Baritastic Privacy Policy

LAST UPDATED:  March 7, 2024

1. Introduction

Metagenics LLC d/b/a Baritastic (“Company” or “We” or “Our”) provides this Privacy Policy (“Policy”) to describe the types of personal information we may collect when you download, install, register with, or use Our mobile application, Baritastic® (the “App”) and how we use and manage your personal information.   

Personal information is data that directly identifies you or your household, or that can be used in combination with other information to identify you or your household.  This policy applies only to personal information we collect in this App and in email and electronic communications sent through this App.

This policy DOES NOT apply to information that:

• We collect offline or on any other Company apps or websites, including websites you may access through this App such as bariatricadvantage.com; and,
• You provide to, or is collected by, any third party.

Also, if you connect the App to your healthcare practitioner who is deemed a “covered entity” as defined under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, this Policy does not apply.  Please contact your healthcare practitioner for their HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices. 

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your personal information and how we will treat it. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to this Privacy Policy), so please check the policy periodically for updates.

2. Information We Collect and How We Collect It

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us, the features and functions of the App you use, and the choices you make.

We collect personal information about you from different sources and in various ways when you use the App, including information you provide directly, information collected automatically, data we infer or generate from other data, and information from third-party data sources.

1. Information You Provide Directly 

When you download, register with, or use this App, or contact us, we collect the information you provide. For example:

• Name and contact information: name, username, email address, and telephone number.
• Demographic information:  Some features of the App, or surveys in which you voluntarily participate, may allow you to provide demographic information such as age (or age range), date of birth, gender, and similar demographic details.
• Content you provide:  If you send us email messages, call customer support, provide survey responses, search queries in the App, or otherwise communicate with us, we collect and/or record those communications. 
• User Contributions: You may also provide information for publication or display on public areas of the app or websites you access through the App (“User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are made available to others at your own risk. Additionally, we do not control the actions of third parties with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.
• Sensitive Information:
  • Health information:  Some features of functions of the App allow you to provide information concerning your health such as such as weight, height, nutrition, activity data, sleep data, reminders, to do lists, surgery type and surgery date.  
  • Account access information:  We collect information such as a username or account number in combination with a password, security or access code, or other credential that allows access to an account.

1. Automatic Information Collection.

When you download, install, and/or use the App, we use technology to automatically collect:

• Usage information. We collect information regarding use of the App, including traffic data, logs, and other communication data and the features and functions that you use.
• Demographic information. We collect demographic information including age range, gender, city and country,
• Identifiers and device information. We collect information about your mobile device and internet connection, including the device’s unique device identifier, IP address, operating system, browser type, mobile network information, and the device’s telephone number. s further described below, the App stores and retrieves mobile IDs and other data.
• Stored Information and Files. The App also may allow you to post photos or add calendar events both of which are stored on our servers.

1. Information we create or generate.

We infer new information from the data we collect, including using automated means to generate information about your likely preferences or other characteristics (“inferences”). For example, we infer App performance based on users’ activities.

1. Information we obtain from third-party sources.

We also obtain the types of information described above from third parties. These third-party sources include, for example:

• Third-party partners: Third-party applications and services, including social networks you choose to connect with or interact with through the App.
• Co-branding/marketing partners: Partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities.
• Service providers: Third parties that collect or provide data in connection with work they do on our behalf, for example companies that determine your device’s general location (i.e., city, State, ZIP code) based on its IP address.

We have collected the same categories of personal information described above in the twelve months prior to the date of this Privacy Policy.   

When you are asked to provide personal information, you may decline. But if you choose not to provide or allow information that is necessary for certain services or features, those services or features may not be available or fully functional.

We do not engage in the automated processing of personal information to create profiles about individuals used in furtherance of decisions with legal or other similarly significant effects, such as the provision or denial of financial or lending services, housing, insurance, or access to essential goods or services.

3. Information Collection and Tracking Technologies

The technologies we use for automatic information collection includes Google Analytics for Firebase which collects and analyze information about use of the App and report on activities and trends. This service may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps, and online resources. You can learn about Google’s practices by going to https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy.  The App itself also sends us personal information, particularly the information that you directly provide to the App.

4. Third-Party Information Collection

When you use the App or its content, Alphabet, through its Google Analytics for Firebase software, collects information about you or your device for us. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites, apps, and other online services websites. The categories of information collected by Google Analytics for Firebase can be found HERE.

5. How We Use Your Personal Information

We use the personal information we collect for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed to you.  For example, we use the following categories of personal information for the following purposes:

Categories of Personal Information	Purposes of Use
Name and contact information; demographic information; content you provide; health information; account access information; usage information; identifiers and device information; stored information and files; inferences; and information obtained from third parties	To provide the features and functions of the App; to provide you the information you request and our services; to contact you; to provide you information about our business; to market to you; for customer support; for quality assurance purposes; to conduct surveys
Name and contact information; usage information; identifiers and device information; inferences; health data; and information obtained from third parties.	To deliver advertisements and marketing promotions and offers about products or services we think may be of interest to you, including our services and those of our affiliates; and to analyze the placement and effectiveness of our advertisements and other marketing efforts
Name and contact information; usage information; identifiers and device information; inferences; health data; and information obtained from third parties.	To monitor and improve the App and our services and for internal business analysis
Name and contact information; usage information; identifiers and device information; inferences; health data	To prevent fraud, activities that violate our Terms of Use or that are illegal; and to protect our rights and the rights and safety of our users or others

We combine information we collect from different sources for these purposes and to give you a more seamless, consistent, and personalized experience.

6. Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated information about our users, and information that does not identify any individual or device, without restriction.

Third party analytics companies, some of which may be acting on our behalf as our service providers, also collect personal information through the App including identifiers and device information (such as cookie IDs, device IDs, and IP address), geolocation data, usage data, and inferences based on and associated with that data, as described in the “Information Collection and Tracking Technologies” section of this Policy.

Third-party analytics providers we use on the App include, for example: 

Company/Service	Purpose(s)	Privacy Notices	Manage Settings (opt-out)
Google Analytics for Firebase	Analytics	https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy	Currently unavailable

Please note that some of our services also include integrations, references, or links to services provided by third parties whose privacy practices differ from ours. If you provide personal information to any of those third parties, or allow us to share personal information with them, that information is governed by their privacy statements.

We disclose personal information with your consent or as we determine necessary to complete your transactions or provide the services you have requested or authorized. In addition, we disclose personal information to different types of third parties as described below.  We share the information we collect with the following categories of third parties for operational business purposes:

• Affiliates and subsidiaries
• third party service providers and contractors, and
• trusted business partners that support our provision of services.

We disclose the categories of personal information to the categories of third parties identified above for the following purposes: to manage customer, supplier and vendor accounts and relationships; verify customers’ identities; promote affiliate’s products or services; operate our IT systems and secure our systems; detect or prevent fraud, security vulnerabilities and other illegal activities; and to obtain professional advice about legal and accounting matters.    

We may also disclose your personal information as required or permitted by law to comply with a subpoena or similar legal process or government request, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is legally required or otherwise necessary to protect our rights and property or the rights, property, or safety of others, including to law enforcement agencies, and judicial and regulatory authorities. We may also disclose or transfer your personal information to a third party in the event of an actual or potential sale, merger, reorganization of our entity or other restructuring.

7. Retention of Personal Information

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to provide the App, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and for other legitimate and lawful business purposes. Because these needs can vary for different data types in the context different services, actual retention periods can vary significantly based on criteria such as user expectations or consent, the sensitivity of the data, and our legal or contractual obligations. For example, this may result in retention of certain data: 

• For as long as you have an account with us or keep using our services, and the length of time thereafter during which we may have a legitimate need to reference your personal information to address issues that may arise;
• Subject to a legal obligation to which we are bound, for example, certain laws require us to keep records of your transactions for a certain duration before we can delete them; or
• As is advisable considering our legal position, such as in regard to applicable statutes of limitations, litigation or regulatory investigations.

 

8. Your Choices About Our Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Your Information

We provide a variety of ways for you to control the personal information we hold about you, including choices about how we use that information. In some jurisdictions, these controls and choices may be enforceable as rights under applicable law. 

1. Access, portability, correction, and deletion.

If you wish to access, copy, correct, or delete personal information about you that we hold, please contact us using the methods described in the “Contact Us” section of this Policy or as described in the “How to Exercise Your CCPA Rights”, or “How to Exercise Your CPA Rights” sections, if applicable.

1. Communications preferences.

You can choose whether to receive promotional communications from us by email, SMS, and telephone. If you receive promotional email or SMS messages from us and would like to stop, you can do so by following the directions in that message or by contacting us as described in the “Contact Us” section below. If you receive a sales call from us, you can ask to be placed on our do-not-call list. These choices do not apply to certain informational communications including surveys and mandatory service communications. 

1. Data sales or sharing.

We currently do not “sell” or “share” personal information as defined by applicable law.    

1. Tracking controls.

Email web beacons. To the extent that we may send you email, most email clients have settings that allow you to prevent the automatic downloading of images, including web beacons, which prevents the automatic connection to the web servers that host those images.

Except for the automated control described above, if you send us a request to exercise these choices (including where they are enforceable as rights), to the extent permitted by applicable law, we may charge a fee or decline requests in certain cases. For example, we may decline requests where granting the request would be prohibited by law, could adversely affect the privacy or other rights of another person, would reveal a trade secret or other confidential information, or would interfere with a legal or business obligation that requires retention or use of the data. Further, we may decline a request where we are unable to authenticate you as the person to whom the data relates, the request is unreasonable or excessive, or where otherwise permitted by applicable law. In some jurisdictions, you may have a right to appeal our denial of a request, as described in the “Additional Information About California Privacy Rights”, or “Appealing Our Decisions Made in Response to Your Requests” sections. If you have questions about making an appeal, please contact us via the methods in the “Contact Us” section. 

9. Security

We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect personal information within our organization.  Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact Us” section below.

10. Location of Personal Information

The personal information we collect may be stored and processed in your country or region, or in any other country where we or our affiliates, subsidiaries, or service providers process data. Currently, we primarily use data centers in the United States. The storage location(s) are chosen to operate efficiently and improve performance. We take steps to process and protect personal information as described in this statement wherever the data is located.

11. Third Party Services

This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information, or other practices of your healthcare practitioner (if you link this App to your healthcare practitioner), any third parties, including any third party operating any website or service to which the App provides links.  The inclusion of a link on the App does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates.  In addition, we are not responsible for the information collection, use, disclosure, or security policies or practices of other organizations, such as any operating system provider, wireless service provider, or device manufacturer.

12. Use of the App by minors

The App is not directed to individuals under the age of eighteen (18), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18.

13. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy at our discretion when necessary to reflect changes in the App or our services, how we use personal information, or applicable law. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of the Policy. If we make material changes to the statement, we will provide notice or obtain consent regarding such changes as may be required by law. 

14. Accessibility of this Privacy Policy

We are committed to ensuring that our communications are accessible to people with disabilities. To make accessibility-related requests or report barriers, please contact us at +1 800-692-9400.

15. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1-800-692-9400

Website: www.baritastic.com

Postal Address: 

            Metagenics LLC

            Attn: Privacy Office

            25 Enterprise, Suite 200, Aliso Viejo, CA, U.S.A., 92656

 

Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us.

16. California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident and the processing of personal information about you is subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) or other California laws, you have certain rights with respect to that personal information.

1. Notice at Collection

At or before the time of collection, you have a right to receive notice of our practices, including the categories of personal information and sensitive personal information to be collected, the purposes for which such information is collected or used, whether such information is sold or shared, and how long such information is retained. You can find those details in this statement in the Sections “Information We Collect and How We Collect It,” “How We Use Your Personal Information”, “Disclosure of Your Information”, and “Retention of Personal Information”.

1. Right to Know About Personal Information Processed

You can ask us for the following information from us with respect to the personal information we have collected about you in the twelve months prior to our receipt of your request:

• Specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you;
• Categories of personal information we have collected about you;
• Categories of sources from which such personal information was collected;
• Categories of personal information that we sold or disclosed for a business purpose about the consumer;
• Categories of third parties to whom we sold or disclosed personal information for a business purpose; and
• The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information.

Note that we have provided much of this information in this Policy. 

1. Right to Request Deletion of Personal Information

You have the right to request that we delete personal information under certain circumstances, subject to a number of exceptions.

1. Right to Request to Correct Personal Information

You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information. We may ask that you provide documentation regarding your request to correct in order to assist us in evaluating the accuracy of the personal information.  

1. Right to Opt-Out of Selling or Sharing Personal Information About You

You have a right to opt-out from future “sales” or “sharing” of personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA. We are not “selling” or “sharing” your personal information as those terms are currently defined.

1. Right to Limit Use and Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information

You have the right to limit our use of sensitive personal information for any purposes other than to provide the services or goods you request or as otherwise permitted by law.  You may opt-out of our ability to send you emails by clicking on the opt-out link in the footer of our emails.  Other uses of your sensitive personal information are inherent in the use of the App.  To opt-out, please uninstall the App.

1. Rights Under California’s “Shine the Light” Law

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine the Light” law, permits California residents who have provided personal information to a business with which the individual has established a business relationship for personal, family, or household purposes to annually request, free of charge, information about the personal information (if any) disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year.  To make such a request, please contact us at +1 800-692-9400. Please note that businesses are required to respond to one request per resident per year and may not be required to respond to requests made by means other than through the designated phone number.

1. How to Exercise Your CCPA Rights

To exercise your CCPA rights, contact us at +1 800-692-9400 or send us an email to [email protected]. For such requests, we will first acknowledge receipt of your request within 10 business days of receipt of your request.  We will then provide a substantive response to your request as soon as we can, generally within 45 days from when we receive your request, although we may be allowed to take longer to process your request in certain jurisdictions or under certain circumstances.  If we expect your request is going to take us longer than normal to fulfill, we will let you know.

You may opt-out of our ability to send you emails by clicking on the opt-out link in the footer of our emails.  Other uses of your sensitive personal information are inherent in the use of the App.  To opt-out, please uninstall the App.

We usually act on requests and provide information free of charge, but we may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs of providing the information in certain situations.  In some cases, the law may allow us to refuse to act on certain requests.  If this is the case, we will endeavor to provide you with an explanation as to why.

1. Additional Information About California Privacy Rights

You may designate an agent to submit requests on your behalf under the CCPA. The agent can be a natural person or a business entity. If you would like to designate an agent to act on your behalf, and you designate the agent in writing, you and the agent will need to comply with our verification process: 

Requests to Know, Delete or Correct Personal Information: If the agent submits a request, the agent will need to provide us with your signed permission indicating the agent has been authorized to submit the request on your behalf.  We will also require that you verify your identity directly with us or confirm with us that you provided the agent with permission to submit the request. 

Requests to Opt-Out or Limit: If the agent submits a request to opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information or limit use of sensitive personal information, the agent will need to provide us with your signed permission indicating the agent has been authorized to submit the opt-out or limit request on your behalf.  

If you designate an agent through a power of attorney, requests through an agent will be processed in accordance with California law pertaining to powers of attorney.

Further, to provide, correct, or delete specific pieces of personal information we will need to verify your identity to the degree of certainty required by law. We will verify your request by asking you for two pieces of personal information and attempting to match those to information we maintain about you. 

Finally, you have a right to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights set out in the CCPA.

17. Colorado Privacy Rights

1. Scope of Rights

 If you are a Colorado resident and the processing of personal information about you is subject to the Colorado Privacy Act (“CPA”), you have certain rights with respect to that personal information.

• Right to Know: The right to confirm whether or not we are processing your personal information and to access such data;
• Right to a Copy: The right to a portable copy of the personal information we have collected from you;
• Right to Delete: The right to request deletion of personal information about you, subject to certain exceptions;
• Right to Correct: The right to request correction of inaccurate personal information about you, taking into account the nature of personal information and purposes of processing such information;
• Right to Opt-Out of Targeted Advertising: The right to request we stop future processing of personal information about you for such purposes; and
• Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of Personal Information: The right to request we stop future processing of personal information about you for such purposes.

1. How to Exercise Your CPA Rights

To exercise your CPA rights, contact us at +1 800-692-9400 or by sending us an email to [email protected].  We will respond to such requests within 45 days from when we receive your request, although we may be allowed to take longer to process your request under certain circumstances.  If we expect your request is going to take us longer than normal to fulfill, we will let you know.

You may opt-out of our ability to send you emails by clicking on the opt-out link in the footer of our emails.  Other uses of your personal information are inherent in the use of the App.  To opt-out, please uninstall the App.

We usually act on requests and provide information free of charge, but we may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs of providing the information in certain situations.  In some cases, the law may allow us to refuse to act on certain requests. When this is the case, we will endeavor to provide you with an explanation as to why.

1. Appealing Our Decisions Made in Response to Your Requests

In some cases, we may not act on your requests (for example, if another law applies that prevents us from deleting a piece of personal information). When this is the case, we will explain our reasons for not providing you with the information or taking the action you requested.    

Additionally, you have the right to appeal our decision by contacting us at +1 800-692-9400 or clicking here within 30 days after your receipt of our decision.  As part of your appeal, we request you provide us with information the company needs (e.g., reference number) to identify denial of request.  We will respond to your appeal within 45 days of our receipt of the request, unless we need additional time to do so (up to 60 additional days), in which case we will notify you.  

1. Additional Information About Colorado Privacy Rights (“CPA”)

You may designate an agent to submit opt-out requests on your behalf under the CPA. 

If you use an agent to submit such requests on your behalf, we will need to verify your identity and the agent will need to provide us with your signed permission indicating they have been authorized to submit the request on your behalf.  

Further, to provide, correct, or delete specific pieces of personal information we will need to verify your identity to a reasonable degree of certainty. We will verify your request by asking you for two pieces of personal information and attempting to match those to information we maintain about you. 

Finally, you have a right to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights set out in the CPA.