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Comment by david_l_lin | Hacker News Reader

We do not sell your DNA and do not have future plans to do so, in fact we don't currently store your personal genome information, and would inform you if this were to change. We will ask for consent before doing any analysis on your personal DNA, if we were to expand studies to include human genomic markers.

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yeah but do you give access to information that comes from users engaging with your service?

is your revenue generated from anything other than products and dtc services?

ive just become skeptical of any company suggesting they can be profitable/have a future without a data pipeline that allows others to buy their data, run analysis on data, build models on data.

and i believe in the near future we run a real risk of insurance prices being based on dna and models of health built on user data.

anyways, blah blah blah, seems like a great idea!

We do not sell personal microbiome, genetic, or survey-related data and don't have plans to do so. We will make every effort to keep your personal data yours. We de-identify all your data so that it can only be analyzed as an aggregate, so while your microbiome data and health survey data contribute to new scientific discoveries, they also remain completely personal. It will be nearly impossible for interested parties (such as insurance companies) to get a hold of your personal information on the Bristle platform and use it as leverage for their pricing. Hopefully this helps relieve some of your concerns, as we have similar concerns around health-related privacy, too!

> It will be nearly impossible for interested parties (such as insurance companies) to get a hold of your personal information on the Bristle platform and use it as leverage for their pricing

How is it nearly impossible?

From what I understand, this oral "profile" is stored and then provided to the user on demand.

Isn't the general premise that overall health is causally linked to this profile? If the data was monetized differently in the future, couldn't the association between user and this oral profile possibly give insurance companies something to base pricing decisions on?

How could the report itself be anonymized? Send the user a link to a stored report devoid of any and all personally identifiable data and then destroy any and all personally identifiable data associated with the link?

How can anyone trust someone to actually do what they "promise" with their data without extremely punitive regulation?

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