Open Humans is a project of the Open Humans Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2008 and is dedicated to creating public genome, health, and trait data. Sharing data is critical to scientific progress, but has been hampered by traditional research practices. Our approach is to invite willing participants to publicly share their personal data for the greater good. Open Humans strives to make this possible by helping connect researchers and participants who wish to share data with each other.

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) apply to your use of the Open Humans website and service. Please read these Terms carefully, since when you use Open Humans, you agree to be bound by them.

Content

You can post your own content on Open Humans, including profile photos, comments, and other material you choose.

You—and you alone—own the rights to the content you create and post on Open Humans. By publishing it on our site, you give Open Humans permission to use your content to do what we reasonably believe is necessary to provide our service, including storing, displaying, reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works of your content.

You are responsible for the information you import to or publish on Open Humans and assume all risk associated with it, including anyone else’s reliance on its accuracy or legal claims that might stem from it. By posting content on Open Humans, you represent that you have the necessary rights to publish that material, and that doing so doesn’t conflict with any licenses you may have granted to others.

We don’t pre-screen anyone’s content. However, we have the right to review and disable access to any content posted on Open Humans. We aren’t responsible for anything that you or anyone else imports to or posts on our service.

Open Humans may contains links to websites, data, and content that we don’t own or control. We don’t endorse or assume responsibility for that material, either.

Any feedback, comments, or suggestions you send us about Open Humans is entirely voluntary. We are free to use such feedback, comments, or suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation.

Your Imported Personal Data

You decide whether you’d like to import your personal data into Open Humans and share it with researchers or other users. Please understand that if you choose to make your personal data available to anyone else, they may decide to use it for other purposes with or without your explicit approval. Open Humans isn’t responsible for enforcing any agreements you might make with others about their use of your data or for their data practices.

Research and Similar Uses

We must rely on our users to post only data that is accurate and that they have the right to post. We do not pre-screen data and do not have the ability to independently confirm that any posted data is accurate or legal to use. We are not liable for any damages caused to any researcher or similar user by reliance on data that proves to be inaccurate or otherwise unusable.

Open Humans’ Rights

Our service is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Open Humans gives you a personal, worldwide, non-assignable license to use the software we provide for your own personal, non-commercial use. This license lets you use Open Humans solely as permitted by these Terms.

For some content, alternative licenses or public domain dedications may allow more permissive use.

Unauthorized use of any of Open Humans’ trademarks, logos, domain names, or other distinctive brand features is not allowed.

Our Use of Content and Data on Open Humans

We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information we believe is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (ii) enforce the Terms, including investigation of potential violations; (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; (iv) respond to user support requests; or (v) protect the rights, property or safety of Open Humans, its users and the public.

Community Guidelines

You promise to use Open Humans only for lawful purposes, and to not violate the rights of others. Our Community Guidelines, which are part of these Terms, contain more information about acceptable and unacceptable uses of the service. Any unacceptable use – including posting content that is illegal – threatening or harassing, may result in termination of your account and suspension of service access in the future.

Data Collection and Sharing

Any information you provide to Open Humans is subject to our Data Use Policy, which governs our collection and use of your information. By using Open Humans you consent to the collection and use of this information as explained in the Data Use Policy. Please review those provisions, as well.

Open Humans is operated within the United States and complies with all applicable US laws, as well as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. You can read more about this on our Records of Personal Data Processing Activities report.

Data Security

We take the security of our service very seriously. We use reasonable practices to protect the security of your account and data, but we can’t guarantee that someone won’t be able to defeat our security measures. Please let us know immediately if you discover any compromise of your account.

If you discover a vulnerability in our service, we would be grateful for your report and encourage you to let us know immediately. To report a security vulnerability, please email security@openhumans.org.

Copyright

Open Humans complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We respond to takedown notices and have a policy of terminating repeat infringers when appropriate.

For more information, see our Copyright Policy.

Kids

Sorry, but Open Humans is not directed to people 15 and younger. If we become aware that we have directly collected personal information from a child under 16, we will delete that information.

Changes to Our Service

We’re always working to make Open Humans better. This means we may change the functionality or appearance of the service at any time, for any reason, with or without advance notice.

Disclaimers

Open Humans is provided “as is” without any warranties, express or implied.

Open Humans disclaims all warranties and representations of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Open Humans shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or any loss of profits or revenues (whether incurred directly or indirectly), or any loss of data, use, goodwill or other intangible losses resulting from (A) your access to, use of, inability to access or inability to use Open Humans; (B) any third party conduct or content on Open Humans, including any defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of third parties; or (C) any unauthorized access, use or alteration of your content. To the extent permitted by law, the total liability of the Open Humans Foundation, for any claims under these terms, including for any implied warranties, is limited to the amount you paid us to use these services.

Arbitration

If you become unhappy with Open Humans for any reason, we encourage you to contact us at support@openhumans.org. We’ll work with you to resolve the dispute in good faith.

If we aren’t able to solve the problem informally, we both agree that we will resolve any claims arising from these Terms or our service by final and binding arbitration through the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) under the Commercial Arbitration Rules and Supplementary Procedures for Consumer Related Disputes.

The arbitration will take place in the United States town where you live or work; Chapel Hill, North Carolina; or another location we both agree upon. Either of us may file a lawsuit in court solely for injunctive relief against the other to stop misuse of Open Humans or intellectual property infringement without first going through arbitration.

You agree to resolve any dispute you have with us on an individual basis in arbitration, and not as a class arbitration, class action or consolidated proceeding of any kind.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms will be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, except for its conflict of laws principles.

Any action based on, relating to, or alleging a breach of these Terms must be brought in a state or federal court in Massachusetts. We each agree to submit to the exclusive personal jurisdiction and venue of those courts.

Waiver and Severability

The failure of Open Humans to enforce any right or provision of these Terms is not a waiver. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the other provisions will remain in full force and effect.

Termination or Suspension of Access to Open Humans

Open Humans has the right to suspend or terminate your ability to access our service for any reason, with or without notice.

Entire Agreement

These Terms, our Data Use Policy, and our Community Guidelines govern your use of Open Humans and our operation of the site. In addition, if you participate in a study operated by Open Humans, that study may have an informed consent agreement that further describes interactions with us.

The most current version of these Terms supersede any prior versions of this agreement.

Open Humans may revise these Terms from time to time. The most current version will always be at https://openhumans.org/terms/. If we believe a revision is material, we will notify you via email and prominently display a notice on our site 7 days before we make those changes. By continuing to access or use Open Humans after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

Contact

Open Humans welcomes questions, concerns, and feedback about these terms. If you have suggestions for us, feel free to let us know at support@openhumans.org.