Platform Consent
When you use Genetic Insights, you put your trust in us. Our goal is for you to always feel informed, empowered, and respected during your Genetic Insights experience.
We’ve written this Platform Consent to help you make sense of what using the Genetic Insights Platform means. It tells you the benefits, risks, and limitations of using the Genetic Insights Platform. Please take the time to read it with care.
If you have questions, we’re here to help! If you have any questions, you can contact us at support@geneticinsights.co.
You must be 18 or older to use the Genetic Insights Platform. You can also find more details about Genetic Insights and the Genetic Insights Platform here:
Important terms
Any terms we don’t define here are defined in our Terms of Service or Privacy Policy.
- Genetic Insights Products: Products and services that use portions of your DNA. They are featured on the Genetic Insights Platform.
- Genetic Information: Your sequenced DNA and interpretation of the data. We derive it from the file you upload and store it for you to use with Genetic Insights Products.
- Genetic Insights: When you see the words “we,” “us,” or “our,” we’re talking about Genetic Insights.
- Genetic Insights Information: Insights about you provided by Genetic Insights based on your DNA, including our Genetic Reports.
- Genetic Insights Platform: The Genetic Insights Store and Site, plus the process we use to store your Genetic Information.
- Genetic Insights Store: Where we feature Genetic Insights Products.
- Self-Reported Information: Other details about you that aren’t a part of your DNA. It may include details about your health, family tree, lifestyle, and behaviors.
Purpose of the Genetic Insights Platform
Genetic Insights was founded to empower every person to improve their life through their genetics.
To that end, Genetic Insights provides the Genetic Insights Platform, which features personalized information and a number of Genetic Insights Products that can give you insights about yourself based on your genetics. Some of them also offer you services based on those insights. There are many types of Genetic Insights Products on the Genetic Insights Platform. Each type can give you certain kinds of insights. You can access these insights as part of your Genetic Insights Account and subscription.
You can use the Genetic Insights Platform to read personalized information or browse and buy Genetic Insights Products. Over time, new Genetic Insights Products will be added to the Genetic Insights Platform. You can buy as many (or as few) of these products as you want. Before you buy a product, you’ll be informed what you can expect to learn from it. You’ll also learn what information we will use to create it.
Using the Genetic Insights Platform
– Providing your genetic file
To use the Genetic Insights Platform, you must upload your genetic file, containing your Raw DNA data, or buy a DNA kit from us, in which case that data will be added to the Genetic Insights Platform automatically once it is ready.
– Getting insights from Genetic Insights Products
You choose the Products you want to use through the Genetic Insights Platform. When you use a Product, you choose to learn about the portions of your Genetic Information that it needs.
Each Product or Service you use will:
- Use portions of your Genetic Information to offer you insights about yourself.
- Tell you what you can expect to receive from the product.
- Ask you to give your consent for that product to look at portions of your Genetic Information.
- Ask you to share some basic details about you, like your email address.
– Getting your Genetic Insights Information
If you opt in, Genetic Insights will use certain portions of your uploaded sequenced DNA to produce your Genetic Insights Information. You can then access your Genetic Insights through your Genetic Insights Account.
Your Genetic Insights may give you a glimpse into what Products could offer you, such as:
If you are more or less likely to have certain traits, like fast caffeine metabolism or being a night owl.
Genetic Insights may also show you which product(s) in the Genetic Insights Store take a deeper look at similar insights.
Genetic Insights may at some point allow you to connect with other users to share and compare your Genetic Insights on the community platform for forum-based discussion . You can only compare Genetic Insights with users with whom you agree to connect and who agree to connect with you. If you choose not to connect with any other users, no other user will have access to your Genetic Insights. This community platform may be canceled at any time.
– Giving other information about you
The Genetic Insights Platform may also ask for your Self-Reported Information. This information could improve your Genetic Insights. In some cases, it could improve the insights you get from Genetic Insights Products. It could also support other tools and services through the Genetic Insights Platform.
– Helping improve the Genetic Insights Platform
Genetic Insights may use your Genetic Information or Self-Reported Information as part of a pooled data set. We call these data sets “Aggregated Genetic Information.” This kind of data set combines de-identified data from many Genetic Insights Users. These data sets would not include any details that make it easy to identify you. Genetic Insights may use these data sets for business or promotional purposes. To use the Genetic Insights Platform, you must let Genetic Insights use your information as part of these data sets.
Genetic Insights strives to give you current, reliable, and high-quality experiences. As such, a key way that we will use Aggregated Genetic Information is to improve the Genetic Insights Platform. We may do so with our quality control methods. Some of them may focus on how we store and process your Genetic Information. Some of them may focus on how you use the Genetic Insights Platform. All information used for quality control will be used only within Genetic Insights.
You can find more details about how we use Aggregated Genetic Information in our Privacy Policy.
Closing your Genetic Insights Account
You can stop using the Genetic Insights Platform at any time. You can also choose to close your Genetic Insights Account. More details about this can be found in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If you close your Genetic Insights Account, neither you nor we can access your information on Genetic Insights moving forward. Closing your Genetic Insights Account prevents you from buying any more Genetic Insights Products and removes access to your Genetic Insights Information.
We cannot restore your account if you close it. If you wish to buy new Genetic Insights Products or access the Genetic Insights Platform, you will need to create a new Genetic Insights Account. To do so, you will also need to upload your genetic file again. When you close your account, we will archive your information. We will keep it archived for as long as we must to meet our legal and regulatory requirements.
Benefits
We intend for you to benefit from the Genetic Insights Platform. You can do so by learning about yourself from your genetic file. What you learn may be useful for you in a number of ways. You might assuage your curiosity or simply enjoy learning about your genetics. You may also be able to apply what you learn to your health, wellness, family planning, and more.
How you benefit may change as your interests, needs, and motivations change through your life. How you benefit may also change as new Genetic Insights Products and Insights are added to the Genetic Insights Platform. You may benefit in ways that we can’t predict today.
Risks
There are some risks that come with using the Genetic Insights Platform.
There is a chance, you could learn something about yourself that you didn’t want to know. For instance, you could find out something that concerns you about your health. Since you share DNA with your blood relatives, these learnings could also affect them. You may want to discuss your options with your doctor, a mental health professional, or a genetic counselor before or after you get your Genetic Insights.
Under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, (GINA), no employer with at least fifteen workers can ask for your Genetic Information. Neither can any health insurer. However this does not apply to other groups, such as the US military or companies that offer life, long-term care, or disability insurance. Some states have safeguards for those types of insurance. You should be aware of the laws in your state and be careful with whom you choose to share your Genetic Information.
There is a risk of a security event in which someone may access your data without your consent. These data could include your name, contact details, or Genetic Information. When combined, these data could allow someone to connect your Genetic Information back to you. Genetic Insights takes active steps to reduce the risk of such an event. Please see our Privacy Policy for more details.
Genetic Insights may need to share details about you with regulators and law enforcement. These details may include your Genetic Information. We will only share these details if we are compelled by law to do so. Please see our Privacy Policy for more details.
Lastly, each Genetic Insights Product has its own risks, benefits, and limitations. The Genetic Insights Platform will give you some details about each Genetic Insights Product. You should carefully weigh the risks, benefits, and limitations of each product you choose to buy. You may want to talk with a genetic counselor.
Limitations
The Genetic Insights Platform has some limitations. Some of these are unique to Genetic Insights. Some are related to genetic interpretation in general. Many of these are also discussed in our Terms of Service.
Genetic Insights only stores your genotype file. Some of the DNA that your genotype file does not contain could be needed for certain insights.
Your Genetic Information cannot tell you everything about yourself. Your genes are only a part of who you are.
Most traits that your Genetic Insights or Genetic Insights Products describe are not deterministic. In other words, your results describe your chance of having a given trait, but they can only rarely predict whether you do for certain. In some cases, factors like where and how you live can influence this chance more than your DNA.
Genetic Insights describe traits that have been studied mostly in people of European descent. As such, Genetic Insights for users from other backgrounds may be less informative. Genetic Insights Products may or may not base their results on science that has looked at more diverse groups of people.
Your Genetic Insights and Products are based on the current state of knowledge. Over time, more will be known about DNA and how it affects traits. As this knowledge improves, we may update your Genetic Insights results.
Though not likely, your Genetic Information stored by Genetic Insights could have some errors. In some cases, errors can occur while sequencing your DNA prior to uploading your genetic file onto our platform, or when we read the uploaded Genetic Information. Genetic Insights has many quality control steps in place to find errors when they occur.
In some cases, we may not be able to read your genetic file for technical reasons, such as not having the SNPs we read to provide you Insights.
Questions about the Genetic Insights Platform
You may have questions about Genetic Insights, the Genetic Insights Platform, or your use of it. If you do, you can contact Genetic Insights’s Customer Support at support@geneticinsights.co.
Last Amended: 1st June 2023