Effective Date: January 1, 2020

Our Privacy Statement is designed to help you better comprehend how we collect, use, store, process, and transfer your information whilst using our Services, including our website (www.bione.in) and mobile application (“Platform”) ,owned and operated by Boine Ventures Private Limited.

Any reference to “you”, “your” or “users” refers to you as the visitor, subscriber or user of the Platform/ Services and/or any features or functionalities on the Platform. Any reference to “Bione”, “we”, “our” and “us” shall refer to Boine Ventures Private Limited.

Please carefully review this Privacy Statement and our Terms of Service.

Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Statement, terms used in this Privacy Statement have the same meanings as terms defined in our Terms of Service. By using our Services or Platform, you acknowledge all of the policies and procedures described in the aforementioned documents. If you do not agree with or you are not comfortable with any facet of this Privacy Statement or our Terms of Service, you should promptly discontinue use of our Services or the Platform.

By accessing and using the Platform and the Services, you agree and give consent to collect, transfer, use, store, disclosure and share, in certain specific cases, your information as described and collected by us in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

The Privacy Statement specified herein is subject to change at any time without notice. To make sure you are aware of any changes, please review this Privacy Statement periodically.

1. Key Definitions
  1. Aggregate Information: Means information that has been combined with that of other users and analyzed or evaluated as a whole, such that no particular individual may be identified.
  2. Anonymised Information: Means any information that we have anonymised in a manner to result in the Information no longer being able to identify you, whether directly or indirectly, and shall no longer contain any specific or individual Personal Information.
  3. Individual-level Information: Means information about a single individual’s genotypes, diseases or other traits/characteristics, but which is not essentially related to Registration Information.
  4. Personal Information: Means such information which can be used to identify you, either alone or in combination with other information. Bione collects, generates, processes and stores the following types of Personal Information:
    • Registration Information: Means information provided by you about yourself when registering for and/or purchasing our Services (e.g. name, address, email, payment information, and user ID and password).
    • Genetic Information: Means information regarding your genotypes (i.e. the As, Ts, Cs, and Gs at particular locations in your genome), which is generated through processing of your DNA sample by Bione or by its successors, contractors, or assignees; or otherwise processed by and/or contributed to Bione.
    • Microbiome Information: Means information regarding your gut microbiome or other body part microbiome, generated through processing of various sample types like faecal, saliva, swab, etc., by Bione or by its contractors, successors, or assignees; or otherwise processed by and/or contributed to Bione.
    • Health and Lifestyle Information: Means information gathered from the questionnaires on our Platform about your health, including your own and your close relatives’ medical history, medications, known allergies, known long term conditions, treatments received or ongoing, and relevant lifestyle information including but not limited to alcohol consumption or smoking.
    • Biological Samples: Means the saliva, swab and/or stool samples which is provided by you to us to enable us to perform the testing services.
    • Phenotypic Information: Means such information provided by you directly to us, either through the Services or through a third party, including you and your family disease conditions, other health-related information, personal traits, ethnicity, family history, and other information that you enter either during kit registration and/or into surveys, forms, or features while signed in to your Bione account or during interaction with Bione genomics counsellors.
    • Sensitive Information: Means information about your certain health conditions, Genetic & Phenotypic Information such as diseases risk, racial and ethnic origin, sexual orientation and any other information as per the applicable law.
    • Interpretation, Inferences and Derived Data: Means information, data, assumptions, or conclusions that are derived directly or indirectly from another source of Personal, microbiome & genetic information by using statistical methods to infer additional genetic information based on exome or whole genome sequencing information generated directly through the processing of your saliva sample. Also, the information generated using metagenomics methods on various sample types described elsewhere in the document, correlation, risk assessment, identification of an association between genes and microbes.
      The result of interpretation includes health, nutrition, sports, wellness and personal traits data which are derived from the interpretation of your health and lifestyle information and raw data and which we display to you in your personal account.
    • Web-Behavior Information: Means information on how you use our Services, which is collected through log files, cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies, (e.g., device information (device identifiers), IP address, browser type, domains, page views).
2. Information we collect

All information submitted by the users on the Platform shall be safeguarded and protected. Bione is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, accuracy and security of the personal information that it collects, uses, retains and discloses in the course of conducting business and providing the Services. Bione will protect the data provided by you and will use the same for purposes of providing Services to you and any other administrative purposes relevant to any products/services provided by Bione.

1. Information directly provided by you to us or through a third-party

2. Information related to our Services

3. Web-Behavior Information

We use cookies and similar technologies (for instance: tags, web beacons, device identifiers and scripts) to:

If you disallow cookies, you could still use our Platform; however, some features or areas of our Platform may be limited. For more information, including the types of cookies found on Bione and how to control cookies, please read our Cookie Policy .

We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies from third-party service providers as Anonymised, individual-level information or as Aggregate Information (as described in Section 4.c).

Google Analytics is used to perform many of the tasks listed above. Bione uses the User-ID feature of Google Analytics to combine behavioral information across sessions and devices (which may include authenticated and unauthenticated sessions). We have enabled the following Google Analytics advertising features: Remarketing, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting, and DoubleClick Campaign Manager integration. We do not combine information gathered through any Google advertising product with individual-level information collected elsewhere by our Services. To learn more about how Google collects and uses your data. Please click here . To select Google Analytics Advertising Features refer to Google Ad Settings. To opt-out of Google Analytics entirely, use this link.

Other Types of Information

We constantly work to improve our Services with new products, features and applications which may result in the compilation of latest and different types of information. We will update our Privacy Statement and/or get your prior consent to new processing, as needed.

3. Mode of Information Collection
4. How we use your information

Bione will use and share your Personal Information with third parties only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Statement.

To provide you with Services and to analyze and improve our Services

We utilize the information described above in Section 2 to provide, operate, improve and analyze our Services. These activities may include, using your information in such a way that it is consistent with this Privacy Statement to:

To analyze, process and deliver your genetic test results

As described above, to receive results through BionegXplore, you must create a Bione account, register your kit, and submit your sample for whole exome sequencing or whole genome sequencing or meta genome sequencing or combination to analyse genomic variants and its impact. If a user has been genotyped once, we may further analyze your Genetic Information to give you your ancestry and/or health reports, depending on the Service purchased. We continuously works to improve our Services based on our research and product development, and genetic associations identified in the scientific literature. If you are eligible to receive supplementary reports or updates in the future, you may be notified of or you may be able to directly access these updates.

To let you to share your Personal Information with others

You can also share User Content directly with individuals who have not used our Service via a distinctive, shareable URL or through a social media platform. You should be thoughtful about your sharing choices. If you choose to share any Personal Information, the individuals with whom you share this information, may use or share your Personal Information, which may also include any sensitive information.

To allow you to share your Personal Information for Bione Research purposes

You have the choice to participate in Bione Research by providing your consent. “Bione Research” refers to research aimed at publication in peer-reviewed journals and other research funded by the government, conducted by Bione.

Bione Research could also be sponsored by, conducted on behalf of, or together with third parties, like pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions or non-profit foundations. Bione Research may study a specific group or population, identify potential areas or targets for therapeutics development, conduct or support the development of drugs, diagnostics or devices to diagnose, predict or treat medical or other health conditions, work with public, private and/or non-profit entities on genetic research initiatives, or otherwise create, commercialize, and apply this new knowledge to enhance health care. Bione Research uses Aggregate and/or Individual-level Genetic Information and Phenotypic Information as specified in the appropriate consent document(s), as explained in greater detail below.

Your Anonymised Genetic and Phenotypic Information may be used for Bione Research only if you have consented to this use by completing a consent document. If you have completed the Bione Research consent document:

If you have completed the individual-level data sharing consent, or additional consent agreement, in addition to the uses above under the Bione Research consent document, Bione may share Anonymised Individual-level Genetic Information and Phenotypic Information only with selected third party research collaborators for Bione Research purposes.

Withdrawing your Consent.​ You may withdraw your consent to participate in Bione Research at any time by sending an email at [email protected] with subject line “Withdrawal of Consent” . Bione will not include your ​Genetic Information​ or Phenotypic Information​ in studies that start more than 30 days after you withdraw (it may take up to 30 days to withdraw your information after you withdraw your consent). It is hereby clarified that all information with respect to the dates of the Bione Research shall be communicated to you in a timely manner. Any research involving your data that has already been performed or published prior to your withdrawal from Bione Research will not be reversed, undone, or withdrawn.

To recruit you for external research

Research being an important aspect of our Services we would like to make sure that interested participants are aware of additional opportunities to contribute to interesting, novel scientific research conducted by academic institutions, healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and other groups. If you have chosen to participate in Bione Research, from time to time we may inform you of third party research opportunities for which you may be eligible. For instance, if a university tells us about a new cancer research project, we may send an email to Bione Research participants who would fit the relevant eligibility criteria to make them aware of the research project and provide a link to participate with the research organization conducting the study. We will not share Individual-level Genetic Information or Phenotypic Information with any third party without your explicit consent.

To provide customer care & Genomics counselling support

When you contact Bione customer care & counselling team, we may use or request Personal Information, including sensitive information, as necessary to answer your questions, resolve disputes, and/or investigate and troubleshoot problems or complaints. In some instances, we could also be required to process one customer’s Personal Information to resolve another customer’s dispute or request. For example, if a customer reports behavior that violates our Terms of Service, we shall separately process both customers’ Personal Information and respond separately to every individual as appropriate. We will not share your Personal Information with another customer without your consent.

To conduct surveys or polls, and obtain testimonials

We value your feedback and might send you surveys, polls, or requests for testimonials to enhance and optimize our Services. You can control the information you share with us. In case you do not wish to receive these requests, you can change them in your Bione Account Settings.

To provide you with marketing and Sales communications

We use the information provided by you to us to send you marketing communications, communicate with you about our Products and let you know about our Policies and Terms via Emails, Telephone, SMS or WhatsApp. You can always withdraw your consent by adjusting your marketing preferences on our platform , by clicking the “unsubscribe” link on our email, or by contacting us at [email protected].

5. Information we share with third parties

General service providers

We share your required Personal Information described above in Section 2 with our third party service providers, as required for them to provide their services to us and assist us to perform our contract with you. Service providers are third parties (other companies or individuals) that help us to provide, improve and analyze our Services. While Bione itself conducts the majority of data processing activities required to provide our Services to you, we engage some third party service providers to assist in supporting our Services, in the following areas:

NOTE: Our service providers act on Bione’s behalf. We implement procedures and maintain contractual terms with each service provider to protect the confidentiality and security of your information.

“Targeted advertising” service providers

We permit third party advertising networks and providers to collect Web-Behavior Information regarding the use of our Services to help us to deliver targeted online advertisements (“ads”) to you. They use cookies and similar technologies, to gather information about your browser’s or device’s visits and usage patterns on our Services and on other websites over time, which helps to better personalize ads to match your interests and to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns. We and our third party service providers will not use your Sensitive Information, such as Genetic, microbiome Information and Phenotypic Information, for targeted marketing without asking for and receiving your explicit consent.

For more information about our marketing practices, please review our Cookie Policy .

Aggregate information

We may share Aggregate Information on our Platform or with third parties. For example, Aggregate Information may include a statement that “30% of our female users share a particular genetic trait,” without providing any data or testing results specific to any individual user.

As required by law

Under certain circumstances, your Personal Information may be subject to processing pursuant to laws, regulations, judicial or other government warrants, or orders. For example, we may be required to disclose Personal Information in coordination with regulatory authorities in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. Bione will preserve and disclose any and all information to law enforcement agencies or others if required to do so by law or in the good faith that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal or regulatory process (such as a judicial proceeding, court order, or government inquiry) or obligations that Bione may owe pursuant to ethical and other professional rules, laws, and regulations; (b) enforce the Bione Terms of Service and other policies; (c) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third parties; or (d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Bione, its employees, its users, its clients, and the public.

Business transactions

In the event that Bione goes through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your Personal Information will likely be among the assets transferred. In such a case, your information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Statement.

6. Your choices

Access to your account

We provide access to your Bione data within your Bione account. You can access and download data processed by Bione within your Bione account settings and within applicable reports, tools, and features. If you lose access to your Bione account or account email address, please contact Bione customer care for assistance. If you lose access to your Bione account, in certain circumstances, we may require that you submit additional information sufficient to verify your identity before providing access or otherwise releasing information to you. If you choose not to submit the required documentation, or the information provided is not sufficient for the purposes sought, Bione will not be able to sufficiently verify your identity in order to complete your request.

Marketing communications

As mentioned above in Section 3.h. you may be asked to opt-in to receive product and promotional emails or notifications when creating your Bione account or when using our Services. You may update your notification preferences for marketing communications by going to your Bione Account Settings, opting out at the browser or device, or by contacting our Privacy Administrator at [email protected]. You may click the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of promotional email communications, as applicable.

Sharing outside of the Bione Services

You may choose to share your Personal Information with friends and/or family members, doctors or other health care professionals, and/or other individuals outside of our Services, including through third party services such as social networks and third-party apps which connect to our Platform through our application programming interface (API). These third-parties can use your Personal Information in a different way than we do under this Privacy Statement. Please choose carefully and review the privacy statements of all other third parties that may be involved in the transaction. Bione does not sponsor or endorse any API applications, and does not affirm the accuracy or validity of any interpretations made by third-party API applications.

In general, it can be difficult to hold or recover Personal Information once it has been shared or disclosed. Bione shall have no liability for any consequences that may result because you have shared Personal Information with others. Similarly, if you are reading this because you have access to the Personal Information of a Bione customer through a multi-profile account, we recommend you to recognize your responsibility to protect the privacy of each person within that account. Users with multi-profile accounts (i.e., where multiple family members register their kits to one account) should use caution in setting profile-level privacy settings.

Account deletion

You shall always have an option to withdraw your consent for collection and use by Bione of your Information by intimating Bione about such withdrawal by writing to Bione at the below mentioned contact information.

In case you do not wish to participate in our Services, or do not wish to have your Personal Information be processed, you can delete your Bione account by sending an email at [email protected]. As soon as you submit your request, we will send an email to the email address that is linked to your Bione account detailing our account deletion policy and requesting that you confirm your deletion request. Also, once you confirm your request to delete your account and data, your account will be no longer accessible while we process your request. Once you confirm your request, this process cannot be cancelled, withdrawn, undone, or reversed. When your account is deleted, all associated Personal Information is deleted and any stored samples are discarded, subject to the following limitations:

7. Security measures

Bione takes the trust seriously you place in us. Bione implements administrative, physical, and technical measures to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of your information, to ensure the appropriate use of information, to maintain data accuracy, and otherwise safeguard your Personal Information. Our team regularly reviews and improves our security practices to help ensure the integrity of our systems and your information. These practices may include, but are not limited to the following areas:

  1. ISO 27001:2020 certification. Our information security management system, which protects Bione systems, has been certified under the ISO 27001:2020 standard.
  2. Encryption. Bione uses industry-standard security measures to encrypt Sensitive Information both at rest and in transit.
  3. Limited access to essential personnel. We limit access to Sensitive Information to authorized personnel, based on job function and role. Bione access controls include multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and strict least-privileged authorization policy.
  4. Other measures to ensure security and confidentiality. To ensure the security of your personal information, we take the following measures:
    • BionegVault will be used to ensure confidentiality and Sophos firewall solution and upload prevention protocol will be implemented.
    • Personal data will be on a separate instance.
    • Raw data on separate network instance.
    • Analyze procedures on separate instances with appropriate control to compile ISO27001 compliance.
    • Also, optional security technologies will be implemented from time to time.

Your Responsibility. Please recognize that protecting your Personal Information is also your responsibility. We ask you to be responsible for safeguarding your password, and other authentication information you use to access our Services. You should not disclose your authentication information to any third-party and should immediately notify Bione of any unauthorized use of your Bione account. Bione cannot secure Personal Information that you release on your own or that you request us to release.

8. Children’s privacy

Bione is committed to protecting the privacy of children as well as adults. Neither Bione nor any of its Services are designed for, intended to attract, or directed toward children under the age of 18. A parent or guardian, however, may collect a saliva sample from, create an account for, and provide information related to, his or her child who is under the age of 18. The parent or guardian assumes full responsibility for ensuring that the information that he/she provides to Bione about his or her child is kept secure and that the information submitted is accurate.

Linked websites

The Platform may provide links to third-party websites operated by organizations not affiliated with Bione. Bione does not disclose your information to organizations operating such linked third-party websites. Bione does not review or endorse, and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these organizations. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that you visit. This Privacy Statement applies solely to information collected by Bione and our service providers on our behalf.

9. Changes to this Privacy Statement

Bione may modify this Privacy Statement from time to time. We recommend revisiting this page periodically to stay aware of any changes to this Privacy Statement. If we modify this Privacy Statement, we’ll make it available through our Platform. Whenever material changes to this Privacy Statement are made, we will provide you with notice before the modifications are effective, such as by posting a notice on our Platform or sending a message to the email address associated with your account.

By continuing to access or use the Services after changes to this Privacy Statement becomes effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Statement. If any changes are unacceptable to you, you may stop using our Services and delete your account at any time.

We also may provide additional “just-in-time” disclosures or additional information about the data collection, use and sharing practices of specific Services. Such notices may supplement or clarify our privacy practices or may provide you with additional choices about how Bione processes your Personal Information.

10. Contact Information

If you have questions on this Privacy Statement, or wish to submit a complaint, request or inquiry, please contact the Bione’s IT Head & Administrator:

Email: [email protected]

Address: #404, 4th Floor, Brigade IRV Center, Nallurahalli, Whitefield, Bangalore-560066 Karnataka, India.

All disputes arising out of or in relation to the Privacy Statement shall be governed by the laws of India and the courts at Bengaluru shall have exclusive jurisdiction.