Daniel, who over at Genetic Future does an outstanding job staying on top of the science, technology, and business of personal genomics, has scored three fascinating guest posts about the mess of privacy and legal complications that come up when a personal genomics company goes bankrupt. When you get yourself genotyped by one of these companies, they get your data - and you should be concerned about where that data goes if the company goes under:

Privacy policies are particularly important in the field of DTC genomics where the sensitivity of consumer data is rivaled only by that found in other areas of healthcare and in the financial services sector. Courts and regulators are concerned as well. For instance, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought actions to enforce companies' privacy promises about how they collect, use and secure consumers' personal information. The first question, then, is how DTC genomics companies' Privacy Policies address the possibility of selling customers' data.

Go read all three pieces, but the punchline is that, because this issue relatively new, only time will tell how this will all work out in bankruptcy court.

Read the feed: