I gave my DNA to tracking company

A DNA-testing agency seems to have ceased buying and selling – with out telling its clients what has occurred to the extremely delicate knowledge they shared with it.

Atlas Biomed, which has places of work in London, provided to supply insights into individuals’s genetic make up in addition to their predisposition to sure sicknesses.

Nonetheless, customers are now not capable of entry their personalised stories on-line and the corporate has not responded to the BBC’s requests for remark.

Prospects of the agency describe the scenario as “very alarming” and say they need solutions about what has occurred to their “most private info”.

The regulator, the Info Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO), has confirmed it has acquired a grievance about Atlas Biomed.

“Individuals have the best to count on that organisations will deal with their private info securely and responsibly,” it stated in an announcement.

Consultants say it exhibits how customers of DNA-testing companies can discover themselves “utterly on the mercy” of such corporations in terms of defending very delicate knowledge.

Lisa Topping, from Saffron Walden, Essex, despatched a saliva pattern to Atlas Biomed a number of years in the past, paying round £100 for a personalised genetic report.

In addition to telling her about her DNA profile, it claimed to additionally inform her about her predisposition to ailments and even accidents, bearing in mind info she had offered in an accompanying questionnaire.

She may entry her report on-line – which she checked occasionally – till at some point the web site disappeared. She obtained no reply when she contacted them to ask what had occurred.

“I don’t know what another person may do with [the data] nevertheless it’s essentially the most private info… I don’t know the way snug I really feel that they’ve simply disappeared,” Lisa advised me.

In 2023, Kate Lake from Tonbridge, Kent, paid Atlas Biomed £139 for a report it by no means delivered.

It promised her a refund – then went silent, regardless of her attempting each technique of contact she may discover.

“I simply by no means heard again from anybody, it’s like no-one was at residence,” she stated.

She describes the scenario as “very alarming.”

“What occurs now to that info they’ve? I want to hear some solutions,” she stated.

The BBC was additionally unable to contact Atlas Biomed.

A telephone quantity listed for the corporate is useless. The BBC visited its places of work in London, however there was no signal of Atlas Biomed there.

The agency’s Instagram account, with over 11,000 followers, was final up to date in March 2022. Its last put up on X was in August the identical 12 months.

It shared a put up on Fb in June 2023, however didn’t reply to any of the feedback – which have been full of individuals complaining about being unable to contact it or entry their profiles.

The obvious disappearance of Atlas Biomed is a thriller – nevertheless it seems to have hyperlinks with Russia.

It’s nonetheless listed as an lively firm with Firms Home, the place all UK-based companies should register. Nonetheless, it has not filed any accounts since December 2022.

It lists eight official positions – although 4 of its officers have resigned.

Two of the apparently remaining officers are listed on the similar deal with in Moscow – as is a Russian billionaire, who’s described as a now resigned director.

Atlas Biomed’s registered workplace is close to London’s so-called Silicon Roundabout, one of many prime places within the UK for tech companies.

When the BBC visited, there was no signal of Atlas Biomed itself, however an organization registration agency based mostly within the constructing confirmed that it was a consumer of theirs, and legitimately used the deal with as its personal.

This agency, in an electronic mail, claimed that it couldn’t put the BBC in contact with Atlas Biomed “for safety functions”.

“We extremely recommend that you simply contact them instantly,” it stated.

No-one from Atlas Biomed has responded to the BBC’s makes an attempt to contact it.

Cybersecurity professional Prof Alan Woodward stated the obvious hyperlinks to Russia have been “odd.”

“If individuals knew the provenance of this firm and the way it operates they won’t be fairly so able to belief them with their DNA,” he advised the BBC.

None of this explains the place Atlas Biomed’s database of buyer DNA has ended up – and the BBC has seen no proof it’s being misused.

However Prof Carissa Veliz – creator of Privateness is Energy – factors out that DNA is arguably essentially the most precious private knowledge you’ve gotten. It’s uniquely yours, you possibly can’t change it, and it reveals your – and by extension, your loved ones’s – organic strengths and weaknesses.

Biometric knowledge is given particular safety beneath the UK’s model of GDPR, the information safety legislation.

“If you give your knowledge to an organization you might be utterly at their mercy and you’ve got to have the ability to belief them,” Prof Veliz stated.

“We shouldn’t have to attend till one thing occurs.”

Extra reporting by Graham Fraser