Privacy Policy

Information we collect

Account information

When you create an account or sign in, we receive account information from our authentication provider, WorkOS. This may include your name, email address, account identifier, profile image, email-verification status, sign-in timestamps, and organization membership.

Research and app content

Projects, sources, PDFs, notes, writing, citations, annotations, and version history are stored on your device. Online features also send the information described below to ResearchPie and the providers needed to deliver the feature.

Search sends your search terms, account identifier, and selected search mode to our service. We share search terms with the research providers used for your request. Source URLs, identifiers, and PDF references may be processed and stored when you ask us to retrieve source metadata or a PDF. Visiting or capturing an external website also connects to that website, which handles requests under its own privacy practices.

Collaborative projects

When you create or join a collaborative project, shared research content is uploaded and synchronized through our Cloudflare-hosted services. This can include project and source information, PDFs, notes, writing, citations, annotations, document revisions, review comments, and editing activity. We also process member account identifiers, names, email addresses, roles, invitation details, and connection or presence information to manage access and live edits.

Other authorized project members can access shared content according to their roles. Owners can manage members and invitations. Leaving a project or removing a member ends that member’s ongoing service access; it does not erase copies already downloaded or exported.

Hosted version history

Sharing version history uploads the selected document’s history, including its text and revisions, to our Cloudflare-hosted storage. We store the document title, owner identifier, access settings, permitted recipient email addresses, storage usage, and timestamps. You choose private access, access restricted to specified email addresses, or a public link. Anyone with a public link can view the hosted history without signing in and may save a copy.

Google Docs export and sync

If you connect Google Docs, ResearchPie sends the document text, formatting, citations, and bibliography needed for your export or sync to Google. Ongoing sync sends later changes while it is active. ResearchPie requests Google’s drive.file permission to work with files you create or authorize through the app. Access credentials are held in memory or the macOS Keychain; document identifiers and sync settings are stored locally. Google handles exported content and account information under its own terms and privacy policy.

You can pause sync or disconnect a document in ResearchPie. Removing the app’s Google connection stops its future authorized access; it does not delete documents already stored in Google Docs. You can also revoke ResearchPie’s access in your Google Account settings.

ResearchPie’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use Google data only to provide the export and sync you request, do not use it for advertising, do not sell it, and do not use it to train generalized artificial-intelligence or machine-learning models.

Invitations and transactional email

We process recipient email addresses when you invite collaborators, share hosted history, or, as a teacher, invite students to a class. Postmark delivers application-generated invitation emails. Depending on the invitation, it receives the recipient address, sender information, project, document, or class title, invitation link, and identifiers needed for delivery. We and our providers may process delivery status and related security records. Receiving an invitation does not enroll the recipient in marketing.

Profile photos and safety checks

If you choose a profile photo in the app, ResearchPie resizes it and removes image metadata before sending the resulting JPEG to our service and OpenAI for a safety check. An approved custom photo is stored locally on your device. The ResearchPie image-check service does not save the image to its database or file storage; it records your account identifier and hourly attempt counts to prevent abuse. OpenAI’s handling and retention are governed by the terms and data controls applicable to its API service.

Previously available AI citation autocomplete

AI citation autocomplete is unavailable in the current release. New automatic source indexing and citation-suggestion requests are disabled, including for older app versions that attempt those requests. Profile-photo safety checks described above remain available.

Earlier versions could send normalized source text, metadata, highlights, notes, completed writing claims, and limited surrounding context to our service. Source text and writing claims could be sent to OpenAI to create embeddings, and selected passages and writing context could be sent to verify a citation suggestion. Disabling the feature or withdrawing a release does not erase information already processed or retained. See retention below for information about previously indexed data.

Payment and subscription information

Stripe processes payments and subscription enrollment. We receive identifiers and status information needed to connect a subscription to your ResearchPie account and determine whether a trial or paid subscription is active. ResearchPie does not receive or store your full payment-card number.

Usage, diagnostics, and device information

The app asks before collecting telemetry, and telemetry stays off unless you turn it on. When it is on, the app sends product-usage events, application lifecycle information, and automatic error reports to PostHog. In your Personal profile, telemetry may be linked to your account identifier, email address, and name. The School profile follows your school’s setting, described under School accounts. You can stop new telemetry collection at any time in ResearchPie’s Privacy settings. Turning telemetry off does not delete information already sent.

Our website and online services also receive ordinary technical information needed to operate and secure them, such as IP address, browser or device type, request details, and timestamps. We use an account identifier and IP address to enforce search limits and prevent abuse. When the app checks for updates, it contacts our update service, which receives the app version and ordinary request information.

How we use information

• Provide accounts, authentication, subscription access, and downloads.
• Process searches and retrieve source information you request.
• Synchronize collaborative projects and manage member access.
• Host version history with the sharing settings you choose.
• Export and synchronize documents with Google when you connect it.
• Provide school accounts, classes, and assignments for the schools that use ResearchPie.
• Deliver invitations and check chosen profile photos for safety.
• Operate, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the Services.
• Measure feature use and diagnose errors when telemetry is enabled.
• Enforce usage limits and protect against fraud or abuse.
• Communicate about your account, subscription, or service changes.
• Comply with law and protect our users, rights, and Services.

How we share information

We share information only as needed for the purposes above, including with:

• WorkOS, which provides account authentication and session management.
• Cloudflare, which hosts and protects our website, authentication proxy, API, shared research content, hosted version history, and related infrastructure.
• PostHog, which processes app telemetry and error reports when telemetry is enabled.
• OpenAI, which checks chosen profile photos for safety and previously processed embeddings and citation checks for the withdrawn AI citation feature.
• Google, which receives documents and related requests when you connect Google Docs export or sync.
• Postmark, which delivers transactional invitation emails and processes information needed to deliver them.
• Your school, if you use a School profile, as described under School accounts.
• Collaborators and recipients, who receive content and member information through the sharing features you use. Public hosted-history links make the selected history accessible to anyone with the link.
• Stripe, which provides pricing, checkout, subscription, payment, and fraud-prevention services.
• Search and research providers, such as Brave Search, Crossref, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, Wikimedia, and Unpaywall, when needed to answer a search or retrieve source information. Search terms and source identifiers may be shared with the providers used for that request.

We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect rights or safety, or in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, or sale of assets. We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not use student information from School profiles to build advertising profiles or target advertising.

Cookies and local storage

The website uses essential cookies and similar storage for secure account authentication, session management, checkout, payments, and fraud prevention. A secure refresh-session cookie may last up to 30 days, and a WorkOS session indicator helps determine whether a session is available. These cookies are necessary for account features and cannot be disabled through our cookie settings.

We also use browser session storage for temporary authentication state and local storage to remember that you dismissed the cookie notice. ResearchPie does not currently use advertising cookies or optional website analytics cookies. If that changes, we will update this notice and request consent where required.

Retention and security

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, maintain security and records, comply with legal obligations, and resolve disputes. Retention depends on the type of information and the feature involved:

• Local research and app data. Content remains in the app’s local storage until it is removed. Deleting the macOS app bundle can leave its application data and Keychain entries behind. Device backups and exported copies may also retain data.
• Collaborative projects. Shared content, revisions, activity, invitations, and access records are retained to operate the project. Removing an item can retain a deletion record or revision history so changes can synchronize. An owner can delete the shared project; leaving it as a member does not delete it for everyone else. Separately hosted history and exported copies must be managed separately.
• Hosted history. Uploaded history is retained while the share exists. Deleting a share removes service access and initiates removal of its hosted content. Revoking a link or recipient’s access cannot remove copies they already saved.
• Previously indexed AI citation data. Source passages, metadata, and embeddings may remain until cleaned up when the related source or project is removed, or addressed through a deletion request. Writing-thought embeddings and suggestion results used a 30-day cache-validity window. That window limits reuse; it does not guarantee physical deletion on day 30, particularly while the feature is disabled. The release withdrawal did not delete historical data.
• Account and operational records. Authentication, billing, legal-policy acknowledgments, search and image-check usage, invitations, delivery records, and security logs may be retained for account operation, abuse prevention, legal obligations, and dispute resolution. Providers may retain records under their applicable terms and retention settings.

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards, but no system can guarantee absolute security.

Your choices and rights

You can delete your account from the app’s settings. Deleting your account removes your ResearchPie account and hosted data, subject to the school-record and legal exceptions described in this policy. Content stored only on your device stays there until you remove it.

You can disable future app telemetry in ResearchPie’s Privacy settings, control project membership and hosted-history access, remove a custom profile photo, and pause or disconnect Google Docs sync. Turning off a feature stops its future activity but does not automatically erase previously transmitted information. You may also ask to access, correct, or delete personal information associated with your account. Depending on where you live, you may have additional privacy rights, including the right to object to or restrict certain processing and the right to appeal a decision about a request.

To make a request, email [email protected]. We may need to verify your identity before completing it. Please identify the account and, where relevant, the shared project, hosted-history link, or previously indexed citation data involved. We will respond as required by applicable law. Some records may need to be retained for legal or security reasons; we will explain applicable limits. Requests to ResearchPie cannot erase copies held independently by other users or documents in your Google Account.

School accounts

When a high school or college provides your account, you can switch between a Personal profile and a School profile. Projects in one profile are not shown in the other, and a school seat does not carry over to your Personal profile. If your school uses domain access, we use the domain of your verified email address to connect your account to that school.

What your school and teachers can see

In your School profile, your school’s administrators can see your name, email address, class enrollments, and seat status, and aggregate usage for the school. They do not see the contents of your projects.

For an assignment project, the teachers of that class can see:

• The project’s stage and progress, such as source count, word count, and when it was last edited.
• The bibliographic details of its sources, such as title, authors, year, publisher, link, and DOI.
• Citation checks, such as missing citation details.
• The assignment’s writing history. This is a detailed record of how the document was written: the text at each point, each edit with its timing, and whether text was typed, pasted, dictated, autocorrected, undone, or imported. Teachers can replay it, and pasted text is marked. Copy actions are not included.

Teachers cannot see your notes, quotes, web annotations, PDF highlights or underlines, source groups, PDF files, search history, or any project in your Personal profile.

Your school decides whether product analytics are collected in the School profile. When it allows them, events use an identifier specific to that profile and carry no name or email address.

Our role for schools

For information in School profiles, classes, and assignment projects (“school records”), we act as a service provider to your school. In the United States, we act as a “school official” under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), under the school’s direct control for the use and maintenance of education records. We use school records only to provide and secure the Services for the school, as described in this policy and our agreement with the school. We do not sell school records, use them for targeted advertising, or build profiles of students except to provide the Services. Schools may request a data processing agreement by contacting [email protected].

Requests to access, correct, or delete school records may need to go through your school. If you contact us directly, we may refer you to your school or act on its instructions.

When a school registers or buys ResearchPie, we also collect information about its staff contacts, such as administrator and billing contact names and email addresses, purchase-order and invoice details, and seat counts, to manage the school’s account and billing.

Account deletion and school records

If you delete your account, we keep assignment projects that were already past their due date for your school, as part of its records, and delete the rest. We keep those records for the school and delete them when the school directs us to or as our agreement with the school provides. If your school manages your sign-in, account deletion is handled through your school.

Children’s privacy

The Services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Schools may only enroll users who are 13 or older. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can review and delete it where appropriate.

International processing

We and our service providers may process information in the United States and other countries. Those countries may have different data protection laws than your location.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as ResearchPie changes. We will post the updated version here and revise the effective date. If changes are material, we will provide additional notice when appropriate.

Contact us

Questions or privacy requests can be sent to [email protected].