GeneFox
These Terms govern your use of the GeneFox app for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android, and of the optional GeneFox account and sync service, provided by Vindhya Data Science (“we”, “us”). Your privacy is governed by the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.
Published provisionally, pending legal review. These terms went live with the release that introduces accounts, because the sign-in screen links to them and asking someone to accept an agreement they cannot read is worse than publishing one that is still under review.
This is a drafting starting point written by the engineers who built the features, not legal advice. It is deliberately specific about what the software actually does, which is the part a lawyer cannot supply. Sections 9, 10 and 12 state the intended position — North Carolina law, and no liability to the maximum extent the law allows — but the wording still needs review, particularly against the consumer-protection rules of every market the app is distributed in.
1. What GeneFox is, and what it is not
GeneFox is a research tool for exploring publicly available cancer-genomics and gene-expression data, and for analysing data you supply yourself.
GeneFox is not a medical device and is not for clinical use. It must not be used for medical advice, for diagnosis or treatment, in clinical practice, or to inform the care of any individual. Results are preliminary and are not independently validated. This is not a formality: the app computes real statistics over real genomic data, and the outputs look like results because they are — they are simply not clinical ones.
You are responsible for the science. Every figure and statistic should be reviewed and independently validated by someone qualified to do so before it informs any decision or publication.
2. Who may use it
GeneFox is intended for professional and academic research use, and is targeted at adults. That is an audience, not a restriction: there is nothing in the app unsuitable for a younger user, it is simply a specialist research instrument that children are unlikely to have a use for. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
One part does carry a hard age requirement. The optional Cloud Assist AI rung is restricted to adults 18 or older, because the AI provider's terms require it. Its eligibility confirmation records your statement; it does not independently verify your age.
If you use GeneFox on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to accept these Terms for it.
3. Accounts are optional
The app works fully without an account. Browsing, analysis, imports, exports, on-device AI interpretation and every statistic run without signing in, and we intend to keep it that way.
An account exists to do two things: sync your work between your devices, and enable the optional cloud rung of the AI assistant. Creating one is your choice.
Accounts use Sign in with Apple, Google or Microsoft. You are responsible for keeping access to that identity provider account. If you lose it, we cannot restore your access or your data — authentication happens at your provider, and there is no route around that which would not also be a route around it for someone else.
You may delete your account at any time from within the app. See Section 6.
4. Your data, and the data you bring
Your content remains yours. We claim no ownership of the projects, notes, analyses or data you create or import. You grant us only the narrow permission needed to store and transmit encrypted copies between your devices when you enable sync — we cannot read those copies, so no broader permission would be usable even if it were granted.
Data you import is your responsibility. If you load your own expression matrices or metadata, you confirm you have the right to use them and that doing so does not breach any agreement, licence, ethics approval or law that applies to you. GeneFox does not inspect what you import and cannot tell whether it is patient-derived, embargoed, or restricted.
Imported files never leave your device. This version has no mechanism to upload them at all — not a default you could change, but an absence of the capability. That is deliberate, because unpublished and patient-derived data are common in this field and a per-dataset opt-in is a thing that can be mis-set.
Public data carries its own terms. GeneFox retrieves data from providers such as the NCI GDC, UCSC Xena, GTEx, NCBI GEO, ARCHS4 and CCLE. Your use of that data is subject to those providers' own terms and citation requirements, which the app surfaces in its exports. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for any of them.
5. Sharing collections with other people
GeneFox can export a project or a set of references as a .genefox file that you may share.
You decide what leaves your device, and you own that decision. Before sharing, check what the file contains — the app tells you, including whether it carries text you wrote. Do not share files containing data you are not permitted to distribute.
A file's stated origin is a claim, not a fact. When you receive a collection, any "from" attribution it carries was written by whoever made the file. Nothing verifies it. Treat received files with the care you would treat any attachment.
6. Ending your use
You may stop using GeneFox at any time, and delete your account from within the app. Deleting removes the account record, its keys and its encrypted records; deletions propagate to your other devices. Signing out happens on each device itself — this version has no way to sign a device out remotely, and deleting the account is what revokes everything at once.
Two things persist deliberately, and you should know about both. Deletion markers are kept for 180 days so that a device which has been offline cannot reintroduce records you deleted. And if you unsubscribed from product-update email, we retain a one-way hash of that address — with no account identifier — so the unsubscribe survives the deletion. It cannot be used to contact you; it exists so that a later list import cannot start mailing you again.
Export before you delete. Because your records are encrypted with a key we do not hold, we cannot recover them for you afterwards.
We may suspend or terminate an account that is being used to break these Terms, to abuse the service, or in a way that endangers other users. Where it is reasonable to do so we will say why.
7. Acceptable use
Do not use GeneFox to:
- attempt clinical, diagnostic or treatment use, or present its output as clinically valid;
- upload data you are not permitted to use, or that identifies a person without a lawful basis;
- attack, overload or circumvent the rate limits of GeneFox or of any data provider it contacts;
- attempt to access another user's account or data;
- misrepresent the origin of a collection you share.
8. Availability, changes, and cost
GeneFox is provided as-is and we do not promise uninterrupted availability. Public data providers may change, rate-limit or withdraw their services, and features that depend on them may change accordingly.
Sync and the cloud AI rung are currently offered at no charge. We may change what is included in a free account in future; if we do, we will give reasonable notice and will not retroactively remove access to data you have already stored.
We may modify these Terms. Material changes will be notified in the app or by revising the date above, and continuing to use GeneFox after that constitutes acceptance.
9. Disclaimers
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, GENEFOX AND THE ACCOUNT AND SYNC SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
We do not warrant that GeneFox will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that defects will be corrected, or that any result, statistic or figure it produces is accurate, complete, or fit for any purpose. Scientific output requires independent validation by a qualified person — see Section 1.
We do not warrant the availability, accuracy or continuity of any third-party data provider, and we are not responsible for data those providers publish, change or withdraw.
10. Limitation of liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, VINDHYA DATA SCIENCE AND ITS OFFICERS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES AND AGENTS SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO GENEFOX, THESE TERMS, OR YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE APP OR THE ACCOUNT AND SYNC SERVICES, UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY — CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, WARRANTY, STATUTE OR OTHERWISE — AND WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
THIS INCLUDES, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, RESEARCH, PUBLICATION OR FUNDING OPPORTUNITY, GOODWILL, OR SUBSTITUTE-SERVICE COSTS — INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA THAT CANNOT BE RECOVERED BECAUSE IT IS ENCRYPTED WITH A KEY WE DO NOT HOLD (SECTIONS 3 AND 6).
Where the law does not permit this. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain warranties or damages — including, in some places, liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence or willful misconduct, or rights granted to consumers that cannot be waived by agreement. In those jurisdictions the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and the remainder of this Section and these Terms remain in full force. Where liability cannot be excluded entirely, it is limited to the smallest amount the applicable law permits.
Nothing in these Terms limits any right you have under mandatory consumer-protection law in your country of residence, or under the terms of the app store you obtained GeneFox from.
11. Your indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Vindhya Data Science and its officers, members, employees and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of:
- data you import into, analyse with, or share from GeneFox — including any claim that you lacked the right to use it, that it was patient-identifiable, embargoed or otherwise restricted, or that its use breached an agreement, licence, ethics approval or law that applied to you;
- any clinical, diagnostic or treatment use of GeneFox or its output, or any presentation of that output as clinically valid;
- a
.genefoxcollection you shared with another person; or - your breach of these Terms or of any third-party data provider's terms.
This section exists because GeneFox cannot inspect what you bring to it. The app does not know whether a matrix you load is public, unpublished, or derived from patients — only you do, which is why Section 4 puts that judgement with you and this section follows it.
12. Apple and Google
Where you obtain GeneFox through the App Store or Google Play, those platforms' own terms also apply. Apple and Google are not parties to these Terms, are not responsible for GeneFox, and have no obligation to provide support for it. Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
13. Governing law and disputes
These Terms and any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of GeneFox are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States, and the federal laws of the United States applicable there, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.
You and Vindhya Data Science agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in North Carolina for any dispute not required to be resolved elsewhere.
If you are a consumer outside the United States, this clause does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence, nor of the right to bring proceedings in your local courts where that law gives you it. We say this plainly because a governing-law clause cannot override those rules, and pretending otherwise would make the clause weaker, not stronger.
14. Contact
Vindhya Data Science Email: info@vindhyadatascience.com Web: https://genefox.app