Drug research and genetic testing data
One of the things notable about the consumer mindset in the early years of the popularization of genetic testing was that a majority of users opted into sharing their DNA for research purposes, as much as 80% in the years when 23andMe was growing rapidly. Then, as the market for consumer sale of the popular DNA test kits reached saturation sooner than many expected, 23andMe focused more on research and development partnerships with drug companies as a way to diversify its revenue.
Currently, when 23andMe sells genetic data to other research companies, most is used at an aggregate level, as part of millions of data points being analyzed as a whole. The company also strips out identifying data from the genetic data, and no registration information (like a name or email) is included. Data researchers do need, such as date of birth, is stored separately from genetic data, and shared with randomly assigned IDs.