Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 2026
1. Information We Collect
CitePilot is a sessionless tool — we do not require account creation, store user accounts, or maintain persistent user profiles. The only data processed is the manuscript content you submit during a session.
- Manuscript text or files uploaded during an audit session (processed in memory, never stored on disk or sent to our database)
- PayPal subscription data — handled entirely by PayPal's secure infrastructure
- Anonymous usage analytics (page views, session counts) via standard server logs
2. How We Use Your Data
Manuscript content submitted for audit is processed by our AI pipeline in real-time and is not retained after your session ends. We do not train machine learning models on your submitted content.
3. Third-Party Services
CitePilot integrates with the following third-party services:
- Google Gemini API — for AI-powered citation analysis (data usage governed by Google's AI Privacy Notice)
- Crossref, doi.org, OpenAlex & PubMed — for DOI verification and bibliographic metadata (reference data only, no manuscript text)
- PayPal — for subscription billing (governed by PayPal's Privacy Policy)
- Vercel / Railway — for hosting and edge delivery (governed by their respective privacy policies)
4. Cookies
CitePilot sets no authentication or session cookies and no tracking or advertising cookies. Interface preferences are kept in your browser's local storage, and at most one first-party consent-preference cookie is set. See our Cookie Policy for details.
5. Data Retention
Manuscript content exists only in the memory of our processing servers while an audit runs; it is purged when the audit completes, with a hard cap of 36 hours from upload. Only the citation metadata in your result report (bibliographic facts such as authors, titles, years, and DOIs) is persisted, keyed to an unguessable token on your device, so you can re-open your report. Payment records are kept for tax compliance.
6. Your Rights
Under GDPR and applicable data protection laws, you have the right to access, correct, or delete any personal data we hold. Since we hold no persistent user data, there is nothing to request deletion of. For PayPal subscription data, contact PayPal directly.
7. Contact
For privacy-related questions, contact us at privacy@citepilot.com.