AncestryDNA’s Policies Under Scrutiny from Privacy Experts

Privacy policies and Terms of Use/Service are common legal agreements used to protect a website owner, company, or service provider.  Ancestry’s policies, however, have recently come under scrutiny due to the company’s broad assertion over use and ownership of consumers’ DNA and other genetic information. Privacy experts warn that consumers should be primarily concerned with three of Ancestry’s provisions that specifically: 1) create a license for Ancestry to use consumer DNA; 2) a warning that Ancestry may use the DNA information against “you or a genetic relative”; and 3) waiver of legal rights.

First, Ancestry claims that through the submission of DNA for testing, consumers “grant Ancestry […] a perpetual, royalty-free, world-wide, transferable license to use your DNA, and any DNA you submit for any person from whom you obtained legal authorization as described in this Agreement, and to use, host, sublicense and distribute the resulting analysis to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered.”

While most consumers would likely be horrified to know that provisions like these are quite common in terms of service and privacy policies, the magnitude of the implications from such an agreement becomes more serious when one realizes that the agreement is referring to a consumer’s genetic information as opposed to personal information (i.e., usernames, e-mail addresses, etc.).

Under such a provision, Ancestry could potentially claim rights to use and even distribute a consumer’s DNA and genetic information for purposes beyond the testing it was initially submitted for.  Further, the terms of the agreement also prohibit consumers from claiming rights in any ongoing or future research or commercial products that may embody consumer DNA, regardless of whether it is for research or profit.

While it is important to note that Ancestry does allow for consumers to opt out of having their DNA used in such projects, the option is only available to consumers whose data is not already involved in pending or completed research.  Also written into its agreement is a 30-day window for Ancestry to respond to your withdrawal request.  And even such a request does not force Ancestry to destroy or even remove your genetic information from its directory of services and products.  To have them destroy the information, consumers must call a 1-800 number to begin the process, a process that is not entirely transparent to consumers because it is not immediately available in writing.

AncestryDNA has recently changed its privacy policies as of May 22, 2017. Find the updated and past Terms and Conditions on their website.

This blog article is part one in a three-part series regarding the privacy policies and terms of use/service agreements employed by AncestryDNA (“Ancestry”).

More from this series:Health Information and Privacy Concerns with AncestryDNA’s Policies AncestryDNA’s Policies Include Legal Waivers for Genetic Relatives

For more information on this topic, please visit our Terms of Use Agreements service page, which is part of our Internet & eCommerce Practice.

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