Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible for your data

[Legal entity name to be confirmed], [Registered address to be confirmed], is the data controller for personal data processed through AcaTorch. For anything in this policy, including exercising your rights, contact privacy@acatorch.com.

This policy covers people who hold an account. If you are a researcher whose published work appears in the service, see our separate information for researchers.

2. What we collect

Account and identity

Your email address and the identifier supplied by your sign-in provider, plus the dates your account was created and last used.

Profile details you choose to add

Your name, a contact email, your education level, your current or last university, and a short note of your research interests. That is all we ask for.

We deliberately do not collect CVs, personal statements, grades, dates of birth or phone numbers. Documents like a CV routinely carry far more than academic history — nationality, immigration status, sometimes health or disability information — and we have no need for it. The fields above are the whole of what we ask.

Workspace content

Applications and their status, deadlines and reminders, notes, watchlists of universities and researchers, saved programmes, saved researchers and lists, reading lists, and saved research analyses.

Technical and operational data

Session cookies needed to keep you signed in, and server logs recording requests, errors and timing. We use these to keep the service secure and working, and to diagnose faults.

We do not use advertising trackers, and we do not sell personal data or share it with data brokers.

3. Why we use it, and our lawful basis

We do not use your private workspace content to advertise to you, and we do not use it to train AI models.

4. Cookies and local storage

AcaTorch uses only what it needs to function: cookies that keep you signed in, and a browser storage entry remembering your light or dark theme preference. These are strictly necessary or set at your own request, so we do not show a consent banner.

We do not use analytics, advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. If that changes we will update this section and ask for your consent first where the law requires it.

5. Who we share it with

We use the service providers below. They act on our instructions, receive only what is needed for their function, and are bound by contract to protect it.

We also read from public research databases — PubMed (US National Library of Medicine), iCite (US National Institutes of Health). These are sources we read from; we do not send them your personal data.

We may disclose data if required by law, or where necessary to establish or defend legal claims or protect the safety of users.

6. International transfers

Some of our providers are based outside the UK and European Economic Area, including in the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside those areas, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as UK and EU standard contractual clauses, together with additional measures where needed. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply.

7. How long we keep it

8. Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time from your profile page. This permanently erases your profile, applications, deadlines, notes, watchlists, saved programmes, saved researchers and lists, reading lists, research profiles and saved analyses.

Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. We keep only what we are legally required to keep, such as billing records. Backups are overwritten on their normal cycle.

9. Your rights

You have the right to:

• access a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• have inaccurate data corrected
• have your data erased, including by deleting your account
• receive your data in a portable, machine-readable format
• restrict or object to processing based on our legitimate interests
• withdraw consent where we rely on it, without affecting past processing

To exercise any of these, email privacy@acatorch.com. We respond within one month. There is no charge unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you may complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first.

10. Security

We use encryption in transit, access controls, and database policies that scope every record to its owner so accounts stay separated. Keys for our AI and research providers are held server-side and are never exposed to your browser.

No online service can promise absolute security. If a breach affects your rights and freedoms we will notify the relevant authority, and you, as the law requires.

11. Children

AcaTorch is not intended for under-16s and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has created an account, contact privacy@acatorch.com and we will remove it.

12. Automated processing

Priority scores and research summaries are generated automatically to help you organise your own work. They do not produce legal or similarly significant effects and are not used to make decisions about you. Automated output can be inaccurate — treat it as a starting point, not a conclusion.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified by email or in-product notice before they take effect. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.