Privacy Policy

IntelliResearch (“we”, “us”) is an AI research assistant for academics. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have. We collect only what we need to run the service.

Information we collect

• Account information — your email and name, provided when you register or sign in with Google. We never receive your Google password.
• Profile details — anything you choose to add (role, institution, research interests, bio, ORCID, links). These power grant and collaborator matching.
• Content you create — saved papers/datasets/grants, collections, notes, saved searches, and monitored topics.
• Uploaded PDFs — when you use Chat-with-PDF, the file is read in memory to extract text; the extracted text is held temporarily to answer your questions and is automatically discarded. We do not store the PDF file on disk.
• Technical data — standard request logs and, if enabled, error reports (via Sentry) to keep the service reliable.

How we use your information

• To provide, personalize, and improve the service.
• To generate AI summaries, answers, and recommendations you request.
• To keep your account secure and diagnose problems.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.

AI processing and third parties

To deliver core features we share the minimum necessary data with trusted providers:

• Google (Gemini AI) — your questions and the relevant text (e.g. paper abstracts or excerpts from a PDF you uploaded) are sent to Google’s Gemini API to generate answers and summaries.
• Google Sign-In — used to authenticate you if you choose Google login.
• Academic data sources — search queries are sent to public APIs such as arXiv, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, Crossref, PubMed, and others to fetch results.
• Hosting & monitoring — our infrastructure provider (Render) and, if enabled, error monitoring (Sentry).

Cookies and local storage

We use your browser’s local storage to keep you signed in (an authentication token) and to remember preferences such as theme. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Data retention

We keep your account data until you delete it. Uploaded-PDF text is transient and discarded automatically. Cached search results from third-party sources expire within minutes.

Your rights

You can access, export, or permanently delete your data at any time from your dashboard (“Account & data”). Deleting your account removes your profile, saved library, notes, and monitored topics. You may also contact us to exercise any rights under applicable laws (such as the GDPR).

Security

Passwords are stored hashed (bcrypt), traffic is encrypted in transit, and access to data is limited to running the service. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.

Children

IntelliResearch is intended for researchers and is not directed at children under 16.

Changes

We may update this policy; material changes will be reflected by the “last updated” date above.

Contact

Questions or requests? Email sajidj@iiitd.ac.in.