Privacy policy

• We collect only what is needed to run your test safely: who you are, how to reach you, and your results.
• Your sample is analysed by a UKAS-accredited laboratory and every result is reviewed by a GMC-registered doctor. Both see only what they need.
• Your data is stored in the UK. We never sell it, and we never advertise to you based on your health.
• AI helps our doctors write clearer explanations. It never makes a decision about you on its own.
• You can see, correct and download your data at any time, and ask us to delete it where the law allows. You can also change your cookie choices at any time.

Health Intelligence Group Ltd, trading as privatetests, is the data controller for the personal data you give us. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 17153028, with our registered office at Holly Road Medical Centre, 2A Holly Road, Chiswick, London, W4 1NU. Our data-protection contact is privacy@privatetests.co.uk.

• Account details: your email address. We are passwordless: it is how you sign in and where we tell you an order has moved or a result is ready. Results themselves are never emailed.
• Patient details: name, date of birth and sex recorded at birth. The laboratory needs these to match your sample and apply the right reference ranges, and the doctor needs them to interpret your result safely. If you order for a child or a partner, the same details for them.
• Contact details: your mobile number and home address. The address goes on your laboratory request form as an identifier and is where a home kit is posted. The doctor uses the mobile number to telephone you if a result needs urgent attention. Neither is used for marketing.
• Health data: the tests you order, the sample the laboratory receives, the results it reports, the doctor’s review and any notes you add to your health record. This is special-category data under UK GDPR and is handled under the rules in Our legal basis below.
• Identity checks: when a check is needed before results are released, you upload a photo of your ID. Our own system reads the name and date of birth from it and checks them against your account. We keep the result of the check and the details read from the document, never the image.
• Payment: handled entirely by Stripe on its own pages. We receive confirmation of payment and a payment reference for your receipt, never the card number.
• Family and partner access: who you have added to your account, what each person has agreed to share, and the record of that consent.
• Usage data: limited interaction events such as a page view or a button click, IP address and browser type, used to understand and protect the service. Our own events go only to our systems. Storefront analytics use aggregate actions and page groups without browser identifiers, specific test names or search text. Third-party analytics, advertising tags and session recording are disabled on the storefront; see our cookie policy.

Most of it comes from you, when you order, sign in or use your account. The rest comes from the people who help deliver your test: the laboratory sends results, the doctor adds a review, Stripe confirms payment, and Royal Mail tells us where a kit is. If a clinic or practice we work with orders a test for you, they give us your details and remain responsible for what they hold themselves.

UK GDPR needs a reason for each use of your data, and a second, stricter reason for health data. These are ours.

When you order you tick a box confirming the test is for you and that you consent to testing. That is your clinical consent: agreement to have the sample taken and analysed. It is also the explicit consent UK GDPR asks for before health data is processed. Withdrawing it before your sample reaches the laboratory cancels the test; withdrawing it afterwards stops any further use, but we must keep the clinical record already made (see How long we keep it).

Marketing consent is separate. It is never bundled with ordering, and saying no to it changes nothing about your test.

Our doctors use an AI assistant to draft plain-English explanations of results. The doctor reads, edits and signs every explanation before you see it, and every safety check runs on fixed rules before the AI is involved. In your patient portal you can also ask Max, our AI assistant, questions about the service. Once you confirm a code we email you, Max can use your released results to answer questions about them. Max explains and never diagnoses. Your questions and the results Max needs to answer are processed by our AI provider on our instructions. We do not give the AI your date of birth, full address or NHS number. No decision that affects you is made by automated means alone, and you can ask for a person to look at anything the AI has produced. The test finder on this website runs in your browser and does not send what you type to us.

Only the people needed to deliver your test, each under a written contract and each seeing only what they need.

• The laboratory: a UKAS-accredited laboratory (ISO 15189). It receives your name, date of birth, sex at birth, address and the tests ordered, and returns the results.
• The reviewing doctor: a GMC-registered doctor bound by professional confidentiality.
• Clinic and phlebotomy partners: if you choose a clinic appointment, the clinic sees your booking details so a trained clinician can take your sample.
• Stripe: payment.
• Royal Mail: name and address to deliver and return a home kit.
• Our email and hosting providers: our systems run on Amazon Web Services in London and service emails are sent through an email provider. They process data on our instructions only.
• Analytics and advertising providers: none. We do not use third-party analytics, advertising or session-recording tools. If that changes we will update this policy and ask for your consent first.
• Regulators, the courts and the police: where the law requires it, for example a CQC inspection or a safeguarding duty.

If a clinic, practice or employer arranged your test through us, they are a separate data controller for what they hold about you, and their own privacy notice applies to that. We do not sell personal data and we never share health data for advertising.

In the United Kingdom. Our databases and files are in Amazon Web Services’ London region. Some providers, such as Stripe and our email and AI providers, may operate partly outside the UK; where that happens the transfer is covered by the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or an adequacy decision, and you can ask us for details.

• Clinical records (orders, results, doctor reviews, consent): 8 years after your last test, in line with the NHS Records Management Code of Practice for adult records. For a child, until their 25th birthday or 8 years after the last test, whichever is later.
• Account and contact details: while your account is open, then deleted with it, except where they form part of a clinical record above.
• Payment records: 6 years from the end of the company financial year they relate to, as HMRC requires.
• Identity-check outcomes: the result and the details read from your ID, for as long as the clinical record. We do not keep the image.
• Audit and incident logs: for as long as the clinical record they relate to.
• Marketing consent: until you withdraw it. If you unsubscribe we keep the minimum suppression record needed to make sure we do not contact you again.
• Analytics: our own usage events are pseudonymous and are never joined to your clinical record. In the patient portal, if you accept analytics, we keep a random identifier in your browser (see our cookie policy). It is never used on results, orders, trends, consent or ID-check pages.

You can ask us to close your account at any time from your account page or by emailing privacy@privatetests.co.uk. We then retain only what clinical record-keeping law requires, and nothing else.

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is restricted by role and every access to a result is logged with who, when and why. Sign-in is by single-use link, and results are released only after a doctor has signed them. Staff and doctors use additional authentication. We test the service for security weaknesses and we will tell you and the Information Commissioner within the legal time limits if a breach ever affects you.

You must be 18 or over to order online for yourself. A parent or guardian can add a child to their account and book a clinic appointment for them at our Wimpole Street clinic, with the child’s best interests in mind; from 16 the young person controls their own record and can move it to their own account. If you add a partner, they see only what they have agreed to share, and either of you can stop sharing at any time.

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

• Access: give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you. Your results and reports are already in your account to download at any time.
• Correct: fix anything inaccurate. You can change contact details yourself; corrections to your name, date of birth or sex at birth are checked by our support team because they affect laboratory matching.
• Erase: delete your data, where the law allows. We must keep clinical records for the periods above, and we will tell you exactly what stays and why.
• Restrict or object: limit or stop a use of your data, including any use based on our legitimate interests.
• Port: receive your data in a machine-readable form to take elsewhere.
• Withdraw consent: at any time, for marketing, for cookies, or for sharing with a family member or partner, without affecting anything done before.

Write to privacy@privatetests.co.uk. There is no fee, we may ask you to confirm your identity, and we reply within one month. If you are not happy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather hear from you first.

When we change what we collect or why, we update this page, change the date at the top and, for anything material, tell you by email or when you next sign in. Cookie changes that matter also re-open the cookie question.