Terms of Use

These Terms form an agreement between you and the nonprofit organization or group operating Genomic Commons (the Organization, we, or us). They govern the website, accounts, genomic-analysis features, results, exports, and related services (collectively, the Service).

By creating or using an account, uploading genomic information, or otherwise using the Service, you confirm that you have read and agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service or upload information.

Genomic Commons is operated for nonprofit and educational purposes. The Service is currently supplied without charge, and we do not promise that it will always be available, supported, or free. Our nonprofit status does not make the Service a public utility, healthcare provider, laboratory, fiduciary, insurer, or professional adviser and does not create a charitable-beneficiary relationship with you.

These Terms do not govern a donation unless the donation page expressly incorporates them. Donations, grants, or voluntary contributions do not purchase a particular result, level of service, or continued availability.

You may use the Service only if you are at least 18 years old, can form a legally binding agreement, and are not prohibited from using it under applicable law. You must provide accurate account information and protect access to your email and authentication account.

You may upload genomic information only when you:

• are the person to whom the information relates; or
• have valid legal authority and every consent required to submit and authorize processing for that person, sample, or embryo.

You represent and warrant that each upload complies with these requirements and does not violate privacy, confidentiality, property, contractual, parental, reproductive, research, or other rights. We may request evidence of authority, refuse or stop processing, or delete disputed information.

When you affirm consent and upload a file, you specifically authorize us and the providers described in the Privacy Policy to receive, read, temporarily store, transfer, and computationally analyze the genomic information; generate health and trait inferences; associate results with your account; and return those results to you.

You understand that processing occurs through multiple systems, including temporary object storage and an analysis service hosted in Germany; the Service is not end-to-end encrypted; genetic information can be identifying and can reveal information about biological relatives; and no internet system can eliminate all security risk.

The Service applies selected polygenic-score models and reference datasets to compatible raw genotype files, then displays estimates, percentiles, comparisons, and related educational explanations. We may add, remove, correct, or change models, traits, reference populations, interfaces, or processing methods at any time.

Results are informational estimates, not measurements of destiny or certainty. Access to source code, scientific papers, or score identifiers does not make a result clinically validated, medically approved, or suitable for a particular decision.

The Service does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, screening, treatment, genetic counselling, fertility care, embryology services, laboratory services, psychological advice, or any other regulated professional service. No physician-patient, counsellor-client, laboratory-customer, fiduciary, or similar relationship is created.

Never disregard professional advice, delay care, alter medication, or make a medical or reproductive decision because of a result from this Service. Discuss relevant information with an appropriately qualified physician, clinical geneticist, genetic counsellor, fertility specialist, or other professional who can consider clinical testing, personal and family history, environment, and your circumstances.

If you believe you have a medical emergency, contact local emergency services. This Service is not monitored or designed for emergencies.

Polygenic scores have substantial limitations. Their predictive performance can vary by ancestry, sex, age, environment, family history, dataset, phenotype definition, genome build, genotyping coverage, imputation method, and reference population. A percentile is a comparison to a selected dataset, not an absolute probability or diagnosis. Different models may produce different or contradictory estimates.

The Service may contain software defects, incomplete variant coverage, mislabeled samples, reference-data errors, unsupported file formats, processing failures, incorrect assumptions, stale scientific information, or display and export errors. We do not independently reproduce or clinically validate every published model. You are responsible for confirming important information through accredited testing and qualified professionals.

The Service was not designed, reviewed, licensed, or approved as a clinical embryo-selection or preimplantation genetic testing system. It does not assess all relevant variants, conditions, developmental factors, mosaicism, laboratory error, pregnancy risks, ethical considerations, or the future environment of a child.

You agree not to treat rankings, weighted comparisons, educational-attainment scores, intelligence-related estimates, or disease scores as a guarantee of a child's traits, health, abilities, identity, quality of life, or outcome. Any use connected with fertility or embryo selection is undertaken at your own risk and only after independent advice from appropriately qualified clinical, genetic, fertility, legal, and ethical professionals.

You are responsible for your account, uploads, sample labels, interpretation of results, decisions, and compliance with law. You must not:

• upload information without valid authority or required consent;
• use the Service to discriminate in employment, insurance, credit, housing, education, healthcare, public benefits, or another high-impact context;
• identify, investigate, surveil, harass, exploit, or harm another person or biological relative;
• submit malicious, deceptive, unlawful, excessively large, automated, or unsupported files or attempt to exhaust storage or computing resources;
• bypass access controls, probe vulnerabilities without written authorization, interfere with processing, scrape the Service, or access another user's account or results;
• misrepresent results as clinical findings or as endorsed by the Organization, a researcher, database, healthcare provider, or regulator;
• resell, commercially exploit, or provide the Service to third parties as a professional or regulated service without our written permission; or
• violate applicable law or another person's rights.

Our Privacy Policy explains our data practices and is incorporated into these Terms. You acknowledge the residual privacy and security risks inherent in processing genomic information online.

You may use available controls to delete records or your account. Deletion requests initiate cleanup across active systems but may not produce instantaneous or absolute erasure from failed cleanup operations, security logs, legal holds, or provider backups. Do not upload your only copy of a file or rely on us to preserve results. We are not a genomic-data archive or backup provider.

As between you and us, you retain any rights you lawfully hold in files and information you submit. You grant the Organization and its service providers a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, copy, transmit, transform, analyze, and display that information solely as necessary to operate, secure, troubleshoot, and legally administer the Service.

This licence ends when the information is deleted from active systems, except to the extent limited retention is reasonably required for backups, security, dispute resolution, or law. It does not authorize sale, advertising, unrelated commercial use, or research publication of identifiable genomic information.

The Service's software, interface, text, graphics, branding, selection and arrangement, and other materials are owned by the Organization or its licensors and are protected by applicable law. Open-source components and published scientific resources remain governed by their own licences and terms.

If you voluntarily provide feedback, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right to use it to improve the nonprofit Service without identifying you or disclosing genomic information. Do not include confidential or genomic information in feedback.

We may impose limits, change or discontinue features, correct results, suspend processing, remove content, or terminate all or part of the Service at any time. We do not guarantee uptime, processing time, capacity, compatibility, result retention, support, or preservation of any particular model or feature.

We may suspend or terminate access when we reasonably believe an account presents a security, legal, privacy, operational, or abuse risk; violates these Terms; or threatens users, volunteers, providers, or infrastructure. Where practical, we will permit retrieval or deletion of information before a non-urgent discontinuation, but we do not promise advance notice in every circumstance.

The Service depends on third-party hosting, storage, database, authentication, email, infrastructure, scientific databases, publications, and software. Their services may be unavailable, changed, inaccurate, or governed by separate terms. We are not responsible for an independent third party's acts, content, security, availability, or policies, except to the extent responsibility cannot lawfully be excluded.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service and all results are supplied as is and as available, with all faults and without warranties or conditions of any kind.

We disclaim all express, implied, statutory, and collateral warranties, including accuracy, completeness, reliability, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, non-infringement, title, security, availability, compatibility, clinical validity, medical utility, and that the Service will be error-free or meet your needs. No statement by a volunteer, contributor, FAQ, model description, or support response creates a warranty unless expressly stated in a signed written agreement authorized by the Organization.

Some jurisdictions do not permit certain exclusions. In that case, the exclusions apply only to the maximum extent permitted.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Organization and its directors, officers, members, volunteers, contributors, researchers, contractors, licensors, and service providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential loss, or for loss of data, privacy, opportunity, reputation, income, anticipated savings, or goodwill.

This exclusion includes claims arising from inaccurate or misunderstood results; medical, psychological, fertility, pregnancy, embryo-selection, family, educational, financial, or other decisions; unauthorized access or disclosure; deletion or loss of files; provider failures; or interruption or discontinuation of the Service, regardless of the legal theory and even if advised that loss was possible.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our aggregate liability arising from the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us specifically for the Service during the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) CAD $100.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by negligence where applicable law prohibits that limitation. Your mandatory consumer and privacy rights remain unaffected.

To the extent permitted by law, you will indemnify and hold harmless the Organization and its directors, officers, members, volunteers, and contributors from third-party claims, damages, penalties, and reasonable legal costs arising from your unlawful use of the Service, your breach of Sections 3 or 9, or your submission of genomic information without valid authority or required consent.

This obligation does not require you to indemnify anyone for that person's fraud, wilful misconduct, or liability that cannot legally be shifted to you. We will provide reasonable notice of a covered claim and will not settle it in a way that admits your wrongdoing without your consent, not to be unreasonably withheld.

These Terms are governed by the laws applicable in the jurisdiction of the Organization's principal administration, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to mandatory local law, proceedings must be brought in the competent courts serving that jurisdiction.

Before filing a non-urgent claim, you and the Organization agree to provide written notice and attempt in good faith for at least 30 days to resolve the dispute informally. This section does not prevent either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief or making a complaint to a privacy, consumer-protection, health, or other regulator.

If you are a consumer, nothing here deprives you of mandatory protections or the right to bring a claim where applicable law does not allow a different forum or governing law.

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement about the Service and replace prior statements on the same subject. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remainder will continue. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign your account or these Terms without our consent. We may assign them to a nonprofit successor that assumes our obligations, subject to applicable privacy law.

We are not responsible for delay or failure caused by events beyond reasonable control, including outages, provider failures, cyberattacks, labour disputes, disasters, conflict, governmental action, or shortages. Sections intended by their nature to survive termination—including disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, dispute terms, and intellectual-property provisions—will survive.

We may update these Terms by posting a revised version and changing the date above. We will provide prominent notice of material changes where reasonably practical. Continued use after the effective date signifies acceptance, except where law requires a different form of consent.

Questions or legal notices may be sent to privacy@genomic-commons.me. Please do not send genomic files by email.