The OpenSNP genetic site to close, pointing to the concerns of data privacy and “rise in authoritarian governments”

Pastian Greshake Tzovaras, co -founder, confirmed that OpenSNP, a large open source of genetic data downloaded by the user, will close and delete all his data at the end of April.

in Blog postOPENSNP ratios from OpenSNP decision to close the site due to data privacy concerns After the financial collapse of 23andme And the height of authoritarian governments around the world.

OpenSNP was founded in 2011 by Greshake Tzovaras, along with Philipp Bayer and Helge Rausch, an open and public warehouse for customers from commercial genetic test groups, including 23andme, to download their test results and find others with similar genetic differences. The site had approximately 13,000 users at the time of its announcement of the closure, making it one of the largest general warehouses for genetic data. Since its foundation, OpenSNP has described its contributions to academic and scientific research, and has identified more than 7500 genes.

OpenSNP closure news comes in the wake of 23andme submission to protect bankruptcyFears are intensified that the company’s vast banks of the company’s sensitive genetic data will be sold to the highest bidding, which may not adhere to the 23ndme special obligations. General lawyers in the states of California and New York, Among other thingsShe warned of 23andme agents against deleting their data before the sales operations approved by the court later this year.

Greshake Tzovaras also said that the OpenSNP closed factor was “the height on the extreme right and other authoritarian governments,” noting Removing public data from the US government’s web sites Soon after President Trump returned to power.

“Calculate the risk/interest account of providing free and open access to individual genetic data in 2025 is completely different compared to 14 years.” “OpenSNP – besides deleting the data stored within it – it appears to be the most overseeing of this data today.”

“It was always a budget action.”

When Teccrunch, Greshake Tzovaras was explicit in his decision to close OpenSNP now and not sooner.

“Why now” to me now, “said Grishki Tuvarras, a citizen from Germany.

“Seeing people who disappeared from the streets under the most suspicious excuses cannot be called anything else,” he said, referring to recent reports of people living in the United States, Including American citizensThose who were arrested in immigration raids, Some of them are still unknown.

“The dismantling of scientific institutions and science themselves” since January – the beginning of the second Trump administration – was a factor in the closure of OpenSNP.

He said: “I do not think it is excellent to worry about how to misuse genetic data soon to submit wrong claims about a variety of topics, which actually restores the era of dark offspring improvement.”

Greshake Tzovaras said that OpenSNP “was always a balanced” between its potential uses and risks, and that the presence of the site was “an ongoing idea about whether the benefits could exceed the risks.”

In one historical example he presented – when the law application used genetic data from GEDMATCH in 2018 Determine a notorious serial killer -Greshake Tzovaras said that OpenSNP seemed at that time as if it were less relevant or at risk of using the law compared to the large databases of the original. (Greshake Tzovaras assured Techcrunch that despite the open and public nature of the data it stores, OpenSNP has never received law enforcement request for any genetic or user data.)

“Compared to the first Trump administration,” Greshake Tzovaras said, “compared to the Trump administration,” “the misuse of science was quite different and quantitatively different from what we see today.”

“Besides the biggest conversation about the impact of genetic data in the context of 23ndme bankruptcy, we decided that the time has come to withdraw the plug,” said Gresake Tzovaras for Techcrunch.

He also told Greshake Tzovaras Techcrunch that on positive thinking, keeping OpenSNP for 14 years may be “bigger for it.” He said that OpenSNP is about $ 100 per month, in the face of commercial startups that worked to liquidate people’s data after they eventually failed. Greshake Tzovaras said that in this sense it seems that OpenSNP “looks like a testimony of the power of the open source/culture.”

The site also contributed to research and publications “through a wide range of specializations – from Infosec/Privacy to Biomedical Studies,” said Gresake Tzovaras. He said that many university students also benefited from access to the real world’s data hosted by OpenSNP.

“In this sense, I think our hope for” reaching the genome “was at least successful.”

Updated to modify the OpenSNP name all the time.