SnapGene is a stand-alone desktop application and all SnapGene files are stored via your operating system (OS) file system. Data privacy is maintained via your system security settings.
Usage Statistics and Crash Reports
By default, SnapGene sends usage statistics (anonymous) and crash reports (with a user supplied name and email address, license information, and the computers external IP address) to assist with the continued development and improvement of the software. These communications are via HTTPS. No other confidential information is reported. Reports never contain annotation or sequence data.
It is possible to turn off crash reporting and sending of anonymous statistics from within SnapGene, see Choose if SnapGene Sends Anonymous Statistics and Crash Reports.
Licensing & Updates
SnapGene communicates with the SnapGene domain snapgene.com daily (via HTTPS) to check for software updates and confirm license validity. SnapGene verifies the system date and time by fetching the network date and time information from a time server provided by pool.ntp.org.
These checks do not transmit personal or confidential information, or transmit annotation or sequence data.
It is possible to turn off checking for updates from within SnapGene, see Choose if SnapGene Sends Anonymous Statistics and Crash Reports.
Online Sequence Databases
SnapGene is able communicate via HTTPS with a number of online sequence databases to enable you to search for and import useful sequence information (accessed via menu File → Import). Personal or confidential information is never transmitted to these databases.
NCBI Blast Search
The Blast commands (accessed via menu Tools → Blast) will copy the selected sequence information in a SnapGene file to an NCBI Blast form in your default web browser. The sequence data will not be transmitted to NCBI unless you choose to run Blast via the web form.
File Exchange with Lab Archives Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN)
If enabled, SnapGene can save directly to a Lab Archives ELN via secure protocols, see Electronic Laboratory Notebooks.
File Exchange with Dotmatics Bioregister (SnapGene 6.2.1 and later)
If enabled, SnapGene can exchange files and file information via secure protocols with Dotmatics Bioregister, see Authenticate with Dotmatics Bioregister and Register a SnapGene Sequence File in Bioregister.