Is Ireland a sleepy back door providing China with access to global DNA banks?

Concern is growing in US intelligence services about Chinese company WuXi that had access to a database of Irish DNA. Photograph: iStock

The piece revives unanswered questions about WuXi’s operations in Ireland, the future of genomic research here and the concern that Ireland naively and unwittingly provides a sleepy back door for international companies considered possible security threats.

Irish privacy and genomics experts criticised the plan at the time on the grounds that it posed data security risks and handed over and commercialised a national genetic data bank and genomics project to a privately held Chinese parent company with little global accountability. Ireland had no legal or ethical framework for managing genetic data at the time. It continues to have underdeveloped policy in the area and lacks a fully formed national genome project.

According to the NCSC, “Chinese companies are compelled to share data they have collected with the government” and are unable to opt out of this requirement. GMI subsequently became Genuity and, in 2021, the struggling business was acquired by US company HiberCell.

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