Attorney General William Tong is looking for answers from the genetic testing and ancestry company 23andMe about a data breach that he said might have exposed sensitive records of more than five million users, specifically people of Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese heritage.
In a letter to 23andMe on Oct. 30, Tong wrote, “we understand that the 23andMe breach has resulted in the targeted exfiltration and sale on the black market of at least one million data profiles pertaining to individuals with Ashkenazi Jewish heritage."
The increased frequency of antisemitic and anti-Asian rhetoric and violence in recent years means that this may be a particularly dangerous time for such targeted information to be released to the public
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong
Tong went on to write," Reports indicate that a subsequent leak has revealed the data of hundreds of thousands of individuals with Chinese ancestry, also for sale on the dark web as a result of this hack. The increased frequency of antisemitic and anti-Asian rhetoric and violence in recent years means that this may be a particularly dangerous time for such targeted information to be released to the public.”
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In October, NBC News reported about a giant apparent list of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry being shared on the internet.
The report said a database that was been shared on dark web forums had a list of 999,999 people who allegedly have used the service.
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Tong reached out to 23andMe on Oct. 30 asking for details about the breach and the potential impact on Connecticut residents such as how many people are affected, including the number of Connecticut residents, what information was shared as well as additional information.
A statement 23andMe posted on its blog last month said, “We recently learned that certain 23andMe customer profile information that they opted into sharing through our DNA Relatives feature, was compiled from individual 23andMe.com accounts without the account users’ authorization.”’
The company later said that it was working with federal law enforcement and would temporarily disable some features within the DNA Relatives tool as an additional precaution to protect customer’s privacy.
