Legal notice

Tota Consent Policy

Version 2. Updated 16th October 2026

Part A: consent to test your sample

You need to agree to this part for us to be able to test your sample. If you do not agree, we cannot provide the test, and you should not order one.

Consent to donate urine and/or vaginal swab(s) for the explicit purpose of identifying microbes including bacteria, fungi (including yeasts) and mollicutes.

By agreeing, you confirm and understand the following.

About you

You are 18 or over.
You are taking the sample from yourself, and you are giving this consent for yourself.
You are voluntarily providing urine and/or a vaginal swab sample(s).

What we will do with your sample

The sample that you provide will be analysed in our own laboratory for the explicit purposes of identifying microbes and microbiomes present in the donated samples.
Your urine and/or swab samples and/or any derivatives will be either destroyed during the process of analysis or, where enough material remains to allow a repeat test, kept for up to two weeks in case we need to run the test again. We destroy your sample once your results are published. We do not keep samples for research.
Tota (a trading name of The Metagenomic Testing Company Ltd) will not actively analyse your DNA or your genome. Our laboratory testing process actively destroys human cells that are found in the sample you provide to us. However, low levels of your genetic material may be sequenced alongside the microbial DNA we are looking for. Our processes recognise any human sequences and ignores it. We do not assemble or analyse any fragment of your genome. We are not a genetic testing company and we do not hold your DNA.

Your results

Results of our analyses will be made available to you through a secure website hosted by us. They stay available while your account is active, and we delete them if your account is inactive for ten years. We will email you before we do.
It is the account holder’s responsibility to maintain, and not share, appropriately secure passwords that control access to this website.
Tota will not directly provide you with interpretation, speculation or medical advice regarding results obtained from your sample. Our services are not a diagnostic test.
Tota is not obliged to organise any necessary follow-up treatment.
Arrangement for treatment, as deemed necessary, should be made between you and an independent GP/Healthcare Practitioner/Pharmacist who are under no obligation to use our data to guide therapy.
Very occasionally we may see something in your sample that we think you would want to know about, even though it is not part of the report we normally provide. If that happens we will, at our sole discretion, contact you directly and privately, tell you what we saw, and encourage you to speak to a healthcare professional. We will not diagnose anything and we will not advise on treatment. You can tell us at any time that you would rather not be contacted this way by emailing us at hello@tota.bio.

Who can see your information

Access to your information inside Tota is restricted to the people who need it to do their job. Only a small number of administrators are technically able to connect your results to you as a named person, and they are not permitted to do so except for specific operational reasons such as answering a query from you. Nobody does this for research. In certain circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to third parties where we are required to by law, for example in response to a court order or a valid request from a regulator.

Part B: research and product development

We use what we learn from our testing to make our test better. Some of that is simply part of running a laboratory well. Some of it goes further, and that part is up to you.

What we do as part of running our service

We analyse results across our customers to improve how we sequence, how we interpret what we find and how we present reports, and to build the reference database our analysis depends on. Without this the test would not improve and in some respects would not work at all.

When we do this, the people doing the work see data that has been stripped of any information identifying you. We rely on our legitimate interests as a business rather than on your consent for this, because it is part of providing and improving the service you have bought rather than something separate from it. You can object, and our Privacy Policy explains how.

What is up to you

Separately, we would like to use your de-identified results in wider research. That means publishing findings in scientific literature, sharing de-identified data with academic or clinical researchers, and entering into commercial research arrangements with third parties including pharmaceutical and academic partners.

This is entirely your choice. You will get exactly the same test and the same report either way, and we will not treat you differently if you say no.

You will never be identified in any publication or in any data we share.
We do not share your name, contact details or anything else that identifies you.
We do not share your sample, because by that point it no longer exists.
You will not receive payment, and you will not have any ownership or financial interest in anything that comes out of the research.
You can withdraw at any time by emailing hello@tota.bio. We will stop including your data in anything new. We cannot unpick data already included in completed research or in a published paper, and we will tell you honestly if that applies.