Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to AccuraCite. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by AccuraCite and how we use it.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us.

This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in AccuraCite. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.

2. Consent

By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

3. Information We Collect

The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information.

• Input Data: We collect the text, PDF files, and generation prompts you upload for the purpose of extracting, verifying, or generating citations.
• Usage Data: We may collect anonymous metrics about how the service is used (e.g., number of citations verified) to improve performance.
• Contact Information: If you use our Feedback form, we collect your name and email address to respond to your inquiries.
• Log Files: AccuraCite follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services' analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users' movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide and maintain the citation verification service.
• Process your uploaded documents to extract bibliographic references.
• Process your text prompts to generate relevant academic citations.
• Query external academic databases to validate your citations.
• Store verified citation metadata in our local database to improve future search performance.
• Improve, personalize, and expand our website.
• Understand and analyze how you use our website.
• Develop new products, services, features, and functionality.
• Find and prevent fraud.

5. Cookies

AccuraCite uses a single essential session cookie to keep you logged in while using the service. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not run third-party ad networks on this site.

6. Third-Party Services & Academic Databases

To verify and generate citations, we send search queries (containing titles, authors, DOIs, or text prompts derived from your input) to the following third-party API providers:

• OpenAlex
• Crossref
• Semantic Scholar
• PubMed (NCBI)
• DBLP
• arXiv
• OpenAI (for citation generation)
• Google Gemini (for citation generation)

We also use LemonSqueezy to process subscription payments; AccuraCite does not directly handle or store your payment card details. These providers process data according to their own privacy policies.

7. CCPA Privacy Rights (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

• Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.
• Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.
• Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

8. GDPR Data Protection Rights

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

• The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data.
• The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate.
• The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.

9. Children's Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity.

AccuraCite does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

10. Data Retention

We do not permanently store the full text of PDF files uploaded for verification. Files are processed in memory or temporary storage and are discarded after the verification job is complete. Verified citation metadata is retained in our local database.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via the Feedback form on our website.