Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

• Account information — your email address, a securely hashed password (if you register with email/password), your name, and, if you sign in with Google, the basic profile information Google provides.
• Content you save — citations, reference lists, and projects you create and choose to save in your account.
• Billing information — if you subscribe to a paid plan, Stripe (our payment processor) handles your payment details directly. We store only your Stripe customer/subscription identifiers and your current plan, never your full card number.
• Usage metadata — for AI-assisted features, we record usage counts (e.g. credits used) to enforce plan limits. We do not store the raw text of your documents for this purpose.

2. How we use your information

We use your information to provide and improve the Service: authenticating you, saving your citations/projects, processing subscription payments, enforcing plan limits, and responding to support requests. We do not sell your personal information.

3. Cookies and local storage

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in, and your browser's local storage to remember your light/dark theme preference. We do not use advertising trackers, and we do not sell or share your information for advertising.

When product analytics is enabled (see section 4), your browser stores one randomly generated identifier for the current tab. It is created by your browser, is not derived from your device, and is discarded when you close the tab. We do not use browser or device fingerprinting, and we do not track you across other websites.

4. Product analytics

We use a product analytics service (PostHog) to understand which StudyRef features are used and where people get stuck, so we can improve the Service. Analytics is only active when we have enabled and configured it; when it is not configured, no analytics data leaves StudyRef.

What we record is a fixed list of product events — for example that an assignment check completed — together with counts and categories such as how many citations had no matching reference. Every event StudyRef can send is defined in advance in our code, and properties that are not part of that definition are discarded before anything is sent.

The following are not sent to our analytics service:

• the text of your assignment, or any part of your document
• the wording of your assignment brief or its requirements
• your citations, references, or the titles of the sources you cite
• the names of files you upload
• your name, your email address, or your institution email address
• payment identifiers from Stripe

For signed-in users we attach a pseudonymous reference: a one-way hash of your account id, used so that we can tell that the same account performed a sequence of actions. It is not your account id and cannot be read back into one, but it is a persistent reference to you rather than anonymous data. Signed-out visitors have no such reference.

Analytics events are sent from our servers, not from your browser, so your browser makes no request to the analytics provider. We do not use session recording, screen recording, heatmaps, keystroke capture, or automatic capture of page content. We instruct the provider not to record your IP address or derive your location from it.

If you would prefer your usage not to be included, email us at support@mystudyref.com and we will exclude your account.

5. Third parties

We share the minimum data necessary with the services that power StudyRef: Stripe (payments), Google (if you use Google sign-in), PostHog (product analytics, as described in section 4), and our database/hosting providers. These providers process data on our behalf and under their own privacy commitments.

6. Data retention and deletion

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. To request deletion of your account and associated data, contact us at support@mystudyref.com.

7. Your choices

You can review and update your account details from your dashboard, and you can cancel a paid subscription at any time (see our Refund Policy).

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by an updated "Last updated" date above.

9. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at support@mystudyref.com or via the contact page.