Purpose and scope
Rare-disease and genetics communities require particular care because users may be newly diagnosed, undiagnosed, caring for a child, unsure how to interpret a report, or looking for urgent next steps. This policy explains how Pocket Genes handles safety reports, moderation, blocking, sensitive disclosures, organization behavior, and appeals.
The policy applies to RareFriends, community profiles, posts, comments, messages, groups, organization content, trusted-organization activity, reports, and community-adjacent support interactions controlled by Pocket Genes.
Who this policy applies to
- Community members, caregivers, learners, and visitors who interact with community content.
- Trusted Organizations, professionals, moderators, and support reviewers.
- People who are reported, people who report concerns, and people affected by community content.
Definitions
Safety report
A user, moderator, organization, or support report about behavior or content that may harm privacy, safety, trust, or community integrity.
Sensitive disclosure
Accidental or intentional publication of report content, medical information, personal identifiers, access links, codes, or another person information.
Protective action
A temporary or permanent step such as hiding content, disabling messaging, limiting an account, contacting a user, or reviewing a trusted organization.
Emergency content
Content suggesting imminent physical harm, self-harm, abuse, urgent medical danger, or crisis needs.
Safety principles
- Protect privacy before curiosity. Users should not be pushed into revealing reports, exact variants, family details, or identity.
- Separate peer support from medical authority. Personal experience is welcome; diagnosis and treatment instructions are not.
- Treat organization access as higher responsibility. Trusted status requires clearer identity, labeling, and restraint.
- Act proportionally. Pocket Genes considers severity, intent, repeat behavior, affected users, context, and available evidence.
Prohibited conduct
- Harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, hate, or discriminatory behavior.
- Impersonation of a user, caregiver, clinician, researcher, provider, organization, or Pocket Genes representative.
- Doxxing, re-identification, publishing another person medical or genetic information, or posting report codes and private links.
- Scams, financial exploitation, aggressive patient solicitation, spam, repeated unsolicited messages, or fraudulent cures.
- Dangerous medical misinformation, urgent-care claims, treatment instructions, or pressure to ignore qualified professional advice.
- Sexual exploitation, inappropriate conduct involving minors, attempts to obtain report codes, coordinated abuse, and evasion after suspension.
Sensitive disclosures
If a user appears to have accidentally published a complete report, access link, medical record, personal identifier, or another person information, Pocket Genes may hide or remove the content while reviewing the issue. The goal is to reduce exposure first, then determine whether education, warning, account action, or further escalation is needed.
Moderators may preserve limited evidence when needed to investigate abuse, record the decision, handle repeat behavior, or comply with legal obligations. Preserved evidence should be restricted to people with a need to know.
Reporting and blocking
Users can report safety concerns in the product where available or by emailing support@goldencrowvs.com. Useful reports include the profile, post, message, group, organization, screenshot with sensitive information redacted, approximate time, and a description of the risk.
Blocking can reduce contact from another user, but it may not remove public content, undo screenshots, or prevent all indirect exposure. The reported person may be notified of an outcome if action is taken, but Pocket Genes does not reveal unnecessary reporter information.
Moderation process
Intake
Pocket Genes receives the report, identifies the affected surface, and checks whether immediate protective action is needed.
Initial assessment
The report is classified by severity, privacy risk, medical-safety risk, exploitation risk, repeat behavior, organization involvement, and evidence quality.
Protective action
Pocket Genes may hide content, disable messages, lock a thread, restrict an account, or suspend organization publishing before the final decision when exposure or harm is urgent.
Review and decision
A reviewer considers context, rules, prior behavior, affected users, and applicable legal or provider obligations.
Communication
Pocket Genes may inform the reporter, affected user, account holder, or organization about the result when appropriate and safe.
Record retention
Moderation records may be retained for accountability, repeat-abuse prevention, legal, security, or appeal reasons under the retention policy.
Emergency and crisis content
Pocket Genes is not an emergency service, crisis hotline, clinical triage service, or 24/7 monitoring service. Users facing imminent medical, physical, or mental-health danger should contact local emergency services or qualified professionals.
When Pocket Genes becomes aware of content suggesting imminent harm, it may prioritize review, remove public exposure, contact the account through available channels, preserve relevant evidence, or take other reasonable steps consistent with the information available and legal limits.
Trusted Organizations and appeals
Trusted Organizations are held to a higher standard because users may interpret their presence as a trust signal. Organization misconduct can lead to content labels, removal, temporary publishing limits, review of trusted status, suspension, or removal from Pocket Genes.
A user or organization may request reconsideration by emailing support@goldencrowvs.com with the decision, affected content, and reason for review. Pocket Genes may decline appeals that are abusive, repetitive, legally restricted, or involve active security or safety risk.
Transparency
Pocket Genes may publish aggregate moderation information, such as categories of reports or actions taken, if the information does not identify users, disclose private reports, reveal sensitive details, or compromise safety or security investigations.
Pocket Genes responsibilities
- Maintain reporting, blocking, moderation, escalation, and organization-review paths.
- Act proportionally and record important decisions.
- Treat sensitive disclosures and report-access references as private and urgent when exposed.
- Avoid implying continuous emergency monitoring unless such capability is actually provided.
User and organization responsibilities
- Users must avoid harassment, privacy exposure, report sharing, scams, re-identification, and medical pressure.
- Organizations must label content, avoid aggressive solicitation, protect user privacy, and cooperate with review.
- Reporters should avoid sending full reports, passwords, tokens, or unnecessary private information unless Pocket Genes requests a limited item for investigation.
Exceptions and limitations
- Pocket Genes may not see or review every interaction before harm occurs.
- External resources and off-platform conversations may fall outside Pocket Genes control.
- Legal, safety, provider, or security obligations may limit what Pocket Genes can disclose about an investigation.
How to make a request or report a problem
Privacy, account, deletion, accessibility, safety, trusted-organization, and security requests can be sent to support@goldencrowvs.com. Use a subject line that identifies the issue, the affected Pocket Genes account or workflow, and whether the request is urgent.
Pocket Genes may need to verify the requester before changing or disclosing account information. Verification is handled proportionally to the request, the sensitivity of the information, and the risk of giving account access or private information to the wrong person.
Effective date, version, and review history
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Effective date | August 14, 2026 |
| Version | 1.1 |
| Last reviewed | August 2026 |
| Material changes | Expanded Trust Center format, operator identity, data-map boundaries, request paths, and responsibility sections. |
| Previous version | July 2026 Trust Center overview copy. |