Privacy

Pages about researchers

A visitor can look up any researcher by name, pick the author records that belong to them on OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar or ORCID, and publish a page. The page holds the researcher’s name as those records give it, their publications, the papers citing them as OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, OpenCitations and Europe PMC report them, the figures worked out from those, and the newest affiliation OpenAlex lists. It holds nothing typed about the researcher by the person who made it: they can only choose which records and papers belong, and which of the record’s names to show.

We show this on the basis of legitimate interest: helping people find and cite research that is already public, with every number saying where it came from. The researcher’s interests come first where they object, and the next section says how.

If a page is about you

You can claim it. Press “Is this you? Claim this page” under the name, sign in, and confirm an email address. We check each claim by hand before the page becomes yours, and once it is yours only you can change it, and the person who made it can no longer curate it.

You can correct it without claiming it: use the report link on the page to tell us a paper or a citation is wrong. You can ask us to remove it: use the report link and choose “This is me and I want this page removed”, or write to [email protected]. We remove a page that is about you when you ask, and we may remove any page that breaks our terms.

What we store about you

When you sign in with Google or GitHub we receive and store your email address, the provider you used and its account identifier, and the name and picture the provider gives us. We never receive your password.

A page you made records that you made it, and the choices you made on it. A page that is yours holds what you put on it: the name shown, the line under it, the address you chose, the author records you linked, your publications and the papers citing them, anything you typed into your CV, and a CV file if you upload one. Almost all of this is bibliographic information that was already public before you arrived.

If you claim a page we keep the email address you confirmed, the note you wrote, and our decision. Before you share a page you are making, a cookie on your browser is what lets you, and only you, open the draft; a draft nobody shares is deleted after seven days.

We also keep a record of security relevant actions, such as signing in, renaming your page or deleting your account. Those records hold a one way hash of your network address rather than the address itself, and a shortened description of your browser.

If you subscribe, Stripe holds your payment details. We store only a customer reference and whether the subscription is active. We never see your card.

What other people can see

A published page is public. A claimed page can be made private in its settings, and then it returns nothing to anyone but its owner, including its social image and its entry in the site map. A public page shows the name, the line under it, the linked records, the publications and citations, a claimed page’s CV, and the figures beside them. It never shows anyone’s email address, payment details or anything from the security record, and it does not say who made it.

Who else receives data

To build a page we ask OpenAlex, Crossref, Semantic Scholar, OpenCitations and Europe PMC about authors and papers. We send them search terms and identifiers, together with a contact address for our service, and never anything about you as a person.

Google and GitHub see that you signed in. Stripe handles payment and holds your card details. Resend delivers the email we send you, so it sees your address. Cloudflare sits in front of the site and stores uploaded files and our backups. The site itself runs on one rented server. Each of these receives only what it needs to do its part.

How long we keep it

A page and everything on it stays until it is removed: by its owner, by us after a removal request, or by us under our terms. A draft nobody shares is deleted after seven days. The security record is kept for twelve months, payment events for ninety days, and our own usage counters for thirteen months. Copies of answers from the sources above are kept briefly so we do not ask them the same question twice.

What you can do

You can download everything we hold about you from your settings, as a data file and a bibliography. You can delete your account there too, which cancels any subscription, removes your account, the page you own and your files, and cannot be undone. Pages you made for other people and nobody claimed stay up, with nothing linking them to you any more. Bibliographic facts that belong to the literature rather than to you, such as the fact that one paper cites another, remain, because other pages rely on them.

Every email we send carries a one click unsubscribe. If you believe something on the site should not be there, use the report link on the page in question.

Cookies

Signing in sets a cookie that keeps you signed in, and a few short lived ones that make the sign in itself safe. Making a page while signed out sets one that lets you open your draft. That is all of them. There is no advertising, no analytics and no tracking of any kind on this site, so there is nothing to consent to and nothing to turn off.

Changes

We will say on this page when it changes, and the date above will move. If a change matters to you, we will tell you by email before it takes effect.