In the light of the 23andMe collapse and the terrifying thought of customer DNA for sale to the highest bidder and the risks, it truly is one of those moments that you need to reflect on the “consent” you give when you share data and the far reaching implications beyond what you imagined when you mindlessly tick a box. The risks to yourself are not just about invasive ads and tracking, it can be an existential personal safety threat to individuals, a class of individuals, and society.
I’m not being dramatic.
In 2022 US Rep Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the House Committee on Armed Services and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, warned the audience at the Aspen Security Forum the risk of commercial DNA testing is that “where you can actually take someone’s DNA, you know, their medical profile, and you can target a biological weapon that will kill that person or take them off the battlefield or make them inoperable” (source: Axios).
If you were a customer of 23andMe, you should delete your 23andMe data NOW.
I had the good fortune that this poem about data privacy, targeted advertising, weaponized surveillance, DNA abuse, and more was shared with me the week the 23andMe news broke. It’s too good not to preserve and share broadly. This poem was shared with me anonymously, with permission to publish.
The hell in the title is intentional.
Double Hellix
– anonymous
She mailed herself in
one vial, one signature
seeking answers coded in lineage
Weeks later,
percentages.
Traits.
A random cousin…
It felt like truth.
Like becoming.
Then came the ads.
The trackers.
The clinical trial offers
The DNA hadn’t changed.
But its keeper had.
Ancestry, sold to Blackstone.
23andMe, bought and buried in equity.
Her genome now a line item —
scrubbed, labeled, traceable.
They called it innovation.
She called it what it was:
a bloodprice for identity.
No theft.
No breach.
Just a box, ticked once
Paid in curiosity
They promised knowledge.
They delivered surveillence.
Double helix.
Double speak.
A pretty promise.
A private hell.
She mailed herself in
one vial, one signature
seeking answers coded in lineage
Weeks later,
percentages.
Traits.
A random cousin…
It felt like truth.
Like becoming.
Then came the ads.
The trackers.
The clinical trial offers
The DNA hadn’t changed.
But its keeper had.
Ancestry, sold to Blackstone.
23andMe, bought and buried in equity.
Her genome now a line item —
scrubbed, labeled, traceable.
They called it innovation.
She called it what it was:
a bloodprice for identity.
No theft.
No breach.
Just a box, ticked once
Paid in curiosity
They promised knowledge.
They delivered surveillence.
Double helix.
Double speak.
A pretty promise.
A private hell.