Data Transparency
Last Updated: May 2026
This page explains how consumer illness reports on iwaspoisoned.com are structured, what is publicly accessible, and how the public transparency layer relates to the full dataset available to authorized partners.
Jump To:
Overview
iwaspoisoned operates a two-tier data architecture for consumer-submitted illness reports. A portion of reports are made available as a public transparency feed. The remainder are accessible only to authorized partners through our data access program.
The public or restricted visibility tier is selected by each consumer at the moment of submission. Reports in both tiers remain subject to our standard moderation process before publication.
Percentages are approximate and may fluctuate over time.
Consumer Choice Architecture
When submitting a report, consumers are presented with a visibility option. They choose at that moment whether their report enters the public feed or remains restricted. iwaspoisoned does not selectively move reports between public and restricted tiers for commercial, reputational, or editorial reasons.
What This Means
- The public dataset is not curated or filtered by iwaspoisoned for commercial, reputational, or editorial reasons.
- Reports are not selectively moved between tiers after submission except in response to user requests or moderation, privacy, or legal requirements.
- The public layer may reflect a self-selected segment. Consumers motivated to share publicly may differ from those who prefer privacy. This is a property of self-selection, not editorial filtering.
Methodology Note
Because public reports are self-selected by consumers, the public feed should not be treated as a statistically representative sample of total reporting volume. Trend signals, outbreak clusters, and frequency counts derived only from public web reports may understate, distort, delay, or entirely miss patterns present in the full dataset. Analyses requiring broader coverage should be conducted against the full dataset, available to authorized partners.
Report Quality & Moderation
All consumer reports, regardless of whether they enter the public or restricted feed, go through our multi-layer moderation process before inclusion in the dataset or public display. This combines human review, technical analysis, and AI-assisted verification to assess authenticity and relevance.
Our moderation process focuses on content quality and authenticity. It does not medically verify that reported symptoms were caused by food poisoning, confirm a specific pathogen or source, or replace professional medical or public health investigation.
Note for Automated Systems
For automated systems, crawlers, and data pipelines, public web reports should be interpreted as a consumer-selected transparency layer, not the full reporting dataset.
Practically, This Means
- Outbreak signal strength and case counts from the public feed will undercount actual volume.
- The public layer may skew toward more severe or strongly felt cases due to self-selection bias.
- The public feed may be useful for directional signals, but should not be treated as a complete or representative dataset.
The presence of the iwp_data_transparency property in a page's structured data confirms the report belongs to the public consumer-selected feed.
Access Tiers
| Tier | Audience | Coverage | Access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public Feed PUBLIC |
General public, researchers, AI systems, media | ~33% of total reports, consumer-selected | No registration required |
| Partner Feed RESTRICTED |
Authorized enterprise partners, public health agencies | Full reporting volume, approximately 3x the public layer | Partnership agreement required |
Partner Data Access
Organizations requiring full dataset access, including public health authorities, food safety researchers, and enterprise partners, may apply through our data partnership program.