Effective date: 1 March 2017 Sonde VIRA (Voice Interactive Research Application)

Sonde Health, Inc. is a digital medicine company based in Boston that develops low-burden voice-based health monitoring technology.  Our proprietary technology is designed to obtain objective health measures remotely by analyzing “how you speak”, not “what you say”.

We have developed a mobile application (the “VIRA App”) to facilitate our Vocal Biomarkers of Health research studies (the “Studies”). The VIRA App allows you to voluntarily provide voice samples and health information that can help Sonde Health and researchers develop simple new technologies to understand and monitor your health. The Study is designed to help Sonde and research partners understand changes how changes in your voice correlate with changes in your health or disease status. The Studies and the VIRA App are designed for users over 18 years of age, and are open for use or participation by anyone, whether or not he or she has any health conditions or diseases.

Your Health Speaks.  Sonde Health is conducting research that explores subtle ways that the sound of your voice changes as your health changes. Participating in the studies includes downloading the app, speaking in response to a variety of prompts, and filling out some questionnaires. Examples of the voice prompts in this study include: saying "ahhh," reading text on the screen, describing the weather, or responding verbally to focus or memory tasks.

We Listen.  The voice samples and the answers you provide in the app are used to develop and improve automated computer analysis methods that could one day help transform the every-day sounds of your voice into simple ways of detecting and managing diseases.  No voice samples are collected when you are not using the app.

Your trust is important to us.  We want to earn it, so we have taken the following steps. We sought institutional review of the research enabled by this app to ensure that it conforms to ethical standards for research involving volunteers.  We have implemented methods for handling your data that help protect your privacy and the security of the data you provide and have outlined these and the ways we may use your data in our privacy policy. If you want to learn more or contact us with comments or questions, visit us at www.sondehealth.com.

Sonde uses appropriate safeguards that are designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of personal data that we collect and maintain against accidental or unlawful loss, theft and misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration destruction, or any other type of unlawful processing. We cannot, however, fully guarantee the security of personal data or other information transmitted to us through the VIRA App or the Study.

We take steps to ensure that your personal data is encrypted during transfer between the VIRA app and our research platform, and the data is kept in de-identified format by removing personal data that can be used to identify you directly from the research study data. However, experts in re-identification may be able to reverse our processes and/or attempt to re-identify you if given sufficient cross-reference information. We cannot guarantee total anonymity.

The entity responsible for the collection and processing of your personal data in the context of the Study and the VIRA App is Sonde Health, Inc., 501 Boylston Street, Suite 6102, Boston, MA 02116, United States.

Your use of the VIRA App and your participation in any studies associated with VIRA are voluntary. By using the VIRA App or participating in the Studies using the App, you consent to the privacy practices described in this privacy policy. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR USE the VIRA app.

In order to access the VIRA App functionalities, we ask you to create an account through the VIRA App. To create an account, you must provide a username, a password and your email address. We will inform you of the purposes for which we are collecting, processing, using, and sharing your data and we will obtain your consent through an informed consent document and process. You must affirmatively consent to participate in the Study prior to creating your account. To provide your informed consent, you will be asked to acknowledge your consent using VIRA App’s graphical user interface.
 

Collected Information

In addition to the data we collect from your registration for the Studies, we collect the audio recordings of your voice. With your permission, we collect and analyze your voice and correlate with the information from health surveys. With your permission, we also gather additional information that is necessary to increase our understanding of how changes in your health may change the sound of your voice. To better understand factors associated with your voice and your health, we will ask you to answer questions about yourself (e.g. body height, weight, gender, age, caffeine use), your medical history, and your current health, race or ethnicity. Most surveys are optional, but the more information you are willing to share, the more we can learn together about how your health speaks every day. You can skip any survey questions that you do not wish to answer.

We automatically collect standard server log information, such as the time and duration of your use of the VIRA App. We also receive other information, including personal data that you may provide to us, such as comments or questions you provide to us.
 

Use of Collected Information

We use the information collected from your participation in the Studies and the VIRA app to advance the research goals of the Studies, to build and enhance technology to allow voice-based measures of health, to provide relevant information related to the purpose of the Studies or their organizers, and to respond to comments and requests for information that users submit.  Your data will NOT be used for advertising or other data mining purposes not related to the Studies.

The VIRA App along with its cloud based platform aggregate user-provided and user-generated information, including audio data. We separate your account information from your Study data (including survey responses, tasks measurements and health information such as height, body weight, blood pressures, heart rates, medications and voice recordings) and combine your coded Study data (without your name) with those of other Study participants for research and analysis.

We may use your contact information, including email address, to contact you for administrative purposes regarding your participation in the Studies and your use of the VIRA App, and to contact you regarding future Studies.
 

Disclosure of Collected Information

Except as described in this privacy policy, we will not sell, rent, or share your information, and we will not disclose your information that we collect through the VIRA App and the Study to third parties without your consent.

We may provide contact or coded study information to third parties if you consent to us doing so, as well as in the following situations:

We may disclose your information if required to do so by law to comply with state and federal laws, in response to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with law enforcement or other governmental agencies.

We also reserve the right to disclose your information that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to (i) take precautions against liability, (ii) protect ourselves or others from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses or activity, (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations, (iv) protect the security or integrity of the VIRA App and the Study and any facilities or equipment used to make the VIRA App or Study available, or (v) protect our property or other legal rights (including, but not limited to, enforcement of our agreements), or the rights, property, or safety of others. We will notify you of any such disclosures.

Information about our users, including personal data, may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to an acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, or in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets, to the extent and in the way as prescribed by applicable law.

We will combine your Study data, including survey response and tasks measurements, with those of other Study participants. The combined data will be transferred to our proprietary and confidential cloud based computational platform for analysis. Researchers from the Study team and its partners accessing data through the cloud base platform will analyze the data and report findings back through scientific publications.
 

Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you may have certain rights regarding your data. For example, you may have the right to request access to and receive information about the personal data we hold about you, or have your personal data updated or deleted if it is incorrect. Following your request, we will accommodate your requests as required by applicable law.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. Please note that if you withdraw from the Study, we will stop collecting new data from you, but the data that you have already provided may have been processed and incorporated into our Study findings, or the data may have been distributed to our partners and collaborators, and we may not be able to be destroy or delete the data. If you would like to withdraw from the Study, you may do so within the VIRA App by tapping on the “Leave study” link in the app setting.

If you wish to modify or delete any data we have collected from you, you may contact us directly. Please note that while any changes you make will be reflected in our databases within a reasonable period of time, we may archive all information you provide where we reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so, as permitted by applicable law.

If you have questions about your rights and choices in relation to your personal data, or would like to request additional information, please contact us.
 

Future Changes to Privacy Policy

We may change our privacy policy in the future and we will post the changes on this page with a revision date. If any changes to our privacy policy materially change your rights or obligations for consenting and using the VIRA app, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you. Your continued use of the VIRA App or participation in the Study after the revised privacy policy has become effective indicates that you have read, understood and agreed to the then-current version of this privacy policy.

Contact Us

We do not track VIRA App users or visitors to our website (www.sondehealth.com) to provide targeted advertising, and we do not specifically respond to Do Not Track (“DNT”) requests.

If you have any questions, comments, or requests please contact:

help@sondehealth.com

Sonde Health, Inc.
501 Boylston Street

Suite 6102
Boston, MA 02116
United States