Donating your data is simple, whether you're new to Tidepool or a long-time user. Follow our step-by-step instructions to get started.

1. Sign into Tidepool
2. Opt in to donate data in your profile settings
3. Select a nonprofit diabetes organization to support with 10% of proceeds
4. Save your preferences
5. Upload your data

Yes. You can stop sharing your data at any time. After logging into your account, click "Profile" in the navigation bar. Under the Big Data Donation Project section, select "Stop Sharing Data" and confirm by clicking "Yes, stop sharing."

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Please note: If you opt in and later choose to opt out, your data will not be included in any future datasets. However, data that was previously shared with researchers cannot be recalled or deleted. Once shared, that data has already been de-identified and may have been incorporated into existing datasets. This limitation is explained in the consent form before you enroll.

Tidepool collects data from the devices connected to your Tidepool account, including diabetes and wearable devices.
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For diabetes devices, this includes glucose readings, insulin data, pump settings, and device events. For wearables, this includes biometric signals such as sleep, activity, and heart rate. Your responses to surveys are also collected.
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Before any data is shared with researchers, all information that could identify you is removed.

If you are opted in to the Big Data Donation Project, any supported data in your Tidepool account may be included in a dataset.

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If there is specific data you do not want included, you have options: opt out of the Big Data Donation Project entirely, or ensure that data isn't connected to your Tidepool account. If you use an Oura Ring, you can control which data categories sync to Tidepool. See our [support article] for step-by-step instructions.

Before your data is shared with any researcher or partner, Tidepool removes all information that could identify you.
Here is what that means in practice.

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We remove or exclude:

• Your name, address, and email address
• Your exact birthday and exact diagnosis date (we keep only the month and year)
• Free-text notes and photos
• Device serial numbers
• Any other information that could identify a specific person

We also replace your Tidepool user identifier with a "hash" — a scrambled code generated using a secure, one-way process. This hash cannot be decoded back to your original identifier, even by Tidepool. It allows researchers to connect data from the same person across time without ever knowing who that person is.

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For wearable data, we apply the same process. Only the data categories you have chosen to share are included.
After removing identifiers, your data is provided to researchers in standard file formats (.csv, .json, or .xlsx).

Tidepool uses industry best practices, including end-to-end encryption, to secure your data. You can read detailed information all about our security infrastructure in this document.

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For the Tidepool Big Data Donation Project, Tidepool strips all identifying information from data sets. In addition, Tidepool replaces your Tidepool user identifier (that looks something like 0a1b2c3d) with a “hash” value that is generated using a cryptographically secure one-way hash function. These identifiers cannot be decrypted into their original form, even by Tidepool, but they allow researchers to correlate datasets over time from the same user.

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There is a small risk that data could be linked back to you if it were combined with other information outside our control.
We take technical and legal steps to keep that risk as low as possible. If a data breach were to occur, we would follow HIPAA guidelines to notify you of the details.

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See our Privacy Policy for more information.

After removing all identifying information, the data we provide researchers is in either .csv, .json, or .xlsx format that looks like this.

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We store data in Tidepool’s secure, HIPAA-compliant servers that are hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Within AWS, we use MongoDB, a popular, modern database.

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Here is an example data file (6MB compressed) for our demo user, “Jill Jellyfish" before removing identifiers. It follows the Tidepool data model (how we internally represent data) here.

We ask our data partners to complete a follow-up survey about their research so we can share results with the our community.
If you are opted in to receive emails from us, we'll send updates on the impact of the Big Data Donation Project — sharing how partners have used donated data, what they were studying, and what they found.

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View our latest Impact Report.

Tidepool licenses datasets to different types of partners, including academic researchers, industry partners such as device makers and healthcare companies, and nonprofit diabetes organizations.

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All partners must sign a licensing agreement and describe how they plan to use the data before receiving access. Their agreements forbid any attempt to identify individuals from the data.

At any time after you have opted in, you can choose to opt out.

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After you’ve logged into your account, click on "Profile" from the navigation bar.
Next, click on the “Stop Sharing Data” option under the Tidepool Big Data Donation Project section.
Confirm again by clicking “Yes, stop sharing.”

If you opt in and then later change your preference to opt out, you will not be able to remove or delete data that had been previously donated.