Privacy policy
CiteOwl keeps the papers you write and sends the parts a task needs to an AI model provider and to search services, so the agent can research, write and cite. Your writing is never sold, never used for advertising and never used to train an AI model. Below is what that means in practice: what we keep, who else handles it, how long it stays, and how to take it with you or delete it.
Who runs CiteOwl
CiteOwl is run by Alexander Matuška, based in Slovakia, who is the controller of the personal data described here under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "We" on this page means CiteOwl. Write to hello@citeowl.com about anything on this page; it reaches the person responsible.
What we keep
- Your account. Your email address. If you sign in with Google, also your name, your Google account ID and a link to your profile picture. If you sign in with a password, only a hash of it, from which the password cannot be read back. The settings you choose, such as your education level, region and citation style.
- Your work. Your documents, the sources and files you add, citations, figures, checkpoints and history, and your chats with the agent. Also the agent's memory: the preferences on your Writing tab and each paper's direction.
- Records of the agent's work. Every agent run keeps a record of your instruction, each step the agent took, the text it read and what it wrote. Every import keeps the file you uploaded and a record of how it was read. Section 4 says who opens these and why.
- Plan and usage. Your plan, your billing period and how much usage and storage you have used. Stripe holds your card details, billing address and any tax ID. We never see your full card number.
- Signed-in devices. For each sign-in, your IP address, the browser and operating system your browser reports, and when the session was last used. The Profile tab lists your devices from this so you can sign them out. The IP address is kept for security and is not shown to anyone.
- Email and logs. Which account emails we sent you and whether they went out, the emails you send us, and server logs of requests and errors, which record the IP address of a failed sign-in.
- Analytics, only as section 7 describes.
The free tools at citeowl.com/tools need no account. What you paste into them is used to give you the answer and is not stored. Your IP address is held in memory for an hour at most, to limit how often each tool can be called.
Why we keep it
The GDPR asks for a legal basis for each use of personal data. These are ours.
| What we do with it | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Run the service: store your work, let the agent research, write and cite, import and export your files | Contract: it is the service you signed up for |
| Take payments and keep billing records | Contract, and the legal duty to keep tax records |
| Send account emails: verification, password resets, receipts and billing notices | Contract |
| Keep accounts secure: sign-in checks, rate limits, stopping abuse | Legitimate interest in a service that stays safe and available |
| Fix failures and improve the agent and the importer, using the records in section 4 | Legitimate interest in a product that works; you can object (section 9) |
| Measure how the site is used, with Google Analytics and PostHog | Your consent, where the law asks for it |
| Send product news, only if you switch it on in Settings | Your consent |
| Answer your emails | Legitimate interest, or contract when it concerns your account |
We never sell your data or your writing, never use it for advertising, and never train an AI model on it or let anyone else do so.
Who can see your work
Your documents are private to your account. Nothing you write is published, shared with other users or used as an example.
The people who run CiteOwl can open the records described in section 2: an agent run's instruction, steps and output, and an import's file and the record of how it was read. We open them to fix a failure, to work out why the agent or the importer got something wrong and make it better, and to investigate abuse. We read them for no other reason, and they go to no one outside the services in section 5.
We will also disclose data when the law requires it, for example to answer a valid court order.
Services that handle your data
Your data reaches these services, each for the job named here and no other. Ask us and we will tell you which company fills each role.
| Service | What it receives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| AI model provider | The parts of your document, sources, chat and images a step needs | Runs the AI model that reads, writes and captions |
| Search services | The search queries the agent writes, paper titles and DOIs | Finding and checking web pages and scholarly papers |
| Stripe | Your email, billing details and payments | Payments and tax |
| Email delivery | Your email address and the email we send | Delivering account emails |
| Your sign-in, if you use Google; site usage, if you accept analytics | Sign-in and Google Analytics | |
| PostHog (EU) | How you use the interface, if you accept analytics | Product analytics |
| Hosting | Everything stored in your account and handled while the app runs | Runs the app and its database |
| Cloudflare | Every request to citeowl.com, with your IP address | Delivers the site and blocks attacks |
Our AI model provider does not train its models on what we send through its business API, and keeps it only for a short period to check for abuse. The search services get the queries the agent writes and the titles or DOIs it looks up, never your name or email address.
Data outside the EU
Your account and documents are stored in the EU, in a database in Frankfurt, Germany. Several of the services above are US companies, among them our AI, search, email and hosting providers, Stripe, Google and Cloudflare, so some of your data is processed in the United States. Those transfers rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the company is certified under it, and otherwise on the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission, which these companies build into their data processing terms.
Cookies and analytics
Two things stored in your browser are needed for CiteOwl to work: the cookie that keeps you signed in and a note of your cookie choice. Analytics is optional.
| Name | Set by | What it does | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sign-in cookie | CiteOwl | Keeps you signed in | 30 days |
| Cookie choice | CiteOwl, in browser storage | Remembers whether you accepted analytics | Until you clear it |
| Last document | CiteOwl, in browser storage | Reopens the document you last worked on | Until you clear it |
| _ga, _ga_* | Google Analytics | Counts visits and pages viewed | Up to 2 years |
| ph_*_posthog | PostHog | Ties the pages of one visit together | 1 year |
In Europe, neither analytics tool loads until you press Accept on the cookie banner. Elsewhere, analytics loads by default and you can turn it off. Wherever you are, you can change your choice at any time, from Cookies in the footer.
PostHog can replay a visit as a recording of the interface. Replays hide everything you type and all text on the screen, so they show where you clicked, not what you wrote.
We use no advertising cookies. Stripe's checkout and Google's sign-in page set their own cookies on their own sites, under their own policies.
How long we keep it
- Your account and your work stay for as long as your account exists.
- Deleting a document deletes it at once, with its chats and the records of the agent runs made in it. Clearing your chat history deletes every conversation and its run records.
- Import records, including the file you uploaded, stay until you delete your account, so we can check how a file was read. Ask us and we will delete them sooner.
- Deleting your account, from Settings, Data tab, deletes everything at once: your account, documents, sources, chats, run and import records, usage records, device records and the log of emails sent to you. It also deletes your customer record at Stripe. Stripe keeps its records of past payments for as long as tax and financial law require.
- Our database keeps a short restore history for recovering from failures, so a deleted record is gone from it within a day.
- Our hosting provider keeps server logs for a limited period, then deletes them.
Your rights
The GDPR gives you these rights over your personal data.
- Access. See what we hold about you and get a copy of it.
- Correction. Have anything wrong put right.
- Deletion. Have it deleted.
- Portability. Take it with you: Download everything, on the Data tab in Settings, gives you a JSON archive of your documents, sources, chats and settings, on every plan.
- Restriction and objection. Limit how we use it, or object to a use based on legitimate interest, such as the records in section 4.
- Withdrawing consent. Take back a consent at any time, through the cookie settings or the product news switch. What happened before stays lawful.
Most of this you can do yourself in Settings. For the rest, email hello@citeowl.com and we will answer within one month. If you think we have handled your data wrongly, you can complain to a data protection authority: in Slovakia, the Office for Personal Data Protection of the Slovak Republic, or the authority where you live or work.
Security
Every connection to CiteOwl is encrypted. Passwords are stored only as hashes, and the sign-in cookie travels only over HTTPS, out of reach of scripts on the page. The Profile tab shows every device signed in to your account and lets you sign the others out, and deleting your account asks for your password or your email address again. Access to the production systems is limited to the people who run CiteOwl.
No service is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your data at risk, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
Children
CiteOwl is not meant for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you think a child under 16 has given us personal data, email us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change affects how your data is used in a way that matters, we will tell you by email or in the app before it takes effect. Questions about any of it go to hello@citeowl.com.