Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using the AfriGen-D Federated Genotype Imputation Platform ("FedImpute"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and all applicable data access policies, including the H3Africa Consortium Data Sharing, Access and Release Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

2. Description of Service

FedImpute is a research platform that enables genotype imputation using GA4GH-compliant services. The platform is developed by the Computational Biology Division at the University of Cape Town and hosted on the ILIFU multi-institutional research cloud infrastructure in South Africa. It is provided free of charge for academic and non-commercial research purposes, supported by NIH grant U24HG012750.

3. Eligibility

Use of FedImpute is restricted to bona fide researchers affiliated with recognised research institutions. By registering, you confirm that you are conducting legitimate scientific research and that your use of the platform and its data is covered by appropriate ethical approvals and institutional oversight.

4. User Responsibilities

You agree to:

• Use the platform only for lawful, non-commercial research purposes
• Not attempt to re-identify or contact research participants whose data is included in reference panels
• Report any inadvertent data release, security breach, or data management incident of which you become aware to the platform administrators immediately
• Comply with all applicable data access agreements, ethics approvals, and institutional policies
• Not share your account credentials with others
• Not redistribute reference panel data or use it outside the platform without explicit authorisation from the relevant data custodian
• Not use automated tools to scrape, download, or bulk-access data beyond normal research use

5. Reference Panel Access

Reference panels hosted on the platform are subject to their own data governance policies. Access to controlled datasets (including H3Africa panels) requires acceptance of the panel-specific Data Access Agreement (DAA) within the platform.

• Acceptance of the panel-specific Data Access Agreement presented when you first select a controlled panel
• Upon acceptance, a GA4GH Passport ControlledAccessGrants visa is automatically issued to your account, granting access across all platform services
• Some panels may require additional review by the relevant Data Access Committee

Reference panel genotype data remains private on the server and is never included in imputation output files. Panels are used exclusively as imputation references within the platform. You must not attempt to extract, download, or reconstruct reference panel data from imputation results.

For H3Africa data specifically, users must comply with the H3Africa Consortium Data Sharing, Access and Release Policy.

6. Uploaded Data

You are responsible for ensuring that any data you upload to the platform has been collected with appropriate ethical approvals and informed consent from participants. You must have the legal right to process the data for imputation purposes.

• Uploaded input files are stored temporarily and automatically deleted after 30 days
• Imputation results are retained for 7 days and then automatically deleted
• Results are encrypted during transfer and at rest
• You are responsible for downloading your results within the retention period

7. Publication and Acknowledgement

Publications using results generated through FedImpute must include the following acknowledgements:

• Cite the AfriGen-D platform (citation details available on the About page)
• Acknowledge the relevant reference panel providers (e.g., H3Africa Consortium, International HapMap Project)
• Acknowledge NIH grant U24HG012750
• If using H3Africa reference panels, comply with the H3Africa publication policy, including any applicable publication embargo periods

8. Data Use Agreement

Before each job submission, users must explicitly accept the Data Use Agreement, confirming:

• They will not attempt to re-identify or contact research participants
• They will report any inadvertent data release, security breach, or data management incident

These conditions are aligned with H3Africa data access requirements and GA4GH ethical framework principles.

9. Audit and Monitoring

All platform activity is logged for security and compliance purposes, including job submissions, data access, and administrative actions. The platform administrators reserve the right to review usage patterns and revoke access in cases of policy violation.

10. No Warranty

The platform is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The University of Cape Town makes no guarantees regarding the accuracy of imputation results, continuous availability of the service, or fitness for a particular purpose. Users are responsible for independently validating imputation results before using them in clinical or diagnostic settings.

11. Termination

The platform administrators may suspend or terminate your account at any time for violation of these terms, misuse of the platform, or at their discretion. Upon termination, your uploaded data and results will be deleted.

12. Contact

For questions about these terms, contact support@bioinformaticsinstitute.africa.

Computational Biology Division, Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa.