Privacy Policy
Your privacy is a top priority to MelixGx™. We recognize how important it is to keep your information secure and confidential. Privacy matters for your information, and your Genetic Information. This Privacy Policy describes the types of information we collect and describes how we use, maintain, protect, and disclose the data that we collect from you.
We're committed to protecting your information through our compliance with this Privacy Policy. By accessing or using our Services, you accept our practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with our practices and policies, you can choose not to access or use our Services. Capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy have the same meaning as in MelixGx™'s Terms of Service.
What Information Do We Collect?
We collect several types of information from and about users of our Services.
Account and Personal Demographic Information.
Account Information. You must provide certain information when you create an account (“Account Information”) to receive our Services. This information includes your name, email address, date of birth, biological sex (for quality control when sequencing), phone number, the password you create, and credit card or other payment information. Your account information also includes records and copies of any correspondence with you and details of any transactions you carry out through our Services.
Self-Reported Information. MelixGx™ works with a third-party Partner that provides DNA results through their laboratory. MelixGx™ or our Partner, Molecular Laboratory may ask you to provide data about yourself (your “Self-Reported Information”), including demographic data such as personal and family medical history, age, behavioral information such as exercise habits, or self-declared ethnicity.
Genetic Information. You may provide us with a biological sample, using our DNA Collection Kit, to allow us to generate Genetic Information for you. In connection with our Services, MelixGx™ collects, processes and stores this Genetic Information.
Computer, Device and Browsing Information. As you interact with our Services online (including the Site and MelixGx™ Platform), we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and usage patterns. This data may include details like these:
• Details of your visits to our Services, which could include:
• the resources that you access and use on the Services;
• the external sites that referred you to our Services; and
• the external sites that you visited just after visiting our Services;
• Information about your computer or device and internet connection,
which could include:
• your IP address or other device ID;
• your operating system; and
• your browser or device type.
The information we collect helps us to improve our Services. It also helps us to deliver better and more personalized features to you by enabling us to recognize you when you return to our Services, by storing information about your preferences and customizing our Services according to your individual interests, and by administering a survey or other feature of our website. It also helps us to provide targeted advertising, estimate our audience size and usage patterns, and monitor the success of our marketing activities.
The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include cookies. You may refuse to accept browser cookies through your browser settings. However, if you select this setting, you may be unable to access certain parts of our Services. Unless you set your browser to refuse cookies, our system may issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Services.
Gifts. If you have purchased a product as a gift for someone else, your gift recipient must create their own account. MelixGx™ will not share any personal information of the gift recipient with you.
Minors. Our Services are not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from or on behalf of someone under 18. If you are under 18, do not register on our website or provide any information about yourself to us. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from or on behalf of someone under 18, we will make commercially reasonable efforts to remove the information and/or user account and not make future use of that information to contact a minor. If you believe we might have any information from or about someone under 18, please contact us.
How Do We Use Your Information?
Except as otherwise described in this Policy, we do not share your Genetic Information or Self-Reported Information with third parties without your consent. MelixGx™ will use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us only as described in this Privacy Policy:
To provide and improve our Services. We primarily use your information to present and provide our Services to you. This includes the following:
• providing you appropriate search results and personalized content;
• processing your purchases;
• verifying your identity;
• recognizing you when you return to our Services;
• providing you notices about your account;
• notifying you about updates or changes to our Services or any services we offer or provide through it; and
• providing you with information or services that you otherwise request from us.
To improve our Services or to develop new products and services, we may use your information as follows:
• to track your usage of our Services;
• to administer a survey;
• to perform quality control and quality improvement activities;
• to conduct data analysis about our audience size and usage trends;
• to conduct marketing campaigns and targeted online advertising; and
• to monitor the success of our marketing activities.
With your consent. With your consent, we do the following:
• collect and send Molecular your saliva sample;
• Molecular will sequence your DNA;
• store your resulting Genetic Information;
• store any DNA sample that is left over after we sequence it; and
• share your relevant Account Information, Genetic Information and Self-Reported Information with a MelixGx™ to fulfill your purchase of their DNA Product.
Recruitment for research. MelixGx™ may invite you to participate in research. All research opportunities will be completely voluntary. All research (whether through MelixGx™, Partners, or other third parties), will be subject to review and approval by a qualified Institutional Review Board (IRB). Whether you take part in any research efforts will not impact your experience with DNA Products you have purchased or your ability to purchase any DNA Products going forward.
In the following two subsections, we describe how we use your Genetic Information and Self-Reported Information in particular:
Genetic Information. The first time you choose to purchase a DNA Product through MelixGx™, Molecular generates and stores your Genetic Information from the saliva sample you provide. For the DNA Product(s) you purchase, you consent to allow MelixGx™ and Molecular to share your Genetic Information so that MelixGx™ can provide the product(s) to you and improve them over time. Molecular and MelixGx™ are responsible for maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of any Genetic Information you send in.
Your Genetic Information may be combined with that of other users as “Aggregated Genetic Information.” Aggregated Genetic Information does not include any data that would reasonably permit someone to identify you individually. MelixGx™ may use Aggregated Genetic Information for its internal business purposes, such as to improve our products, data quality and laboratory processes. Aggregated Genetic Information may also be used for our promotional purposes. This could include describing users of our Services in general terms (e.g., “50% of our users are female”).
Self-Reported Information. Many traits are also influenced by non-genetic factors, as discussed in our Terms of Service. Your Self-Reported Information may be combined with your Genetic Information to improve interpretations of your Genetic Information. Some DNA Products may require this information for purposes of interpreting your Genetic Information, but it is up to you whether to purchase these DNA Products and provide this information. If you do not provide this information, you may not be able to purchase certain DNA Products. If you provide Self-Reported Information to MelixGx™, we may share this information with certain Partners with your permission to facilitate related services.
When Do We Share Your Information?
We will share your Genetic Information and relevant Account Information and Self-Reported Information with Molecular only after you have authorized us to do so as part of purchasing a DNA Product on MelixGx™'s website. We will share the Genetic Information needed for Molecular to offer you DNA Product(s) and improve them over time. We enter into a written agreement with Molecular that requires them to do the following:
• maintain the confidentiality and security of the Genetic Information, Account Information and Self-Reported Information shared with them; and
• use the Genetic Information, Account Information and Self-Reported Information only for the specific purposes that you have authorized.
We may disclose Account Information, Self-Reported Information and information about your usage of our Services other than your Genetic Information only in the following circumstances:
• To contractors, service providers and other third party vendors we use to support our business (such as for payment processing and DNA Collection Kit shipment), and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them.
• If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of MelixGx™, our users or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
We may also disclose your personal information, including your Genetic Information:
• To comply with a law, a valid court order, a judicial proceeding, subpoenas, warrants, bankruptcy proceedings, or in connection with any legal process, provided that we will not disclose your Genetic Information without a valid subpoena or search warrant specific to your Genetic Information. If we are required to disclose your information, we will do our best to provide you with notice in advance, unless we are prohibited by law from doing so.
• To enforce or apply our Terms of Service and other agreements.
• To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of MelixGx™'s assets, in which information held by MelixGX about our users is among the assets transferred. This Privacy Policy would continue to apply to information collected while it was in place.
Other than as described above, we will never provide your information to anyone for any purpose under any circumstances.
What Choices Do You Have About How We Use and Share Your Information?
We strive to provide you with choices about the information you provide to us. We have the following mechanisms to give you the following controls over your information:
Tracking Technologies and “Do Not Track.” You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our website may not be accessible or not function in the proper way. MelixGx™ relies on third-party ad networks to deliver relevant advertising messages on our behalf. Because we do not deliver or track online ads we currently do not “listen” or respond to your selection of the “Do Not Track” option provided by your browser.
Advertising Networks. We work with advertising service providers that collect non-personally identifying information from you when you visit the Site and other websites, in order to show ads for our Services that we think may be of interest to you after you visit our Services. If you do not wish to receive our personalized ads, you can visit the opt-out pages of the Network Advertising Initiative (https://www.networkadvertising.org) or the Digital Advertising Alliance (http://www.aboutads.info) to learn about how to opt out of receiving personalized ads from their member companies.
Google Analytics. MelixGx™ works with Google Analytics to better understand our audience and users, to improve our marketing campaigns, and to enhance our services. You can learn more about Google Analytics’ privacy choices or opt-out at any time.
Promotional Offers from MelixGx™. If you do not wish to have your contact information used by MelixGx™ to promote our Services or those of our Partners, you can opt-out by changing your account settings. You may not be able to opt out of receiving certain Service-related emails, such as communications about orders, billing, account creation, registration and policy updates. If we have sent you a promotional email or other informational emails not related to your order or account, the email will have an “unsubscribe” feature that will allow you to opt-out of receiving future email distributions.
Sharing Information with Partners. We will not provide your Genetic Information and relevant Account Information and Self-Reported Information to any Partner until you have agreed to allow the Partner to receive and use such information. Information that has been shared with a Partner based on your consent will be subject to that Partner’s privacy policy. It is important to review the privacy policies of our Partners so that you can make an informed choice about products you purchase and the information you share. You may choose to stop sharing your information with a given Partner in your MelixGx™ account settings at any time. To also request removal of your Partner DNA Product account, please refer to the Partner’s specific policies or contact them.
Sharing Genetic Information with Others. It is your choice to decide whether and with whom to share your Genetic Information. This Privacy Policy focuses on how MelixGx™ handles your Genetic Information to protect your privacy. However, you may also choose to share your Genetic Information with others yourself. You should be careful about doing so. Please see our FAQs and the Platform Consent for further discussion.
How Do You Access, Correct or Remove Your Information?
In General. You may contact MelixGx™ Customer Care to request access to, correct or remove any personal information that you have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. Information that has already been de-identified and/or aggregated (including Aggregated Genetic Information) may not be retrievable or traced back for correction or removal from any database.
Account Closure. You may also close your MelixGx™ Account through your Account Settings. If you close your MelixGX Account, you will no longer have access through the Site or Services to your Genetic Information. Genetic Information and Self-Reported Information for which you have given consent to use in any research studies cannot be withdrawn or removed from ongoing or completed studies that use your information. After the closure of your account, you will not be able to purchase any DNA Products from the MelixGx™ Platform without creating a new account and providing a new saliva sample.
After you close your MelixGx™ Account, we retain some Account Information in your account related to your purchase history. This enables us to provide you ongoing support regarding your prior purchases, and is also necessary for accounting, audit and compliance purposes. We may also retain backup copies and archival files of your information to satisfy our state and federal legal obligations or regulatory requirements, including those set by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). However, we will not share your information with any Partner or third party, except for information that has already been shared with your consent.
Information (including your Genetic Information) that has been shared with a Partner with your express consent will be subject to such Partner’s privacy policy. If you choose to stop sharing your information with a given Partner in your account settings, MelixGx™ will inform that Partner of your request, but cannot guarantee that the Partner will remove, de-identify or delete your information. You can request such removal, de-identification or deletion directly from the Partner.
Biological Sample. You allow MelixGx™ to perform Genomic Sequencing on the saliva sample you submit. If any of your saliva sample or extracted DNA is left over after sequencing is completed, we will not store it for future tests and reports. We may store it for quality control and optimization in our lab. However, you can request that we destroy your stored saliva sample and DNA by contacting MelixGx™ Customer Care.
How Do We Keep Your Information Secure?
We limit access to your information to MelixGx™'s employees and contractors who we believe need access to it to provide Services to you or to do their jobs. In addition, we put in place industry standard physical, technical, and procedural safeguards designed to secure your Account Information, Self-Reported Information, Genetic Information and any other personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure.
The transmission of information via the internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We continue to evaluate and identify improved security techniques to protect your personal information. However, we cannot guarantee that your information will not be accessed, altered or lost through a breach of any of our physical and electronic safeguards. We also cannot guarantee a Partner’s ability to secure and protect your information. You should review each Partner’s privacy policy and security practices with care before you purchase their DNA Product.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active and deliverable email address for you. You are also responsible for visiting our Services and this Privacy Policy from time to time to check for any changes. All changes are effective immediately when we post them, and they apply to all access to and use of the Services from that point onward. If you use our Services after we make changes to our Privacy Policy, you acknowledge and agree to the current version of the Privacy Policy.
Questions or Comments
To ask questions or comment about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, you may contact MelixGx™
Customer Care here or call (877) 635-4949.