Privacy policy

We collect what the service needs to work, and nothing to sell.

• Your account. Your e-mail address. If you chose a password we store only a one-way hash of it (Argon2id), never the password itself.
• Your raw DNA file. The file you upload, its name, size, format and the number of markers in it.
• Your Global25 coordinates. For a G25 analysis: the row of 25 numbers you paste, or that we obtain for you. They are worked out from DNA, so they are genetic data too, and we treat them as such. If we obtained them, we also keep the small text file the coordinate provider sent back, so that you can download it.
• Your analyses. The label you give the person, their sex, the origins you tell us about, and the results. With each order we also keep a record that you consented to the processing of this genetic data: when, and to which wording.
• Your orders. What you ordered, the price, when, and the payment provider's reference and status for the payment. You type your card details into a form that belongs to our payment provider: they go from your browser straight to them. Pikolo never receives, sees or stores your card number.
• What you do in the app. The steps you take — signing in, uploading or deleting a file, ordering, an analysis finishing — and which pages of the app you open (the page address only, never what you typed). The people who run Pikolo see this in a back office, together with your e-mail address, file names, orders and analyses, so that they can help you and keep the service working.
• Technical logs. For each request: the address that was asked for, the result, how long it took and the account it belonged to. Never the content of a request, and never anything from your DNA file.

We do not use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and we do not build a profile of you.

• To run the analyses you order and show you the results.
• To sign you in, keep your account yours, and keep other people out of it.
• To e-mail you about your account: the link that confirms your address, and a note when an analysis has finished. We do not send marketing e-mail.
• To find faults, stop abuse and answer you when you write to us.
• To keep throw-away accounts out. When an account is created we compare the part of your e-mail address after the @ with a list of disposable-address services that we keep ourselves. When you register with a password we also ask the public DNS whether that domain can receive mail. Only the domain is looked up — your address is not sent to anyone for this.

We do not sell your data, share it for advertising, or use your DNA for research. Your DNA file is used to run the analyses you order and for nothing else. We keep it afterwards — so that you can order again, and so that we can one day offer you a service we are preparing, Relative Finder. Keeping it is not using it: see “Your DNA file”.

Genetic data is the most personal data there is, so this is the whole story of what happens to it.

• Your file is stored with Cloudflare, in a storage bucket of ours that is restricted to the European Union: Cloudflare stores and processes it there and nowhere else. Cloudflare encrypts what it stores, with keys that are Cloudflare's. The bucket is private: nothing in it can be read without an access key, and only our server holds one. Your upload is checked on our own server first (is it a raw DNA export, how many markers does it hold) and then moved to Cloudflare; when an analysis is sent off, the file passes through our server again on its way. Our server keeps nothing of it either time.
• We keep your file until you delete it. That is so that you can order another analysis without uploading again — and so that we can offer you Relative Finder, a service we are preparing that would find relatives among the people who use Pikolo. It does not exist yet. Keeping your file is not taking part in it: your DNA is not compared with anyone else's unless you ask for that service, and it will have to ask you for a consent of its own. Before you pay you are asked to consent to your file being kept, in so many words. If you would rather it were not, delete it once your analysis has been sent off: you still receive your result.
• A whole genome (a VCF file from a sequencing company) is too large to arrive in one piece. It reaches our server in parts and waits there until the last one is in; then it is checked like any other file and moved to Cloudflare. An upload that is never finished is removed from our server after an hour without a new part, and after 24 hours at the latest. A file that does not pass our check is deleted at once — what stays, for 24 hours, is its name and the sentence that says why.
• The file is used only to run the analyses you order.
• Pikolo does not compute the ancestry (qpAdm) analysis itself. It is computed by Ancestrify (ancestrify.io), our analysis partner, which works for us and on our instructions. For an analysis you order we send it your DNA file under a name we make up, the sex and the origins you told us about, and a reference number of our own. We never send it your name, your e-mail address, the label you gave the person, or the name of your file: it does not learn whose DNA it is. Before you pay you are asked to consent to this, in so many words.
• Pikolo is still a prototype. Until we switch the connection to Ancestrify on, your file is not sent to it, and every result of an ancestry analysis is simulated: made up by a stand-in engine, not computed from your DNA. A simulated result is always marked as one — also later, should one come from Ancestrify's test system, which does receive the file.
• Ancestrify commits to us that your file, the analysis and the result are kept on its own servers in Germany and Finland; that every result is reviewed by a person before it is released; and that the specialised analysis tooling it uses, some of it outside the European Economic Area, receives working data only — an internal number, the sex, the declared origins and statistics — never your DNA file. It erases your DNA file, and every copy it made of it, 30 days after it delivered your result. A whole genome it first converts into the markers its analysis reads; it commits to us that such an upload is received in private Cloudflare storage of its own, moved to those servers and erased from Cloudflare, and that the converted copies are erased with the file.
• You can delete a file whenever you like under “DNA files” — except in the few minutes before an analysis you ordered has been sent off, and while we are still obtaining Global25 coordinates from it (see below). Deleting removes the file itself from Cloudflare, not just the entry in your list — should Cloudflare not answer at that moment, the file is gone from your account at once and we keep trying until it is gone there too. And it means everywhere: we have Ancestrify erase its copy too, together with its copy of the analysis and the result. If an analysis is still running when you delete the file, you still receive what you paid for — Ancestrify erases its copy the moment your result has reached us. If an order is refunded, its sample is erased at Ancestrify as well. Your reports stay available with us.
• Upload only DNA data that is your own, or that the person it belongs to has allowed you to upload. Pikolo is meant for adults.

Pikolo is for genealogical and educational use. It is not a medical service and its results are not medical advice.

A G25 analysis works from Global25 coordinates instead of a DNA file. What happens to them is simpler — with one exception, which you have to ask for.

• Computed here. A G25 analysis is computed by Pikolo itself, on our own server. Your coordinates are stored with the analysis and never leave our server: no partner receives them. To draw your point on a PCA plot, your own browser places it; to draw a map, only the map's background is fetched from elsewhere (see “Who else handles your data”).
• A G25 report is a real computation on your coordinates. Should one ever be computed against a test catalog of made-up populations, it is marked as simulated.
• If you have no coordinates, you can give us your raw DNA file and have us obtain them. Pikolo cannot compute coordinates: an independent Global25 coordinate provider does. A person at Pikolo sends it your file by hand, under a name we make up — never your name, your e-mail address, the label you gave, or the name of your file. This happens only if you ordered it and gave a separate, explicit consent to exactly this at checkout.
• That provider is not our processor. It may be located outside the European Union and decides itself what it keeps and for how long: we cannot erase your file there. If that is not acceptable to you, obtain your coordinates yourself and paste them — then your DNA file never leaves you.
• For such an order, the people who run Pikolo can open your raw DNA file — each time is recorded — for as long as the file exists, because coordinates sometimes have to be obtained again. You end that by deleting the file, which you can do as soon as your report is there; until then we need it, and deleting it is refused.

If you choose “Continue with Google” or “Continue with Apple”, that company tells us two things: your e-mail address and a number that identifies your account with them, so that we recognise you next time. That is all we ask for — not your name, your picture, your contacts or anything else — and we never see your Google or Apple password.

• We use this only to create your Pikolo account and sign you in. We do not share it, and we do not use it for anything else.
• Because Google or Apple has already checked the address, we do not send you a confirmation e-mail.
• With Apple you can hide your address; we then receive a forwarding address made by Apple instead.
• If the address matches a Pikolo account you already have, you are signed into that account.
• You can withdraw Pikolo’s access at any time in your Google or Apple account settings. Your Pikolo account and its data stay until you ask us to delete them.

Only what is needed to keep you signed in. There are no advertising or analytics cookies, which is why there is no cookie banner.

• A session cookie that keeps you signed in for up to 14 days, or until you sign out. It cannot be read by scripts.
• A sign-in cookie that lives for ten minutes while you are away at Google or Apple, so that only the browser that started a sign-in can finish it.
• A draft in your browser of the analysis you are setting up, so that a reload does not lose it — including a coordinate row you pasted. It stays in your browser and is gone when you close the tab or sign out.
• Which calculator you last explored in a G25 report, if you use the Calculator Explorer, so that it is still open when you come back. It stays in your browser and is removed when you sign out.

We use a small number of companies to run Pikolo. They handle your data for us, on our instructions.

Hetzner · Finland

The server and database everything else is stored on: your account, orders, analyses, results and Global25 coordinates — not your DNA files.

Cloudflare

Delivers the website and protects it from attacks; all traffic passes through it, so it sees your IP address. It also stores your DNA files, in storage restricted to the European Union. See “Your DNA file” above.

Ancestrify · Germany and Finland

Computes the analyses you order. It receives your DNA file under a name we make up, the sex and the origins you declared, and a reference number — not your name, your e-mail address or your results page. See “Your DNA file” above.

The Global25 coordinate provider

Only if you order a G25 analysis from a raw DNA file and consent to it: it receives that file, under a name we make up, and returns your coordinates. It is independent of us, may be outside the European Union, and decides itself what it keeps. See “G25 analyses and your coordinates” above.

OpenFreeMap

Only when you open a map in a G25 report: your browser loads the map's background from it, so it receives your IP address and which part of the map you look at — never your coordinates or your results.

POK Payments (RPay) · Albania

Takes card payments for us. It receives your card details, the billing details you type into its form and the amount, and runs your bank's 3-D Secure check. It does not receive your DNA file or your results.

Resend

Delivers our e-mails. It receives your e-mail address and the message.

Google · Apple

Only if you choose to sign in with them, as described above.

Google Fonts

Your browser loads the fonts of this site from Google, which receives your IP address in doing so.

Some of these companies are based in the United States — Cloudflare among them — and our payment provider in Albania, so some of this data may be handled outside the European Union. Not your DNA file: Cloudflare stores and processes it in the European Union only, and Ancestrify in Germany and Finland — with the one exception you have to ask and consent for: having us obtain Global25 coordinates from it. We hand data to authorities only when the law obliges us to.

DNA files

Until you delete them, or your account is deleted. We do not remove them by ourselves after an analysis: see “Your DNA file” for why.

Uploads that were never finished

An hour after the last part arrived, and 24 hours at the latest. A file that does not pass our check is deleted at once; that it was refused, and why, can be read for 24 hours.

Global25 coordinates, and the coordinate provider's file

For as long as the analysis they belong to.

Account, orders, analyses and reports

For as long as you have an account.

Sign-in sessions

14 days.

E-mail confirmation links

24 hours.

The pages of the app you opened

30 days.

Technical logs

30 days.

• Delete any DNA file yourself, at any time, in the app.
• Ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete your account and everything in it. Write to info@pikolo.io from the address of your account; we answer within 30 days. There is no button for this in the app yet, so an e-mail is the way.
• If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to object to or restrict what we do with your data, and to complain to your data protection authority.

When what we do with your data changes, this page changes first, and the date at the top with it. Questions about any of it go to info@pikolo.io — a mailbox a person reads.