The short answer is one word: you. Silverberry Genomix is built around a strict approach to privacy, and it is done by design, not as an afterthought. Our founder and CEO is one of the pioneers in the privacy field and introduced the Personal Data Protection Initiative back in 2011. This creates awareness about privacy risks driven by the use of smartphones and mobile apps and educates consumers on how to manage their risk.

In our view, there is one principle when it comes to privacy: you own and control your data. Period.

The only information we collect from you is what you provide us when you sign up, order a product, or fill out the release form when mailing your saliva sample. There are also some data that are collected as default rules of services, such as cookies saved by browsers that will be used by Google Analytics, or if you use a social media service to log in to your Silverberry account. We don’t harvest, aggregate, or attempt to collect any other personal data that you have not shared with us outside using our services or websites.

We use the best-in-class secure software to store your data in compliance with security and privacy rules.

The security measures are applied to your data when it is stored or in transition. Once you delete your account with us, we remove your personal information from Silverberry servers and break the link with the associated DNA file.

Your name and the products you have purchased will remain in our supporting systems such as e-commerce module, ticketing system, or email marketing (which are separate subsystems). This enables us address any of your future needs, such as to unlock your reports if you change your mind so that you won’t pay again. Since we comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), we can remove such records in the subsystems as well, per your request.

Access to your data is explicitly restricted to the internal admins that ensure proper processing of your reports. If you contact our support to resolve an issue, your data might also be reviewed, but we restrict such access based on necessity. For instance, if you are inquiring about a payment transaction, only such information will be reviewed.

If you provide consent separately to participate in genomics studies, admins of those studies can gain access to your data.

If you take the DNA test with us, our partner lab produces your file, so naturally they will have access to your DNA file and any personal information you have shared. We also share your data with our partner that generates your ancestry reports.

We use an external e-commerce website (Shopify) and support systems (i.e. Zendesk) as well as email systems to communicate with you on account updates, newsletters, etc. While those services have access to your information and can store it (such as first name, last name, email, physical address, and what reports you have ordered) no DNA data or wellness reports are shared with any of those third party services.

We may also share your anonymized DNA file with third party services (called sub-processes) to generate/validate your wellness reports. In such cases, a unique anonymized ID is created for your file and no personal information is shared.

In certain circumstances, we may be required by law to comply with a valid court order, valid trial, grand jury, subpoena, or search warrant for genetic or personal information. We require valid legal process in order to consider producing information about our users only in response to a valid administrative subpoena, trial, or grand jury. Unless we are legally barred from doing so, our policy for any request is to notify users of the request and supply a copy of the request prior to disclosure.

Our business strategy is to add valuable services to help you better manage your health and wellness. We are not selling or sharing data for business growth or revenue purposes.

Silverberry is one of the few companies that has formed an Internal Institutional Review Board (or IRB). The task of IRBs (usually established by government agencies and universities) to oversee ethical and social implications of research.

If any opportunity or project comes up which requires data sharing for research, we obtain approval from the IRB committee which enforces rules of informing our users and obtaining their consent for any use of their data, in addition to other measures.

We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and User Consent to learn more about our policies.

Feel free to send your questions regarding this important matter to privacy@silverberrygenomix.com.