Account and contact information
Name, email address, sign-in identifiers, contact details, and support messages you send to us.
Privacy and data use
How HelloTummy handles your information
This page explains what information we collect, how we use it, how research use works, and what choices you have. HelloTummy reports are for wellness education and are not intended to diagnose, treat, prevent, or assess disease.
We do not sell private or identifying information
We do not sell private information, identifying information, individual sample records, or individual result records. We also do not use identifying information for third-party advertising.
Research use is internal and can be excluded
We may use raw sequencing/result data for internal research and product improvement. If you do not want your data used for future internal research, you can ask us to exclude it.
Population statistics are not identifying
We use result data to calculate population-level summaries, such as averages and distributions. These summaries are aggregated and are not designed to identify any individual customer.
Information we collect
Kit and sample information
Barcode, activation date, collection date, sample status, return-shipping status, and lab workflow records used to process your kit.
Result and sequencing information
Sequencing output, organism abundance tables, report files, raw or exported result data, and quality-control information generated during analysis.
Optional context you provide
Questionnaire answers about diet, medications, lifestyle, symptoms, sleep, stress, and related wellness context. These questions are optional unless clearly marked otherwise.
Technical and usage information
Basic device, browser, log, and application activity information used to keep the portal secure, troubleshoot issues, and improve reliability.
How we use information
- Activate kits and connect barcodes to the correct account.
- Receive, process, sequence, analyze, and release sample results.
- Display dashboards, reports, downloadable files, and support information.
- Provide customer support and investigate account, barcode, file, or result issues.
- Maintain lab quality records, audit trails, and operational controls.
- Improve internal workflows, report quality, reference materials, and product features.
- Calculate population-level statistics that help put individual results into broader context.
- Conduct internal research using raw sequencing/result data and optional context you provide, subject to the research-choice process below.
Internal research and population-level statistics
Internal research
We reserve the right to use raw sequencing/result data and related non-identifying operational data for internal research, quality improvement, product development, and scientific exploration. When optional wellness answers are available, they may be used to look for broad patterns across groups.
Research exclusion requests
If you do not want your data used for future internal research, contact support and ask for a research-use exclusion. We will apply the exclusion prospectively where practical. It may not remove data from analyses, reports, quality records, backups, or aggregated statistics already created before the request was processed.
Population-level statistics
The dashboard may compare a result with population-level summaries, such as average relative abundance, prevalence, or diversity ranges. These summaries are calculated from many records and are presented as aggregate statistics. They are not identifying and are not intended to reveal another customer's information.
Who can access information
You can access your own account, samples, and released results. Authorized HelloTummy staff, managers, and admins may access customer, sample, lab, and result records when needed for lab processing, support, troubleshooting, quality management, security, reporting, or business operations.
We may use service providers for hosting, database, storage, email, analytics, shipping, payment, laboratory, or operational services. Service providers should only receive information needed to perform their role.
Sharing limits
We do not sell private or identifying information. We may share information when needed to operate the service, comply with law, protect rights or safety, investigate misuse, complete business transactions, or when you ask us to share information with another party.
If research is shared outside HelloTummy in the future, it should be shared as aggregated, de-identified, or otherwise non-identifying findings unless you have provided explicit permission for a different use.
Your choices and requests
Update account or sample details
You can update profile and sample questionnaire information through the portal where available.
Ask to exclude future research use
Contact support and ask for your data to be excluded from future internal research use.
Ask about deletion or retention
Some records may need to be retained for lab quality, legal, operational, backup, or audit reasons. We will review requests and explain what can be changed.
Report a privacy or security concern
Contact support if you believe your account, sample, result, or file access is incorrect or compromised.
Retention, changes, and contact
Retention
We keep information for as long as needed to provide the service, maintain records, support operations, comply with obligations, resolve disputes, and improve the platform.
Policy updates
We may update this page as the service changes. The version shown in the portal should be the current customer-facing privacy and data-use description.
Questions
For privacy, research-use, deletion, retention, or support questions, contact HelloTummy support through the portal support page.