Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 24, 2026

1. What we collect

When you create an account or submit a review, we collect:

• Email address (for verification only): used to send a magic-link sign-in email and immediately discarded. We do not store your email in readable form. We store a one-way HMAC (keyed hash) of your email solely to enforce the one-account-per-email rule and allow you to log in again.
• Name (for eligibility cross-check only): used during sign-up to verify your academic affiliation, then encrypted to the operator’s offline public key. The server cannot decrypt it; only the operator can, using a private key never stored on this server.
• Review content: ratings, text fields, and metadata you enter when submitting a review. Published reviews are publicly visible.
• Session cookies: a Django session cookie and a CSRF cookie, both essential for site security. No tracking cookies are used.

2. How we use your data

• To verify your academic eligibility for submitting reviews.
• To enforce one review per PI per account.
• To allow you to log in and edit your review.
• To display published reviews to site visitors.

We do not sell your data. We do not share your data with third parties except as described below.

3. Data retention

We retain the following data for as long as your account is active:

• Sealed identity blob: your name and email are sealed (encrypted) to the operator’s offline public key and stored as ciphertext for the lifetime of your account. The server cannot decrypt this blob; only the operator can, using a private key that never touches the server.
• HMAC index entry: a one-way keyed hash of your email is retained to enforce the one-account-per-email rule and to allow you to log in. It does not allow the operator to recover your email address.
• Review content: ratings and text you submit are retained as long as your account is active or until you request deletion.

On account deletion: your reviews are unpublished and deleted immediately. The HMAC index entry and sealed identity blob are purged within 30 days of your deletion request (30-day grace period allows reversal of accidental requests). After purging, no PII associated with your account remains on our servers.

4. Your rights (GDPR / CCPA)

Right to erasure (right to be forgotten): You may request deletion of your account and all associated data by emailing [email protected] with the subject line “Account deletion request.” We will process deletion requests within 30 days.

Because we do not store your email in readable form, we will verify your identity via a magic-link sent to the email address you provide. Upon verification:

1. Your account status is set to “deleted.”
2. All your reviews are immediately removed from the site.
3. Your HMAC index entry and sealed identity blob are purged within 30 days (the grace period allows you to cancel if the request was accidental).

Right to access / portability: Because we do not store your email in readable form, we cannot retrieve it to return to you. Your review content is publicly visible; you may copy it directly from the site. Contact [email protected] for any other access requests.

5. Analytics and tracking

We do not use any third-party analytics, advertising, or visitor-tracking service, and we do not profile visitors. Only aggregate, non-identifying traffic counts from our infrastructure provider (Cloudflare) are available to us.

6. How your review is moderated

Reviews are screened by a self-hosted AI model that runs on our own private hardware. Your review content is never sent to any outside or commercial AI service (such as OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic), and those companies have no access to it. Moderation happens entirely within infrastructure we control.

7. Third-party processors

• Cloudflare: our CDN and DDoS protection provider. Cloudflare processes edge traffic and provides us with aggregate, non-identifying traffic statistics.
• Transactional email provider: used to send magic-link sign-in emails. Your email address is transmitted to this provider only to deliver the link and is not retained.

All data resides on servers located in the United States.

8. No international transfers beyond processors above

We do not transfer your data to any other international parties.

9. Cookies

We set only two essential cookies: a Django session cookie (for login state) and a CSRF cookie (for form security). No consent banner is required as no tracking cookies are used, but we provide this notice for transparency (GDPR Art. 12).

10. Contact

Privacy questions: [email protected]