Privacy Statement

1. Personal information we collect and what we do with it

This section explains how we collect, use and share personal information.

Why we collect your personal information

Marko is an online platform that generates reports containing guidance and recommendations based on information provided by a user. Marko also provides generalised non-specific educational information based on publicly available research as well as an online supplement shop, retailing third party products.

We collect, generate and hold personal information about our users for the following purposes:

• to provide Marko's users with health and wellness insights; and
• to produce data insights for our analytics subscribers (noting that these are aggregated and anonymised statistics).

The personal information we collect or generate

Most of the personal information we collect is provided directly by you, or your authorised representative, when you engage with us to acquire our services. This includes:

• Personal identifiers such as your name, DOB and gender.
• Contact details such as your email address, address and telephone number.
• Health information, such as details of your blood markers necessary for our analysis services.
• Various information we may gather about your use of our website, including your IP address, the pages you have accessed, the date and time of your visit, and any information you may enter into website forms or chat bots.

You do not have to provide your personal information to us. However, if you do not provide the information we may not be able to effectively provide you with services, or the results provided by those services may be incorrect.

In the course of providing you with our services we may also create personal information or health information about you. This may include tailored insights following the analysis of your blood markers and associated recommendations tailored to you based on those insights and findings.

What we do with your personal information

How Marko uses your personal information

We use your personal information to:

• provide Marko's services to you, including;
  • producing a Marko report
  • providing guidance and recommendation on actions you might make for better health and wellness,
• contact you about those services and similar services we think you might be interested in;
• produce high level data and statistics for analytics subscribers.

As part of the provision of Marko's services we will process your personal information, and in particular blood marker information, using our bespoke AI model. This model has been developed independently by Marko and is owned by Marko. Client data is not used to train Marko's AI model. The model, and Marko's services generally, are hosted on a secure cloud infrastructure maintained by Digital Ocean. This platform maintains SOC 2 Type II certification and follows HIPAA compliant practices. Member data is encrypted both in transmission and at rest using industry standard encryption protocols.

How Marko shares your personal information

We share your personal information where necessary in order to give effect to the Privacy Act 2020, when required by law, and when necessary for Marko for the purposes described above. We may, for example, share information with:

• Service providers Marko may use to assist with the analysis of personal and health information necessary for provision of Marko's services. In some cases this may include provision to a third party for algorithmic processing of personal and health data, including blood marker data.
• Other service providers used to run Marko's business, including cloud service providers who may store and hold data on Markos behalf and third-party providers we may use to distribute updates or mailouts.
• A third-party agency, such as the Policy or another government agency, if required by law.

Links to social networking services

We use social networking services such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to communicate with the public about our work. When you communicate with us using these services, the social networking service may collect your personal information for its own purposes.

These services may track your use of our website, or those social sites, or/ and on those pages where their links are displayed. If you are logged in to those services (including any Google service) while using our site, their tracking will be associated with your profile with them.

These services have their own privacy statements which are independent of ours. They do not have any access to the personal information we hold on our systems.

2. Storage and security of your personal information

Storage and retention

We store most of the personal information we collect and generate electronically on a secure Digital Ocean cloud platform, as well as Klaviyo for customer communications and marketing. We also use Microsoft Office 365 for our email and other office productivity applications. This means that the personal information we hold may be transferred to, or accessed from, countries other than New Zealand.

Security

We take all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information we collect is protected against loss, unauthorised access and disclosure or any other misuse.

This includes satisfying ourselves that our third-party providers can meet our privacy and security requirements.

Retention

We only keep your personal information for as long as necessary for the purposes for which we gather it, and any other directly related purposes. In the case of personal information you provide for the purposes of obtaining Marko's services, or which is created by Marko when you acquire these services, Marko retains this information for 7 years.

3. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to improve your experience on our website (www.mymarko.com), enhance functionality, and provide a more personalised service.

Cookies are small text files stored on your device (such as your computer or mobile device) when you visit a website. Cookies help us identify your browser or device and remember certain information about your preferences and browsing activities, such as login details, language preferences, and tracking website activity.

Types of Cookies We Use

1. Essential Cookies
   These cookies are necessary for the operation of our website. They enable basic functions like page navigation, security features, and access to secure areas of the website.
2. Performance and Analytical Cookies
   These cookies allow us to analyze website usage, improve website performance, and understand how visitors interact with the platform. They help us measure traffic, optimize our content, and enhance user experience.
3. Functional Cookies
   These cookies allow us to remember choices you make (such as language or region) and provide enhanced, more personal features. They are not essential but improve your browsing experience.
4. Advertising and Targeting Cookies
   We may use these cookies to track your online activity across websites and show relevant advertisements based on your interests. These cookies may be placed by third-party advertising networks and are used for targeted advertising.

Our platform may contain third-party cookies placed by external service providers, such as analytics services or advertisers. These third parties may use cookies to collect information about your online activities across different websites. We do not control these cookies, and their use is subject to the privacy and cookie policies of the third parties involved.

We cannot identify any personal information stored in these cookies, nor can we gain access to any information stored on your hard drive. In addition, we cannot access information from cookies sent from other websites. Information collected will only be used as described above, and also to improve our website. Some browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies but this may have a negative impact on the usability of our website.

You can manage or delete cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to block or delete cookies, but please note that doing so may impact your experience on our website, and some features may not work as intended. You can also visit www.aboutcookies.org for more information about managing cookies in different browsers.

4. Your privacy rights and how to contact us

The Privacy Act gives you the right to request access to your personal information and seek correction of that information if you think it is incorrect.

You can contact us to request access or correction of your personal information using the details in the "Contact Us" section below.

5. Contact us

You can email us on [email protected].