🧬 23andMe identifies sex based on chromosomes: XY for male and XX for female.
• ❓ Senator Britt questioned 23andMe's policy on using self-reported gender identity to customize health and trait reports, rather than solely genetic testing results.
• 🗣️ The company's policy states they use self-reported sex to customize reports, acknowledging that sex is not always binary and that birth sex categorization can be uncomfortable.
• 💡 The company uses self-reported sex and DNA testing, with the CEO suggesting DNA testing is best for predicting future disease.

Data Privacy for Minors

• 👥 23andMe has approximately 15 million customers, but the CEO did not know the number of customers who are minors.
• 🧒 Parents can agree to have their child's DNA tested, but the CEO could not provide a guess on how many profiles are under 18.
• 🔒 Senator Britt urged the CEO to commit to not selling the DNA of children under 18 and to delete their accounts, a commitment the CEO agreed to take back and review.
• ⚖️ Discussions included the need for special rules for children's information, drawing comparisons to human subjects research protections.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The complexity of digitizing children's lives and parental responsibility in health decisions was acknowledged.