Privacy Policy

1. Identity & Contact of Controller

Systematic Review Tools (the "Service")

For any privacy-related inquiries, data access requests, or to exercise your rights, please contact us on the contact page.

2. Information We Collect

We collect personal data to provide and improve our systematic review tools. The categories of data we process include:

• Account Information: Name and email address provided during sign-up or sign-in (Google, GitHub, or email/password).
• Usage Data: Information about how you use our tools, preferences, and interaction with the platform.
• Uploaded Content: Documents or research data you upload for analysis. Note: Files uploaded for analysis are processed temporarily and are not stored permanently on our servers.
• Communications: Any information you provide when contacting us for support or inquiries.

3. Purposes and Legal Bases for Processing

We process your data for the following purposes and under the corresponding legal bases:

• To provide the Service: Managing your account and delivering tool functionality (Legal basis: Performance of a contract).
• Service Improvements: Analyzing usage to refine features and user experience (Legal basis: Legitimate interest).
• Communications: Sending service updates, technical notices, or responding to support requests (Legal basis: Performance of a contract).
• Marketing & Assets: Sending newsletters or eBook downloads, if you have opted in (Legal basis: Consent).

4. Third-Party Services and Data Sharing

We use trusted third-party processors to help operate our Service:

• Firebase (Google): Authentication for accounts, and Cloud Firestore for search-block library data and daily AI usage quotas. Review drafts such as manuscript and PRISMA checklist text stay in your browser and are not uploaded by those autosave features.
• Google Cloud Run: Temporary processing of bibliography files you upload for deduplication. Those files are not stored by the API after the result is returned.
• OpenAI: Used by signed-in AI tools (for example Search Builder, Search Translator, and Research Gap Finder) to process the text you submit.
• Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity: Used to understand site usage and improve performance, subject to cookie consent where required.
• MailerLite: Used for managing email subscriptions and delivery of digital assets, if you opt in.
• Resend: Used to send transactional email such as welcome messages and form notifications.
• Google reCAPTCHA: Used to reduce abuse on public forms.

5. Data Retention Policy

We adhere to the principles of data minimization and storage limitation:

• Account Data: Retained as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, your personal data will be removed from our active systems.
• Uploaded Documents: Processed temporarily during your session and discarded immediately after processing. We do not retain your uploaded documents.
• Marketing Data: Retained until you withdraw your consent or unsubscribe.

6. Your Rights Under GDPR

If you are located in the EU/EEA, you have the following rights:

• Access & Rectification: The right to request a copy of your data and correct inaccuracies.
• Erasure: The right to be forgotten and have your data deleted.
• Restriction & Objection: The right to limit or object to certain types of processing.
• Withdraw Consent: The right to withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent.

7. Cookies and Analytics

We use Google Analytics to collect usage statistics via cookies. These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our site.

For users in the EU, we obtain consent for non-essential cookies. You can manage your cookie preferences or opt-out of tracking through your browser settings or our cookie consent banner.

8. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information. This includes encryption in transit (SSL/TLS) and at rest, and restricting access to data to authorized personnel only.