Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Information You Provide

When you create an account and complete your profile, we collect information such as your name, email address, institution, career stage, medical specialties of interest, graduation year, and any other details you choose to share. We also collect information you provide when you save opportunities, use our AI matching tools, or submit feedback.

Information We Collect Automatically

When you use AspireMed, we automatically collect:

• Usage data: Pages visited, features used, search queries, opportunities viewed and saved, and interaction patterns
• Research activity: If you use Research Lab, we store the searches you run, the papers you save, the collections you create, and any topics you ask us to monitor for new publications. We treat this as sensitive. What a person reads can reveal more about them than what they apply to, including a specialty interest they have not shared or a personal medical situation, so we hold it to the same standard as the rest of your profile and we do not sell it, share it, or use it for advertising.
• Device and browser data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device type, and screen resolution
• Analytics data: We use PostHog, a privacy-focused analytics platform, to understand how users interact with AspireMed. PostHog collects usage events, page views, and performance metrics. We only activate analytics tracking after you consent via our cookie banner. You can withdraw consent at any time through the cookie settings accessible from any page.
• Error tracking: We use Sentry to detect and fix technical issues. Sentry may collect error reports, performance traces, and limited session replay data to help us diagnose bugs. This data is used solely for platform stability and is not used for marketing or profiling.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide personalized opportunity recommendations through our Altus AI matching engine
• Power AI-assisted search and discovery of medical opportunities
• Send you email notifications about new opportunities, approaching deadlines, and weekly opportunity digests (you can manage these in your email preferences)
• Analyze usage trends to improve our product and develop new features
• Monitor platform performance, detect errors, and maintain security
• Communicate with you about your account and platform updates

3. AI Processing and Third-Party Services

AspireMed uses artificial intelligence to power opportunity matching, search, and our Altus chatbot. When you use these features, relevant profile information (such as your career stage, specialties, and preferences) is sent to our AI providers for processing:

• Anthropic (Claude): Used for opportunity matching, AI-assisted search, and the Altus chatbot
• OpenAI: Used as a fallback AI provider

These providers process your data solely to generate responses for you and do not use your data to train their models. We select providers with strong data handling practices and contractual protections.

We also use the following third-party services:

Literature services. Research Lab is built on free public research databases. When you run a search, we send your search terms to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), part of the US National Institutes of Health, which operates PubMed. We send your terms exactly as you typed them, because that is what makes PubMed’s own medical indexing work correctly and return the same results you would get on PubMed directly. When you open a paper, we may send that paper’s identifier to Crossref and to Unpaywall to confirm the record and to find a free legal copy.

None of these services receive your name, your account, your email address, or anything else that identifies you. They receive a search phrase or a paper identifier, and nothing more. Requests carry AspireMed’s own contact details rather than yours, because those services require the operator to identify itself.

These are public research infrastructure operated by others, and their own terms and privacy practices apply to what they do with the requests they receive.

4. Data Sharing and Disclosure

AspireMed does not sell your personal information to third parties.

We may share your information in the following limited circumstances:

• With the service providers listed above, solely to operate the platform, subject to confidentiality obligations
• With organizations on the platform only when you explicitly apply to or interact with their posted opportunities
• When required by law, legal process, or to protect the rights and safety of AspireMed and its users

5. Cookies and Tracking

AspireMed uses cookies and similar technologies for:

• Essential cookies: Required for authentication, security, and core platform functionality. These are always active.
• Analytics cookies: Used by PostHog to understand usage patterns. These are only activated after you provide consent via our cookie banner. You can change your preference at any time.

We do not use advertising cookies or sell data to advertisers.

6. Data Security and Retention

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your information, including:

• Encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest
• Row-level security policies on all database tables
• Secure, cookie-based authentication
• Regular security audits
• Content Security Policy headers
• Rate limiting on sensitive endpoints

Your data is stored on secure servers managed by Supabase (database) and Vercel (application hosting), both located in the United States.

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services.

Research history. Your saved papers, collections, monitored topics and search history are kept while your account is active and are deleted with your account. If you want to remove research history without closing your account, you can delete saved papers and collections directly in Research Lab, and you can view and delete your search history in Settings.

7. Your Rights and Choices

You have the right to:

• Access and update your personal information at any time through your account settings
• Delete your account and associated data through the account deletion option in your settings
• Opt out of analytics by declining or withdrawing cookie consent
• Manage email preferences including weekly digests, deadline reminders, and other notifications
• Request a copy of your data by contacting us

8. Age Requirement

AspireMed is intended for users who are at least 16 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 16. If we learn that we have collected data from someone under 16, we will delete that information promptly. If you believe a user under 16 has provided us with personal information, please contact us.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify registered users of material changes via email and by updating the “Last updated” date above. Your continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at hello@aspiremed.org.

AspireMed, Inc.
Delaware, United States