Privacy Policy

• Your sample travels as a barcode. The laboratory never receives your name.
• We do not sell your data. Not to advertisers, not to data brokers, not to researchers.
• Your sequencing data is yours. Download it, share it, take it elsewhere.
• We are not a HIPAA covered entity — see section 6, because that surprises people and the honest explanation matters.

You give us:

• Name and email address
• State of residence — required, because laboratory licensing varies by state
• Shipping address, collected by Stripe at checkout so we can mail your kit
• The date and time you collected your sample
• Anything you optionally tell us about what you're experiencing, from a fixed checklist

We generate or receive:

• Your sequencing results — which organisms were present and in what relative abundance
• Order, kit, and shipping status
• The IP address and browser you used when creating your account and when registering a kit, recorded so a consent record can be verified later
• An audit log of actions taken on your account, including when you or we opened a result

We do not collect your date of birth, government ID, or Social Security number. We never receive or store your payment card details — those go directly to Stripe.

To provide the service: to know where to mail a kit, to link a barcode to the right account, to give the laboratory the context it needs, to show you your results, and to keep a record of what you agreed to and when. We also use aggregate, non-identifying information to improve the product — for example, how often samples arrive outside their stability window.

We do not use your health information for advertising or profiling.

• Our laboratory partner — receives your sample identified by barcode only, plus the collection time and any symptoms you reported. Not your name, email, or address.
• Stripe — processes payment and collects your shipping address. Stripe is the controller of your payment data under its own policy.
• Netlify — hosts the application.
• Neon — hosts the database.
• Email delivery provider — if and when we send transactional email about your order.

That is the complete list. We do not share your information with advertisers, data brokers, employers, or insurers. We would disclose information if legally compelled by valid process, and would tell you unless prohibited from doing so.

Account and result data is kept while your account is open. Two categories are deliberately append-only and are never edited or deleted, even on request: consent records (what you agreed to, when, and from which IP address) and the audit log (who accessed what). Those exist so that a later review can reconstruct what actually happened, and they would be worthless if they could be rewritten.

If you close your account we delete or de-identify your personal information and results, retaining only those append-only records and anything we must keep for tax or legal reasons.

People reasonably assume a health-testing company is “HIPAA compliant.” We would rather be accurate than reassuring.

HIPAA applies to healthcare providers, health plans, and clearinghouses — and to their business associates. MadoHealth is none of those. We do not employ clinicians, we do not diagnose or treat, and we do not bill insurance. We are a consumer informational service, so HIPAA does not govern us.

Your data is still protected — by this policy, by our contracts with the vendors listed above, by the FTC's Health Breach Notification Rule, and by state consumer health privacy laws. But if a company in this category tells you it is “HIPAA compliant,” that claim is usually doing marketing work rather than legal work.

If MadoHealth later adds licensed clinicians and clinical review, HIPAA may begin to apply. We would update this policy and tell you before that happens.

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Passwords are stored hashed with bcrypt and are never recoverable in plain text. Access to production data is limited by role, and every consequential action is written to an append-only audit log. Your sample is decoupled from your identity at the laboratory by design, which limits what any single breach could expose.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affected your information we would notify you and the appropriate authorities as required by law.

• Access — see and download everything we hold about you
• Correction — fix inaccurate information; for kit registrations this is recorded as a correction alongside the original
• Deletion — close your account and have your data removed, subject to the append-only records in section 5
• Portability — take your results elsewhere
• Objection — tell us to stop a particular use

Email kiowa@madodigital.net and we will respond within 30 days. Residents of states with specific consumer privacy laws have these rights by statute; we extend them to everyone.

We may one day ask whether you would like to contribute de-identified results to research. That would be strictly opt-in, separate from these terms, and never a condition of using the service. We are not doing this today, and no data has been used for research.

The version number at the top of this page is recorded against your consent, so there is always a record of which version you agreed to. Material changes will be emailed before they take effect. See also our Terms of Service.