Privacy policy

Last updated 20 October 2026

1. Who we are

CIT.ED is a social platform for research, education and ideas, available as an iPhone, iPad and Android app and on the web at cit.education. It is operated by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME, REGISTRATION NUMBER AND REGISTERED ADDRESS] (“we”, “us”), which is responsible for your personal data. For anything about this policy or your data, write to privacy@cit.education.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

Information the service records as you use it

• Relationships and saves: who you follow (and when you follow or unfollow someone: the person sees only how many followers they lost each month, never who unfollowed), who you block, what you like, save or add to a collection, and which papers you follow.
• Evidence Card opens (“taps”): when a subscriber opens the evidence behind a post, we record that it happened, once per person per post per day. This decides how the creator pool is divided, so it has to be accurate.
• Story views: when you watch someone’s story, we record that you saw it, so the story shows as seen and its author can see who viewed it (as on other apps with stories). Nobody else can see this.
• Sharing stories: unless you turn it off (Settings, “Let people share my stories”), other members can add a story of yours to their own story. Theirs is a copy that shows your name and lasts 24 hours from when they shared it. If you delete your story, if a moderator removes it, if you block them or if you delete your account, their copy goes too. If you add music to a story, we record which track and where it starts.
• Notifications: when someone tags you, comments on or cites your post, replies to or mentions you in a comment, or follows you, we record it so we can tell you, and when you read it. Only you can see your notifications. Nothing is recorded between people who have blocked each other.
• Phone notifications: if you allow notifications on your phone, the app sends us a push token for that device. We keep it so we can send notifications to it, delete it when you sign out or switch notifications off in Settings, and never show it to anyone.
• Subscription status: when you subscribe to CIT.ED Plus, the app sends us the purchase record that Apple or Google signed, and we check it with them. We keep the store’s transaction identifier, the product, the current period, whether it renews, and whether it was a test purchase. See the refund policy.
• Creator earnings: if you earn a share of the pool, we record the amounts and the months they relate to. If you give us payout details, we store them so we can pay you.
• Recognition: monthly scores for the leaderboards and awards, worked out from what other people do with your work (citing it, discussing it, opening your Evidence Cards).
• AI usage: each time an AI feature runs, we log which feature, which model and prompt version, which sources the answer was grounded in, and the size of the request. This is how we keep our promise that no AI answer is ungrounded.
• Technical logs: our server records request paths and timings, and your IP address is visible to our hosting provider in the ordinary course of serving a request. We do not use this to build a profile of you.
• On your device: the app keeps your sign-in token in the device’s secure storage, and a cache of recent screens so the app opens quickly. The website sets one sign-in cookie when you sign in, which is needed for the site to work. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.

What we do not collect

We do not use any analytics or attribution SDK, advertising identifier, cookie-based tracker or social-media pixel. We do not collect your contacts or your location, and we do not read your calendar. The app asks for your camera or photo library only when you choose to add a photo or video. We never see your payment card details (see section 6).

3. Why, and on what legal basis

4. AI features and translation

CIT.ED uses AI for a few clearly labelled jobs:

• Reading tools: plain-language summaries of a paper, answers to your questions using only the paper in front of you (“Ask the paper”), and Claim Check, which flags overconfident wording in a claim you are drafting.
• Drafting and comparing: if you choose “Draft with AI” when posting, the Evidence Card fields are drafted from the sources you attached, and the card says it was drafted with AI and reviewed by you, next to any personal note you add. “Compare with AI” on a collection compares the papers in it. Both read only the papers’ text, never your other activity, and the AI never sets the evidence-strength label.
• Translation: CIT.ED can show posts, comments, listings and profiles in your language. A translation is always labelled, and the original is one tap away. You can turn automatic translation off in Settings → Language.

• When one of these runs, the text it needs is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to produce the answer or translation: the paper’s content, the claim you are drafting, or the text being translated. Your name, email and account identifier are not sent with it.
• Translations and summaries are stored so the same text isn’t sent twice. Translations of what you wrote are deleted when you delete your account.
• Your content is not used to train AI models. We do not train models, and Anthropic does not train its models on data sent through its commercial API.
• Every AI answer is logged with the sources it was grounded in, so it can always be traced back to what it was based on.
• AI output is an aid, not a verdict. It never sets the evidence-strength label on a post, it never counts towards an award, and Claim Check only suggests: the creator decides what to publish.

5. What other people can see

CIT.ED is a public platform. Assume that anything you publish can be seen, quoted and cited by others, including people who are not signed in.

• Public: your profile (name, handle, bio, photo, credentials, affiliation, ORCID if you add one, verified badge), your published posts, comments and listings, the sources you attach, your collections if you make them public, your profile counts (how often your work has been cited and discussed), your awards and leaderboard places, and the university you belong to once it approves you.
• Tags: if someone tags you in a post, your name is shown on that post and the post appears in the Tagged list on your profile. You can remove yourself from any post, and people who have blocked you, or whom you have blocked, cannot tag you.
• Stock videos and photos (Pexels): topic, paper and listing pictures, and any stock video or photo (B-roll) you choose for a post, come from Pexels. When you search for one, only the words you type are sent to Pexels, never who you are; the small previews you see while choosing load from Pexels’ servers, which see your device’s address as with any website. The one you pick is copied to our server and credited to its maker on your post.
• Linked talks and videos: a post that links a YouTube, Vimeo or TED video shows that host’s preview picture. The host’s own player, with its own privacy terms, loads only when you press play.
• Your events calendar: the events and webinars you publish in your Market can be subscribed to as a calendar feed, by anyone with the link.
• Seen only by the person who posted: your response to their listing (attending, interested or applying) and any message you send with it.
• Seen by the author of a story: that you viewed their story, and when. Stories themselves are shown to signed-in members for 24 hours.
• Seen only by you and our moderators: your verification application and its supporting document.
• Private to you: your email address, saved posts, private collections, who you have blocked, your subscription and earnings, and the reports you file. People you report are never told who reported them.
• Blocking: if you block someone, neither of you sees the other’s posts, listings, evidence or comments, and neither can follow the other. They are not told.

6. Who we share data with

We do not sell your data. We share it only with the providers we need to run the service:

If you choose to add an event to your own calendar (Apple, Google or Outlook), or subscribe to someone’s calendar feed, that calendar service receives the event details. That is between you and your calendar provider.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users, for example in response to a valid legal request. If CIT.ED is ever sold or merged, your data would pass to the new operator under this policy, and we would tell you first.

7. Where your data is held

Our API, website and uploaded files are hosted in Germany. Our database and sign-in are hosted in the Asia-Pacific (Tokyo) region. Our AI provider processes requests in the United States. This means your information is transferred between countries. Where those transfers involve personal data from the UK or the EEA, they rely on the providers’ standard contractual clauses.

8. How long we keep it, and deleting your account

• While your account exists: your profile and content stay until you remove them or delete your account.
• Deleting your account: in the app, go to Profile → Settings → Delete account. On the web, or if you can’t sign in, see delete your account. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.
• What is deleted: your sign-in, profile, posts, comments, Evidence Cards, citations you made, saves, follows, collections, listings and responses, connected podcasts, verification applications, university membership, awards, translations of your writing, and the files you uploaded.
• What we keep: records the law requires us to keep, such as subscription and payout records for tax and accounting. These are kept separately and without your name, profile or posts. We may also keep a record of moderation decisions (for example, that an account was suspended) so the same abuse can be recognised again.
• Other people’s posts: a post someone else wrote that cites yours remains theirs; the link to your deleted post is removed.
• Backups: deleted data can remain in encrypted backups for a short period before those backups roll over.
• Subscriptions: deleting your account does not cancel a CIT.ED Plus subscription. Cancel it in your App Store or Google Play settings.

9. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, including under the UK and EU GDPR, the Australian Privacy Act, South Africa’s POPIA and US state privacy laws, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our use of your personal data, to withdraw consent, and to receive a copy in a portable format. Wherever you live, you can always:

• Correct: edit your profile in the app at any time.
• Get a copy: email privacy@cit.education and we will send you what we hold.
• Delete: delete your account in the app (section 8).
• Control translation: turn automatic translation off, or change your language, in Settings → Language.
• Control what you see: block and report from the … menu on any post, comment, listing or profile.

We respond within 30 days. If you think we have got it wrong, you may complain to your local data protection authority: for example the ICO in the UK, the OAIC in Australia or the Information Regulator in South Africa.

10. Security

All traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored only as hashes. Access rules are enforced by the database itself, not only by our application code, so a bug in one screen cannot expose another person’s private data. Verification documents are kept outside the public file store and shown only to you and moderators. Administrative actions are recorded in an audit log. No service can promise perfect security, but if a breach affects you, we will tell you promptly and tell the authorities where the law requires it.

11. Children

CIT.ED is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has created an account, write to privacy@cit.education and we will remove it. Some countries set a higher age for agreeing to online services; where that applies, you need permission from a parent or guardian.

12. Changes and contact

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will say so in the app before the change takes effect. The date at the top always shows the current version.