In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) criticized Joseph Selsavage—the Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial and Accounting Officer of ancestry service 23andMe—for his company’s lack of transparency in retaining consumers’ information ahead of its imminent bankruptcy sale.
“I hope [consumers] will rush to the court house, even as we are here today, to sue you into oblivion,” Senator Hawley said to Selsavage, who failed to provide an adequate explanation for 23andMe’s byzantine privacy policy. The CEO ultimately admitted that 23andMe does, in fact, retain customers’ personal information—even after consumers opt to delete it.
“What you’re doing here has all kinds of implications—national security implications, all of it—but nothing is worse than taking the personal, identifiable information of American consumers and keeping it, and lying to them about it, while you make a huge profit off of it,” the Senator continued.
Senator Hawley also called out Selsavage for repeatedly looking to his legal counsel throughout the course of their exchange: “Don’t talk to your suit behind you. Talk to me.”
Watch the full video here.
###