Last updated: 30 September 2020
The privacy of your data is a big deal to us. That’s why, although we collect information on website usage (as is outlined below), HAPI-DNA does not store or even transfer to our servers any genotype data or identity-by-descent (IBD) segment data that you input on the site. Instead, the code on this website uses WebAssembly that processes the genotype data and/or IBD segment data only on your computer.
In this policy, we describe what data we collect and why, how long we retain it, and your rights to your data. We promise we never share or sell your data to others. This policy applies to all services built and maintained by HAPI-DNA LLC.
What we collect and why
Website interactions
When you browse our webpages or use our tools, your browser automatically shares certain information such as which operating system and browser version you are using. We track that information, along with the pages you are visiting, when you visited, page load timing, tool runtime, and which website referred you for statistical purposes. We may sometimes track specific link clicks to help inform some design decisions. All these web analytics data are tied to your IP address, but not to other identifiable information. We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our webpages from certain geographic regions.
Results from our tools
If you opt in by clicking a check box, we keep a record of the numerical results from some of the site’s tools. These numbers do not contain specific information about you but are stored with your operating system, browser version, and IP address. The tools function the same regardless of your choice to opt in. As noted in the data sharing section, we may aggregate these results and share them on this website, on social media, or in academic publications.
Comments
When you leave comments, we collect the data shown in the comments form and also your browser information to help spam detection.
Cookies and Do Not Track
We do use persistent first-party cookies to store certain preferences, make it easier for you to use our services, and support some analytics. A cookie is a piece of text stored by your browser to help it remember your site preferences and more. You can adjust cookie retention settings in your own browser. To learn more about cookies, including how to view which cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, please visit: www.allaboutcookies.org. As an example, if you leave a comment on our site, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
At this time, our site and tools do not respond to Do Not Track beacons sent by browser plugins.
By using this site, you agree to allow us to store these cookies in your web browser. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can disable cookie storage for this site.
Mailing list
We store and use email addresses if you choose to sign up for our mailing list. You can unsubscribe from this list at any time using the link at the bottom of the messages we send. We will not sell your email address.
Voluntary correspondence
When you write us with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including your email addresses, so that we have a history of past correspondences if you reach out in the future. You can ask us to delete these emails at any time by contacting us.
Data retention
We retain website interactions for up to 30 days and comments on our blog posts (and their metadata) indefinitely. After 30 days, we de-identify the IP addresses from the website interactions and archive the remaining interactions indefinitely. The retention of metadata allows us to recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
If you opt-in, we retain numerical results from your use of our tools idefinitely. Allowing us to collect these numerical tool results is not required, and the choice to opting in or not does not change the results.
Data sharing
We never share user-level information with others. We also do not sell this information. Aggregated numerical results and runtimes from the tools on this website are of interest to the genetics community and we may depict this through this website, on social media, or in academic publications. If you do not wish to have your numerical results included, please do not opt in to this collection. Otherwise, it may be impossible for us to locate the record associated with your visit in order to delete it. However, you can contact us to ask for the removal of your results; to do so, keep a record of the results you received and the date and time that you ran the tool.
Your rights with respect to your information
We apply the same data rights to all our users, regardless of their location. Currently some of the most privacy-forward regulations in place are the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) in the US. We recognize all of the rights granted in these regulations, except as limited by applicable law. These rights include:
- Right to Know. You have the right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared or sold. We outline both the categories and specific bits of data we collect, as well as how they are used, in this privacy policy.
- Right of Access. This includes your right to access the personal information we gather about you, and your right to obtain information about the sharing, storage, security and processing of that information.
- Right to Correction. You have the right to request correction of your personal information.
- Right to Erasure / “To be Forgotten”. This is your right to request, subject to certain limitations under applicable law, that your personal information be erased from our possession and, by extension, all of our service providers.
- Right to Complain. You have the right to make a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information with the appropriate supervisory authority. To identify your specific authority or find out more about this right, EU individuals should go to https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en.
- Right to Restrict Processing. This is your right to request restriction of how and why your personal information is used or processed, including opting out of sale of personal information. (Again: we never sell your personal data.)
- Right to Object. You have the right, in certain situations, to object to how or why your personal information is processed.
- Right to Portability. You have the right to receive the personal information we have about you and the right to transmit it to another party.
- Right to not be subject to Automated Decision-Making. You have the right to object and prevent any decision that could have a legal, or similarly significant, effect on you from being made solely based on automated processes. This right is limited, however, if the decision is necessary for performance of any contract between you and us, is allowed by applicable law, or is based on your explicit consent.
- Right to Non-Discrimination. This right stems from the CCPA. We do not and will not provide different information or tools to any user.
The information we collect, as outlined above (website interaction, results from our tools, comments, and mailing list membership) are not linked to each other and may be difficult to connect with individual users. Therefore, requests to access these data may be impossible to fulfill. This implies that correction and erasure of such data may be impossible, although we will honor requests to locate, correct, and/or erase these records, provided you can confirm information to link these records to you. Accessing, correcting, and erasing your mailing list membership is straightforward. You can click a link at the bottom of the emails we send to unsubscribe, or you can contact us to confirm membership, change your address, or be unsubscribed.
If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us.
Changes & questions
We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practices. Whenever we make a significant change to our policies, we will also announce them on our blog or post a pop up notice.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, please contact us.
This policy is adapted from: the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0, and Automattic’s open-source policies / CC BY-SA 4.0.
This policy is released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, and you may use it under the terms of that license.