Privacy Policy

Thank you for choosing Academe. We are Academe, Inc.(“we”, “us”, or “our”) and we are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. This privacy policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. If any term here is unacceptable, please discontinue use of the Service.

This policy applies to all information collected through our websites (including academe-ai.com), the workspace, and any related services, sales, marketing, or events (collectively the “Sites”).

Personal information you disclose to us. We collect personal information you voluntarily provide when you register or use the Service. The specific personal information we collect depends on your interactions and the features you use, and can include:

• Contact data. Email address, and name if provided.
• Credentials. Passwords for authentication and account access.
• Profile data. Institution, title, research topic, and other self-reported profile fields.
• Social login data.If you sign in with a third-party provider (for example Google), the provider may share your name, email address, and profile picture. See “Social logins” below.
• Payment data. Billing details are processed by our payment processor (Stripe). We store subscription status but not full card numbers.
• Your Content. Documents, notes, and drafts you upload or create. Your Content is encrypted at rest and is not used to train AI models.

Information automatically collected. When you visit the Sites, we may automatically collect IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device identifiers, country, and information about how and when you use the Service. This information does not directly identify you and is used for security, operations, and analytics.

We process personal information to operate the Service, fulfill our contract with you, comply with legal obligations, and pursue our legitimate business interests. Specifically, we use information to:

• Create and maintain your account.
• Provide the Service: store and process Your Content, generate AI-assisted output, and deliver features you request.
• Communicate with you about the Service, feature updates, and support.
• Protect the Service: monitor for fraud, abuse, and security incidents.
• Improve the Service through internal analytics and usage trends.
• Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies.
• Respond to legal requests, subpoenas, and court orders.

We do not use Your Content to train AI models, and we do not sell your personal information.

We share information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Subprocessors. We use vetted service providers (for example cloud hosting, payment processing, email delivery, and model inference) to deliver the Service. These subprocessors are bound by data protection agreements.
• Compliance with laws. We may disclose information where required by applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.
• Vital interests and legal rights. We may disclose information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, threats to safety, or illegal activity.
• With your consent. We may disclose personal information for any other purpose with your consent.
• Business transfers. In connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may be transferred to the successor entity.

If you sign in using a third-party social provider, we receive profile information limited to your name, email address, profile picture, and other information you choose to make public. We use this information only for the purposes described in this policy. We do not control the provider's own use of your information; please review their privacy policy separately.

Our servers are located in the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed by us and our subprocessors in the United States and other countries. For users in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses and similar safeguards for international transfers. Our Data Processing Addendum describes these measures in detail.

The Sites may contain links to third-party websites, services, or applications that are not affiliated with us. Any data collected by third parties is not covered by this policy. You should review their privacy practices directly.

We keep your information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law (for example, tax or accounting records). When we no longer have a legitimate business need to process your personal information, we either delete or anonymize it. Backups that contain personal information are rotated and purged on a regular schedule.

On account deletion, Your Content is removed from production systems within thirty (30) days, and from backups within ninety (90) days, except where retention is required by law.

We implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect your personal information, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, audit logging, and least-privilege policies for internal access. However, no system is 100% secure; transmission of personal information is at your own risk.

We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 13 years of age. The Service is not intended for children under 13. Users aged 13-18 must have parental or guardian consent. If we learn that personal information from a user under 13 has been collected, we will take reasonable steps to delete it. Contact us at hello@academe-ai.com if you believe we may hold information about a child.

In some regions (for example the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and California), you may have rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right:

• To request access to and a copy of your personal information.
• To request rectification or erasure.
• To restrict or object to processing.
• To data portability.
• To withdraw consent at any time (where processing relies on consent).
• To complain to your local data protection authority if you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information.

To make a request, contact hello@academe-ai.com. We will respond in accordance with applicable law.

If you are a California resident, you have specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), including the right to request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, to request deletion, and to opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

Under California's “Shine the Light” law, California residents may request information about our disclosures of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not share personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

We use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and understand how the Service is used. Cookie categories include strictly necessary (session, auth, CSRF protection), analytics (PostHog, Vercel Analytics), and security (bot detection, abuse prevention).

Most browsers accept cookies by default. You can remove or reject cookies in your browser settings; some parts of the Service may not function correctly without them.

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal, operational, or regulatory reasons. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by posting a prominent notice in the Service.

For privacy-specific questions, contact our Privacy Team at hello@academe-ai.com. For all other support, contact hello@academe-ai.com.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the “data controller” of your personal information is Academe, Inc.. You may contact us directly at hello@academe-ai.com.