AcademicGPT ("we", "the service") is a document-grounded assistant at academicgpt.net that answers questions about PDFs you upload. This policy explains what we collect, why, and who else processes it. Last updated 17 September 2026.
Documents you upload
When you upload a PDF, it is held in your browser for the session and sent to our processing function so that text can be extracted and an answer generated. We do not store your PDF file, and it is not retained after the request completes. Closing or reloading the page discards it.
The extracted text of the document is sent to the AI providers listed below in order to produce the answer, and the answer plus the quoted lines shown under "Where this comes from" are saved to your account history so you can reopen a past session. If you do not want a document's text saved in that form, delete the session from your history.
Account information
If you create an account we store, in Google Firestore: your email address, an authentication identifier, your usage counts and plan status, an optional self-selected role, and your saved sessions (answers, quotes and page numbers). If you purchase, we store the identifiers our payment processor gives us so we can link a payment to your account. We do not store card numbers.
Technical and usage data
Our servers log operational information about each request — timestamps, error information, and counts such as how many pages a document had and how many quotes were verified. These logs do not contain the text of your document or of the answer. We also use Google Analytics for aggregate product analytics (pages viewed, broad usage patterns). We do not use session-recording tools.
Processors we use
- Google Cloud and Firebase — hosting, authentication, database (Firestore), serverless functions, logging and analytics.
- OpenAI and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service — generation of answers from document text.
- Google Gemini — generation of answers from document text.
- Stripe — payment processing and subscription management. Stripe handles card details directly; we never receive them.
- Email delivery — transactional messages such as account and activation email.
These providers process data on our behalf under their own terms and security practices. We do not sell your data, and we do not use your documents to train our own models.
Retention
Uploaded PDFs are not retained. Saved sessions remain until you delete them or ask us to delete your account. Operational logs are retained for a limited period for reliability and abuse prevention. Payment records are retained as required for accounting.
Your choices
You can delete individual saved sessions from within the app, and you can request deletion of your account and its data, or a copy of the data we hold about you, by writing to support@academicgpt.net. You can use the service without an account for limited use, in which case nothing is saved to a profile.
Security and children
Access to account data is restricted to the authenticated owner of that account, enforced by database security rules, and traffic is served over HTTPS. No system is perfectly secure; do not upload documents you are not permitted to process with third-party services. The service is not intended for children under 13.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes materially we will update the date above and, where the change affects how your data is used, tell account holders by email. Questions: support@academicgpt.net.