Bankruptcy law now shields your DNA from being sold to the highest bidder
S. 1916 — Don’t Sell My DNA Act · Filed by John Cornyn (R-TX) · 5 cosponsors · Introduced May 22, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends federal bankruptcy law to prohibit the sale or lease of a bankrupt person's genetic information without their explicit written consent. It requires bankruptcy courts to block any sale of genetic data, mandates that affected individuals receive prior written notice, and requires trustees to securely delete genetic information that is not sold. The bill protects citizens from having their DNA data monetized during bankruptcy proceedings.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to restrict the sale and lease of genetic information in bankruptcy and require affirmative consent and notice. It is a straightforward privacy protection measure with no secondary purposes or riders.
What the text implies
- Bankruptcy trustees must implement secure deletion protocols (referencing NIST guidelines) for genetic data not sold, creating new compliance and operational costs for bankruptcy estates.
- The requirement for 'affirmative written consent' from 'all affected persons, including non-parties' may create practical challenges in identifying and locating all individuals whose genetic information is in the estate (e.g., relatives whose DNA was sequenced as part of a genetic test).
- The bill does not address genetic information already sold or leased before enactment; retroactive application is limited to pending and future cases, leaving pre-enactment sales unaffected.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary people gain a concrete right: their genetic information cannot be sold or leased during bankruptcy without their explicit written consent. This prevents a private company or creditor from monetizing sensitive biological data without the individual's knowledge or permission, protecting genetic privacy and autonomy.
Named in the bill
Title 11, United States Code (Bankruptcy Code), Section 101(41A)(A), Section 363 (bankruptcy asset sales), Section 1107 (trustee duties), Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NIST Special Publication 800-88 (media sanitization guidelines)
Where it stands
5 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- May 22, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- May 22, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 7 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $800,433 in lobbying spend. A filing names 3 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.
John Cornyn, the sponsor, reported $2,009,184 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- College of American Pathologists — $640,433 on 3 filings
- Consuli — $100,000 on 2 filings
- Ancestry — $60,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,387 characters) on Nov 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,927 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-02.
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