Privacy Policy

Your data privacy is important to us. We created this document to describe how Menstrual Matters handles your data in a way that we hope is easy to understand.

Please contact us if you’d like more information.

Menstrual Matters is based in London, United Kingdom (UK), and the way we handle data meets the legal guidelines required in the UK.

How your data is used

We collect data with three goals in mind: (1) To keep you informed about our services and research findings. (2) To help progress research into the role of the menstrual cycle, and hormonal medication, in a range of chronic health issues. We collaborate with several highly esteemed academic and research institutions. (3) To add you to our newsletter email list, if you tick the box to indicate this preference.

Menstrual Matters hopes to help advance the understanding of menstrual cycle-related symptoms, and the relationship between the menstrual cycle and chronic ill-health.

There is very little anonymous long-term or large-scale cycle health data available to academic and clinical researchers and we can help by providing anonymous data for research purposes. In all of our applications, health data is immediately made anonymous by removing any information that can be used for the identification of individuals. We will publish the results of academic, clinical or internal research based on this anonymous data, in the form of info-graphics, white papers/ articles, or website content. We will NEVER sell this data to third party companies or organisations. The data is for health research purposes only.

Personal data we collect

“Personal data” includes any information that directly or indirectly identifies you. This includes things like your name, telephone number, email address or date of birth.

“Non-personal data” is information that cannot be connected to your identity, e.g. the number of users visiting our services or any other kind of aggregated information.

2.1

If you use the Menstrual Matters symptom checker app, your profile data is only used to send you a one-off personalised report, and is only added to our mailing list if you indicate that you wish to receive newsletters. Your health data, created by the app, is immediately separated from your profile data (i.e. made anonymous- and made secure through an encryption process), and stored on a separate secure server, located in the UK (as required by UK law).

2.2

If you sign up to one of our mailing lists (e.g. for patients, clinicians, or researchers) on the Menstrual Matters website, we will collect and store the following data:

Profile data including your name and email address.

By signing up to our mailing list you agree that:

Menstrual Matters may store and process personal data in order to provide our services to you. Menstrual Matters may also store and process this data to improve the services we are able to offer. These services include sending you information to the email address you shared with us.
Menstrual Matters may use your health data to create anonymous information for academic and clinical research purposes, for which we guarantee that such research data cannot be associated with you as an individual, or identify you in any way.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by requesting that Menstrual Matters delete your subscription. To do that, contact us at info@menstrual-matters.com or click on the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any Menstrual Matters’ newsletter.

Menstrual Matters will NEVER share your personal data with any third party companies.

2.3

If you recognize a problem with our service and submit a request to our support team or through any other means of communication with Menstrual Matters, we store the communication history as well as the information submitted by you in the course of the communication (e.g. your email address). We do this in order to respond to inquiries and provide support.

2.4

When using our website, our web server will collect information such as:

Your IP address
The website from which you were referred to our website (e.g. if you followed a link)
The webpages you are visiting on our website
The browser you are using and its display settings
Your operating system
The date and duration of your visit
Further personal data will only be stored and processed if you voluntarily share it with us, e.g. through a contact form, or shared story

Menstrual Matters analyses website usage data to optimize the site’s content and functionality and to identify any technical issues.

Data Security

We apply security measures to protect against the misuse, loss and alteration of personal information under our control and follow industry best practices (GDPR 2018), using open and known principles when transferring and storing your data. Though we cannot ensure or guarantee that misuse, loss or alteration of information will never occur, we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.

3.1 How Menstrual Matters stores your personal data

If you sign up to a mailing list with Menstrual Matters, your personal profile data is stored separately from your health data, so that we can assure a very high level of privacy for your health information. Your password is stored using one-way encryption and it cannot be read by us.

3.2 Menstrual Matters’ best-practice recommendations to protect your data

We believe the biggest threat to the security and privacy of your data is if someone – probably someone you know – gains access to any of your devices. The data you share with Menstrual Matters is private and it should stay that way. So, do not share your password with anyone.

Data transfer outside EU and third party applications

4.1

Any personal data collected from you cannot be transferred to countries outside the European Union / the European Economic Area (EEA) observing GDPR privacy regulations and ensuring that your privacy rights remain protected.

4.2 Other mobile phone symptom tracking devices/ software

Menstrual Matters will not exchange any personal data with any other symptom tracking devices (e.g. Apple Health) or applications (e.g. Clue, Symple).

4.3 Google Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service operated by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses cookies (text files) which are stored on your computer and allow for analysis of your visit to the site. Information produced via cookies will be transferred to and stored on a server in the USA operated by Google. To avoid your personal data being collected through IP addresses, we use Google Analytics add-on “_anonymizeIp()”. As a result, a shortened (or anonymous) IP address is sent to Google.

Google analyses this information to offer reports for Menstrual Matters on website usage and online usage of associated services. Google may also transfer this information to third parties either where this is required by law or where third parties are contracted by Google to process data. Google will not allow your IP address to be linked to any other personal data. You can prevent cookies from being installed on your computer by changing your browser settings; however, if you choose to do this, your visit to our website and use of some features may not work. By using our website, you have consented to have non-personal data used and processed by Google as described above. You can withdraw consent for your data to be collected and processed at any time, but this withdrawal only applies to future activities.

Our website uses cookies – small text files that help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts and provide anonymized tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. You may, however, disable cookies on Menstrual Matters’ site.

The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the help section of your browser or taking a look at a website about cookies which offers guidance for your browser or device.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Menstrual Matters reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law, our data collection and data use practices, the features of Menstrual Matters’ services or advances in technology. Please check this page periodically for changes. If we make a change to this Privacy Policy that, in our sole discretion, is material, we will notify you by posting notice of these changes in this Privacy Policy.