A man in Alaska has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against FamilyTree DNA, a genetic genealogy service, according to Ars Technica.
The plaintiff, Michael Cole, alleges that after buying a genetic testing kit and joining an online forum for people doing genealogy research, the results of his DNA test and personal information became publicly available on the Internet and were disclosed to a third-party ancestry company.
Cole's lawyer, Christopher Dore, tells Ars Technica that Cole did contact FamilyTree DNA about the problem, and the company removed some, but not all, of his information. According to Ars Technica, the results include Cole’s Y-chromosome short tandem repeat results. The company did not respond to Ars Technica's request for comment.
In the suit, Cole says he did not give permission for his results to be shared and argues that this violates Alaska's Genetic Privacy Act.