Terms of Service
Effective Date: January 31st, 2019
Through scientific integrity and industry expertise, Confidence Analytics is dedicated to providing the cannabis industry with cutting-edge analytical services to benefit production and distribution of products with true quality assurance and traceable documentation.
We are committed to transparency of method, honesty in outcome, innovation of systems, diligence to protocol, clear communication of information, and excellent customer service. In return, we hope for support and commitment to partnership from our clients and our community.
Your Privacy
We take the private nature of your personal and business information very seriously and we are committed to protecting it. To do that, we have set up procedures to ensure that your information is handled responsibly and in accordance with applicable data protection laws. We are grateful for your trust and we will act that way.
See our privacy policy for more information: https://www.conflabs.com/privacy-policy/.
Data About You and Your Company
If you register an account, you may need to give us your email and other personal info.
Most of our clients interact with our service in ways that require them to provide us with personally identifying information. The amount and type of information that is provided depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who sign up as clients with Confidence Analytics to provide a username and email address. Clients who engage in financial transactions with Confidence Analytics are asked to provide additional information, such as the personal and financial information required to process their transactions with us. To accept samples at the laboratory, we need to know the address of your business, because that information can be required for both the manifest and the Certificate of Analysis. We only collect as much information as is necessary or appropriate given the type of interactions that we have with you. We do not disclose personally identifying information, except when authorized to do so by you, when necessary in carrying out our service to you, or when required to by law.
Data About Your Samples
We only give your test results to you, or to others you authorize us to give it to.
When you submit samples to Confidence Analytics, you do so with the implied intention of obtaining analytical laboratory test results about those samples. Test results are quantitative and/or qualitative information about your samples as determined by the laboratory. We make those test results available to you on our online portal results.conflabs.com. Only you and anyone else from your business who has registered with Confidence Analytics under your account can access your test results via our online portal. It is your responsibility to manage who has access to your account. Account management is accessible via the online portal for users with administrative permissions. If you’re not sure who is authorized on your account, you can always call to ask.
You may also authorize us to share your data with other third parties. Depending on the nature of the sharing, we may ask that you sign a Data Share Agreement memorializing your intent to have us share your data.
For samples submitted to us on a manifest regulated by the state cannabis authority, local law or regulation may require us to report certain test outcomes to the state cannabis authority, sometimes within a specified time period after obtaining the test results. By sending us samples manifested in this way, you are requesting that we upload the required information to the state’s “seed-to-sale,” “track and trace,” or “traceability” system. We do not give the state access to our website’s secure login portal. Your data are kept confidential except where required by state authority to be disclosed or in cases where you choose to share the data or make the data public.
In summary, we keep your data confidential except where legally required to be disclosed or when already available in the public domain or in cases where you choose to share the data or where a third party has made the data shareable for you.
Data We Collect For Your Purposes
It’s the whole reason you hired us.
You send us samples with the intention for us to collect laboratory results about those samples using our test methods. What types of data we collect depends on what you request. It is your responsibility to make sure that you are requesting the correct test methods for your needs. If there are regulatory implications as to which test methods a particular sample needs, it is your responsibility to know those implications and to request test methods appropriately. Of course we will assist you if asked, and provide forms to make the request communication clear. However, it is ultimately your responsibility. We just do what you ask.
Accessing Your Data
It’s your data if you paid us to collect it for you.
We provide you with access to your data via our online portal https://results.conflabs.com. Through this portal, you can see the high-level information we have about you, your company, and your samples, including the results of our laboratory tests. You can also sign up to receive your test results via email. Our primary means of communicating data about your samples is through our Certificates of Analysis which are .PDF documents describing the outcomes of the tests.
We reserve the right to withhold data about your samples if you haven’t paid for it. Unless otherwise agreed upon, our service is “cash on delivery,” meaning we won’t return your results to you until we are paid. We offer flexible Net 30 Terms for qualified clients. Call to inquire.
Data We Collect for Our Purposes
We generate lots of data beyond just the results we return to you. Most of the additional data we collect is not interesting to you, but if you want it we will give it to you with some restrictions.
During analysis, our laboratory scientists are using our advanced instrumentation to generate the results that we deliver to you. Along the way, our scientists collect additional data about our processes. This additional data is used by us internally in support of our ongoing laboratory quality assurance program. The additional data may include chromatograms, method parameters, mass spectra, information about blanks, controls, and continuing calibration verifications, as well as raw data generated by our scientists and their instrumentation. We do not deliver all of this additional data to you on a routine basis because the cost and complexity of doing so would be prohibitive. If you would like to request any or all of this additional information, you may do so by contacting our office. There may be fees associated with compiling and delivering additional information to you.
Data Expiration Dates and Measurement Uncertainty
Nothing lasts forever. Uncertainty is the only certainty there is.
The Certificates of Analysis we deliver to you are valid for one year after issuance. After that time they will still be available for download at our online portal, but we will not make changes to the Certificates of Analysis even upon request. Additionally, Certificates of Analysis and data we collected for our purposes may be archived after a year and accessing it after that time may be more costly. Eventually, even our archived data may be deleted on a schedule we determine.
Regarding our measurement of uncertainty, we are following the simple acceptance decision rule.
How You Use the Data
Use the data for good. Don’t be misleading about it.
Data that you purchased from us belongs to you. How you use your data is up to you. We require that you not misrepresent the data we provide, or alter it in such a way that renders it misleading or incorrect. Certificates of Analysis are copyright documents we provide with every test result and they should not be altered in design or content or recreated without our expressed permission.
We urge our clients to be diligent about ensuring that only the correct information provided by our laboratory ends up on product labels. Cannabis laboratory data on a product package may be subject to specific labeling laws, and it is up to the distributor of the packaged good to ensure that the label is accurate and defensible.
Using Our Marks
Please use our marks on your packaging, but only in cases where the mark makes a true label claim.
Some of our marks can constitute label claims when appearing on a product label. We encourage cannabis brands to utilize our marks for the goodwill and consumer confidence it may provide, but we require that our marks only be used when making a true label claim.
The Strain Data Project™
Our laboratory, and our affiliate Iron Stem LLC, are the only authorized sources of truth for Strain Data Project product classifications.
The Strain Data Project is an innovative for classifying cannabis products based on their measured chemical composition, as determined by objective, third-party analysis by an authorized laboratory. Confidence Analytics is authorized by Iron Stem to perform qualifying analyses, issue SDP Category Assignments, and administer authorized SDP materials.
SDP Category Assignments may be made only by Iron Stem, by Confidence Analytics acting under Iron Stem’s authority, or through an authenticated Iron Stem API. The SDP names and marks, category badges and icons, Strain Compass™ radar charts, software, classification methodology, and related materials are protected, as applicable, by trademark, copyright, trade-secret, contract, and other laws.
Customer use of SDP Materials must comply with these Terms and the current Iron Stem Brand Style Guide identified at Brand Style Guide v1.0.
Definitions
A few terms to make sure we’re speaking the same language.
“Category Assignment” means an assignment of a cannabis product to one of the Strain Data Project categories.
“Customer” means the person or legal entity that maintains an account with Confidence Analytics, submits or authorizes the submission of samples or data, orders laboratory services, or accepts these Terms of Service. The individual accepting these Terms represents that the individual has authority to bind the Customer.
"SDP" means the Strain Data Project™.
“SDP Materials” means the API, SDP Metadata, Category Assignments, category names as used within the SDP system, proprietary methodology and algorithms, API documentation, category badges and icons, Strain Compass™ radar charts, graphics, trademarks, and other materials supplied by Iron Stem.
“SDP Verification ID” means a public reference identifier issued or approved by Iron Stem for an SDP Category Assignment and capable of validation through an Iron Stem-approved verification method. An SDP Verification ID is not an API credential, access token, or independent certification of regulatory traceability.
Exclusive Assignment Authority.
If it didn’t come from us, it isn’t a Strain Data category.
An SDP Category Assignment is valid only when it is made by Iron Stem, through its authorized laboratory (Confidence Analytics), or generated by the authenticated API. No Customer, contractor, affiliate, retailer, producer, processor, product vendor, third-party laboratory, software provider, or other person is authorized to independently assign, approve, certify, verify, or otherwise infer or confer an SDP category. Customer must not state or imply that any person other than Iron Stem has authority to make an SDP Category Assignment.
The possession, display, reproduction, or availability of an SDP category name, color, badge, icon, radar chart, prior assignment, or other SDP Material does not establish that a product has a valid SDP Category Assignment. A valid assignment must be supported by an Iron Stem-issued SDP Verification ID or other verification credential that is associated with the applicable API response and capable of validation through an Iron Stem-approved verification method.
No Independent or Manual Classification
You can reproduce a category, but you can’t choose one.
Customer must not independently assign, select, infer, calculate, estimate, override, or change an SDP category for any product. Customer must not create or use a formula, administrative control, spreadsheet, default value, product template, or other mechanism that independently determines which SDP category applies.
This restriction does not prohibit Customer from faithfully reproducing or manually transcribing an unaltered Category Assignment from a current Confidence Analytics Certificate of Analysis, an authenticated Iron Stem API response, or another Iron Stem-approved verification record. Any such reproduction must remain associated with the same product and production lot or batch identified in the source record and, where issued, the same SDP Verification ID.
If no authorized Iron Stem or Confidence Analytics source contains a Category Assignment for the applicable production lot or batch, Customer must display no SDP category. Customer must not substitute a default category, a likely category, a prior assignment, or a category selected by Customer or another person.
No Proxy Classification or Best-Guess Assignment.
Similar names and educated guesses are no substitute for actual chemistry.
Customer must not assign, infer, estimate, approximate, predict, recreate, or represent an SDP category based on any proxy or substitute for an assignment generated by Iron Stem. Prohibited proxies include:
- a strain, cultivar, brand, product, or SKU name;
- a vendor, retailer, budtender, producer, processor, laboratory, or software-provider representation;
- a Category Assignment previously made for another product, production lot, batch, harvest, test result, or inventory record;
- historical test results, average chemical profiles, representative profiles, expected formulations, or results from a purportedly similar product;
- chemical similarity, nearest-category analysis, comparison with published category descriptions, or an independently created classification formula;
- an SDP badge, icon, radar chart, screenshot, label, shelf card, printed material, or copied metadata that is not accompanied by a valid SDP Verification ID or verification credential; or
- any other inference, approximation, or “best guess,” regardless of its apparent scientific or commercial reasonableness.
Publicly available descriptions of SDP categories, category characteristics, or example chemical profiles are provided for informational purposes only. They do not disclose the complete classification methodology and do not authorize any person to recreate or approximate an SDP Category Assignment.
No Persistence Across Production Lots or Batches.
A category follows the tested batch, not the strain name.
Each Category Assignment applies only to the specific tested production lot or batch represented in the data submitted to the API. An assignment does not persist or carry forward to another production lot or batch, even when the later product has the same strain name, cultivar, brand, SKU, formulation, producer, processor, packaging, or other characteristics.
Customer must not copy or retain a Category Assignment when duplicating product records, reusing SKUs, replacing inventory, updating menus, creating new batches, cloning catalog entries, processing substitutions or returns, or migrating data unless the resulting record continues to represent the same production lot or batch and remains associated with the same valid SDP Verification ID code or verification credential.
A Category Assignment for one lot or batch does not constitute evidence that an earlier, later, replacement, or substantially similar lot or batch belongs to the same SDP category. Each new production lot or batch must be submitted through the authorized classification process.
Source Data and Regulatory Linkage
We classify the data presented to us; regulated businesses maintain the chain of custody.
Iron Stem and Confidence Analytics generate Category Assignments from the sample, product information, laboratory results, and other records presented to them or made available through the API. They may evaluate the completeness, format, internal consistency, and suitability of those data for classification.
Customer represents that each sample and all associated identifiers, manifests, production-lot or batch information, product information, and laboratory-result references supplied or authorized by Customer are accurate and properly associated. Customer must not submit, identify, distribute, or use a laboratory result or Category Assignment for a product, production lot, or batch to which it does not apply.
Neither an SDP classification nor an SDP Verification ID constitutes an independent determination that Customer, another regulated licensee, or a governmental traceability system correctly associated the product, production lot or batch, laboratory sample, and laboratory result before the data were presented for classification. Responsibility for establishing and maintaining legally required product-to-sample and sample-to-result linkages remains with the regulated licensees and other persons assigned that responsibility under applicable law.
An SDP Category Assignment confirms only that Iron Stem’s classification process was applied to the data presented for the identified product and production lot or batch. It does not independently certify pre-submission chain of custody, regulatory traceability, sampling representativeness, or the accuracy of an underlying association supplied by Customer or another third party.
Downstream Distribution
Share the assignment, but keep it attached to the right product.
Customer may provide an authorized Category Assignment and associated SDP Materials to retailers, distributors, menu providers, packaging vendors, and other service providers solely for use with the applicable product and production lot or batch. Customer must provide the corresponding SDP Verification ID, Strain Compass™ radar chart, or other information reasonably necessary to verify the assignment.
Customer must not authorize, encourage, or knowingly permit a downstream recipient to alter, recycle, independently assign, or misapply an SDP category or SDP Material. Upon learning of downstream misuse arising from materials supplied by Customer, Customer must promptly notify the recipient and Iron Stem and reasonably assist in obtaining correction or removal.
The Confidence Analytics® Seal
The Confidence Analytics Seal is an indication that the product was tested by Confidence Analytics. The Confidence Analytics Seal can only be placed on the package label of products tested by Confidence Analytics.
Updated: September 24th, 2026; added Strain Data Project™ source of truth requirements.
Updated: January 5th, 2026; clarified that all traceability manifested samples are subject to traceability reporting per LCB policy decree.
Document Updated: October 14th, 2022; added definition of Measurement Uncertainty; clarified public domain.