Privacy Policy

Vitells (formerly called Vitals) is a consumer wellness app developed and operated independently by RJ Dowell, an individual based in Ohio, USA. In this policy, “we” and “us” mean that individual. Vitells is not operated by any company or employer. Contact: rdowell1@gmail.com.

Your health information belongs to you. This policy explains what we collect, why, who processes it for us, and your choices.

Who Vitells is for

Vitells is for adults aged 18 and over in the United States. It provides educational wellness information. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat or prevent any condition.

Demo Mode

Demo Mode uses entirely synthetic personas. Nothing you do in Demo Mode is stored on our servers. Your persona choice is kept in a browser cookie that you can clear by exiting the demo.

Information we collect

• Account: your email address and basic profile details from Google when you sign in, plus the profile and goals you choose to add.
• Consent records: when you gave health-data consent and, if you connect Garmin or Apple Health, the consent specific to that source.
• Garmin data, if you choose to import it or connect Garmin automatically (see “Garmin data”).
• Apple Health data, if you connect it through the Vitells iPhone app (see “Apple Health data”).
• Lab reports: uploads currently accept only Vitells' built-in sample documents (see “Lab reports”).
• Technical data: session cookies that keep you signed in, and the vitals-tz time-zone cookie. We don't use advertising or analytics trackers.

How we use information

Only to provide Vitells to you: to show your own dashboards, calculate your own trends, keep your account secure and respond to your requests. We don't sell personal data, show advertisements or build advertising profiles.

Your consent

• Before storing any health or wellness information, we ask for explicit consent and record when you gave it. Importing or connecting Garmin data needs a separate, Garmin-specific consent.
• You can withdraw consent at any time by disconnecting Garmin, deleting data or deleting your account in Settings.
• Each table is protected by row-level security so only you can access your records.

Lab reports

• Uploads currently accept only Vitells' built-in sample (synthetic) lab documents. Any other file, including a real lab report, is refused before it is stored or sent anywhere.
• When you upload a sample document and agree on the upload screen, our server sends it to Anthropic's Claude API — a third-party AI service — to read it. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, API data isn't used to train models, and inputs and outputs are deleted within 30 days by default (longer only where required by law or for policy enforcement).
• Sample files are stored in a private storage bucket in your account. Extracted results are saved only after you review and confirm them.
• We will update this policy and ask for your consent before accepting real lab reports.

Garmin data (invite-only)

• Garmin import is available only to accounts we have enabled. It needs your health-data consent and a separate, Garmin-specific consent in Settings, and nothing is imported until you choose a file.
• The import is manual. You run the Vitells exporter on your own computer with your own Garmin Personal API key, then upload the file it creates in Settings. Your Garmin key stays on your computer: Vitells never receives it, doesn't sign in to your Garmin account and the import doesn't sync in the background. Each import is one you start. (The automatic connection below works differently.)
• We store only these values from the file: daily steps, distance and intensity minutes; resting heart rate and HRV (including Garmin's baseline); Garmin stress, Body Battery, respiration and SpO₂; sleep duration, stages, score and times; and activities (type, start time, duration, distance, heart rate, training load and effect, power). We also store when the data was fetched and imported. Garmin's raw responses are never stored.
• Your Garmin data is stored in your account and protected by row-level security so only you can access it. It appears on your Activity and Today pages.
• Garmin measurements are never sent to Anthropic or any other AI service, aren't used by Ask Vitells and aren't used to train any model. If that ever changes, we will first update this policy and ask for your explicit opt-in, which you can withdraw at any time.
• We don't sell, rent or share Garmin data with third parties, or use it for advertising. We don't put Garmin values in URLs, analytics or server logs.
• Disconnecting Garmin in Settings permanently deletes all of your imported Garmin data. The export file stays on your computer and contains your data, so delete it once it has been imported.
• Automatic Garmin connection (invite-only). An optional direct connection through Garmin's official developer program, available only to accounts we invite. This is how it works:
  • It's optional. Nothing is connected unless you choose to connect in Settings, give the Garmin-specific consent, then sign in on Garmin's own page and authorize Vitells. Vitells never sees your Garmin password.
  • What Vitells can receive depends on the permissions you grant on Garmin's page (for example, health data and activities). Vitells doesn't request your past Garmin history. If you later change what you share in Garmin Connect, Garmin stops sending the data you no longer share; data already received stays until you disconnect or delete it.
  • Once connected, Garmin automatically sends Vitells the data you authorized after each sync, without you starting an import: daily steps, distance and intensity minutes; resting heart rate; Garmin stress and Body Battery; sleep duration, stages, score and times; overnight HRV; and activities (type, start time, duration, distance and average heart rate). We also store your Garmin device's model name (to credit Garmin as the source), your Garmin user ID, the permissions you granted and when data last arrived. Detailed second-by-second samples are discarded on arrival and never stored.
  • The access tokens Garmin issues are encrypted on our server, never sent to your browser, and used only to manage the connection. Incoming data is held encrypted only until it's processed, then stored in your account, linked to your signed-in account and protected by row-level security so only you can access it. Afterwards we keep only a fingerprint of each delivery (no health values) for up to 7 days, to ignore re-sent copies.
  • It's used only for your own dashboards, history and trends on the Activity and Today pages. The rules above apply in full: it's never sold or used for advertising, and never sent to Anthropic or any other AI service.
  • You can disconnect at any time in Settings. Vitells then asks Garmin to end the connection and permanently deletes the tokens and all Garmin data received through it; deleting your account does the same. You can also remove Vitells in your Garmin Connect account settings, and we delete that data when Garmin notifies us.

Apple Health data (invite-only, through the Vitells iPhone app)

• Apple Health is available only to accounts we have enabled, through the Vitells iPhone app. Nothing is read until you tap Connect Apple Health in the app, sign in to Vitells, give a separate Apple Health consent, and choose what Vitells may read on Apple's Health permission screen. Vitells only reads; it never writes to Apple Health.
• With your permission the app reads, from the last 90 days onwards: daily step totals, resting heart rate, heart rate variability (SDNN), sleep periods and stages, and workouts (type, start and end time, duration, distance and average heart rate). For each record we also store its Apple Health record ID, time zone, and which app and device model recorded it (for example Apple Watch or Garmin Connect), never your device's name.
• The app holds only a device key, kept in the iPhone's Keychain, that can send your Apple Health records to your account and nothing else. The data is stored in your account and protected by row-level security so only you can access it. It isn't stored in iCloud by Vitells.
• Apple Health data is never sent to Anthropic or any other AI service, never used for advertising or marketing, and never sold or shared with third parties. Records that Garmin Connect copied into Apple Health are kept as received but never counted twice alongside your Garmin data.
• Disconnect and delete in Settings permanently deletes all Apple Health data from Vitells and revokes the app's access; deleting your account does the same. You can also change or remove Vitells' access at any time in the iPhone's Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices.

Ask Vitells (Demo Mode only)

• Ask Vitells works only with the synthetic demo personas. On the public site it shows pre-written example answers. Where live answers are enabled, your question and the persona's synthetic data are sent to Anthropic's Claude API to generate a reply, under the same Anthropic terms described above. Please don't include personal details.
• To find research, our server searches PubMed (run by the US National Library of Medicine) using topic keywords drawn from your question — not your full message, and no persona data.
• We don't store questions or answers. Our logs record usage counts (such as tokens and cost), never message content.
• Signed-in accounts can't use Ask yet, so none of your account's health data is sent to an AI service.

Service providers

• Supabase — database, sign-in sessions and file storage (hosted on AWS in the US): account, consents, Garmin and Apple Health data, and sample lab files.
• Vercel — website hosting and server functions: data passing through while the app runs.
• Google — sign-in: your Google email address and basic profile.
• Anthropic — AI for demo features and sample lab documents: synthetic and sample data only, never your Garmin data or other account health data.
• US National Library of Medicine (PubMed) — research search: topic keywords only.
• Cloudflare — receives Garmin's automatic deliveries at hooks.getvitells.com and passes them straight to our server; it doesn't keep them.
• Garmin — the source of Garmin data you choose to import or connect. For a connection, we exchange only what's needed to set it up, maintain it and end it (the tokens Garmin issued and your Garmin user ID). We don't send your Vitells data to Garmin.

Cookies

• Signing in uses session cookies that keep you signed in.
• When you're signed in, Vitells stores your browser's time zone name (for example, “America/New_York”) in a first-party cookie called vitals-tz, so dates such as “last imported” and “last night” follow your own calendar. It contains no health data, isn't used for tracking or advertising, isn't shared and expires after a year. If you clear it, dates are shown in UTC until it's set again.

Security

Each table is protected by row-level security so only you can access your records. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our providers; it is not end-to-end encrypted. We don't put health values in URLs, analytics or server logs. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will notify you as required by law.

Retention and deletion

• We keep your data while your account is active, until you delete it.
• You can delete any lab report — its file and every extracted result — from the report page. Disconnecting Garmin deletes your Garmin data (imported, or received through the automatic connection), and disconnecting Apple Health deletes your Apple Health data.
• You can delete your account and all associated Vitells data, including uploaded files, Garmin and Apple Health data, from Settings. Deletion from our live systems is immediate and permanent.
• Our providers may keep short-lived system copies (such as database transaction logs used for reliability) for a limited time. Our database plan doesn't currently include automatic daily backups. If we enable backups later, deleted data may remain in them until they expire on the provider's schedule (typically 7 to 30 days). We don't restore deleted data from backups except to recover from a system failure, and if a restore brings deleted data back, we delete it again.

Your rights and choices

• You can see and correct your profile and goals in Settings, disconnect Garmin, and delete your data or account at any time.
• You can also email rdowell1@gmail.com to request access to, a copy of, correction of or deletion of your data, or to withdraw consent. We aim to acknowledge requests within 10 business days and complete them within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity first.
• If a law that applies to you sets other deadlines or gives you more rights, we follow that law. For example, Washington's My Health My Data Act and Nevada's consumer health data law require responses within 45 days (extendable in some cases). If we decline a request, you can appeal by replying to our response.

What we don't do

• We don't sell personal data.
• We don't show advertisements.
• We don't share health data with wearable or shopping partners without your explicit action.

Changes to this policy

AI conversations about your own account data are not active. Automatic wearable connections are active only for accounts we invite: Garmin (see “Garmin data”) and Apple Health through the iPhone app (see “Apple Health data”). For anything else, we will update this policy, and ask for consent where required, before introducing it. We'll post changes here with a new date and, for material changes, notify signed-in users.