Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Citation Master (“we,” “us,” or “Citation Master”), operated by Jonathan Meislish, a sole proprietor registered in Israel, collects, uses, and protects your personal information when you use our academic citation verification service at citation-master.ai.

1. Data Controller

The data controller for personal data processed through Citation Master is Jonathan Meislish, operating as Citation Master, Israel. Contact: support@citation-master.ai

2. Information We Collect

Account information: When you create an account, we collect your email address and name. If you sign in with Google, we receive these details from Google’s OAuth service.

Document content: When you upload a document for processing, we receive the file and its contents. We use this content solely to extract and verify your citations. Your original document file is deleted from our servers after processing is complete. We do not use your document content to train AI models.

Citation data: We retain the structured citation metadata and verification results generated from your document so that you can view and download your output. This data is stored in your account and is not shared with other users.

Usage data: We collect information about how you use the Service, including pages visited, documents uploaded, and actions taken. This is used to improve the Service and diagnose errors.

Payment data: We do not collect or store payment card information. All payments are processed by LemonSqueezy, which acts as Merchant of Record. We receive confirmation of successful transactions and the pack purchased, but not your card details.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To provide the citation verification and formatting service
• To manage your account and verification balance
• To send transactional emails (account confirmation, processing complete, verification balance alerts) via Loops.so
• To respond to support requests
• To improve verification accuracy and fix errors in the system
• To comply with applicable legal obligations

We do not sell your personal data. We do not use your data for advertising.

4. Third-Party Services

Citation Master uses the following third-party services to operate. Each processes data on our behalf:

• Google Firebase — account authentication, database (Firestore), file storage, and hosting. Your account data and citation results are stored here. Governed by Google’s Privacy Policy.
• Anthropic, OpenAI, Google (Gemini) — AI inference providers used for citation parsing and verification. Excerpts of citation text (author names, titles, publication metadata) are sent to these APIs. None of these providers use API inputs to train models by default.
• Hugging Face — open-source AI model inference, used for specific processing tasks. Citation metadata only; no personal information.
• Serper — Google Search API used to find web sources during verification. Search queries contain citation metadata (title, author, year) but not personal information.
• ScrapingAnt — web content extraction service used to retrieve academic source pages during verification. Receives URLs only; no personal information.
• LemonSqueezy — payment processing. Handles all billing, tax compliance, and receipts. Your payment data is governed by LemonSqueezy’s Privacy Policy.
• Loops.so — transactional email delivery. We share your email address and first name with Loops.so to send account and service emails.
• Google reCAPTCHA — bot prevention on account registration. Governed by Google’s Privacy Policy.

5. Data Retention

• Uploaded document files: Deleted immediately after processing is complete.
• Citation results and output: Retained in your account until you request deletion or close your account. To request deletion of your data, email support@citation-master.ai.
• Account data: Retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period after closure as required by law.
• Usage logs: System logs generated by Google Cloud (Firebase) infrastructure are retained for up to 30 days per Google Cloud’s default log retention policy.

6. Your Rights (GDPR — EU/EEA Users)

If you are located in the European Union or European Economic Area, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate data.
• Erasure: Request deletion of your personal data (“right to be forgotten”).
• Restriction: Request that we limit processing of your data. We will honour this manually within 30 days of your request.
• Portability: Request your data in a machine-readable format. We can provide your citation results and account data as a JSON export on request.
• Objection: Object to processing based on legitimate interests.

Our legal basis for processing your data is: contract performance (to provide the Service you signed up for), and legitimate interests (to improve the Service and prevent fraud). To exercise any of these rights, email support@citation-master.ai. We will respond within 30 days.

7. Your Rights (CCPA — California Users)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect and how it is used, the right to request deletion of your personal information, and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. We do not sell personal information. To exercise your rights, contact support@citation-master.ai.

8. Cookies

Citation Master uses cookies and similar technologies to maintain your login session and for bot prevention (reCAPTCHA). We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking. You can disable cookies in your browser, but doing so may prevent you from logging in to your account.

9. Data Security

We use industry-standard security measures including HTTPS encryption, Firebase Security Rules, and Secret Manager for API credentials. No system is completely secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately at support@citation-master.ai.

10. Children

Citation Master is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from users under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by a notice within the Service. The “Last updated” date at the bottom of this page reflects the most recent revision.

12. Contact

For privacy questions, data requests, or to exercise your rights: support@citation-master.ai