Privacy Policy

At Aard Research ("Aard", "we", "our", or "us"), we collect minimal personal and scientific data required to provide a collaborative biomedical research environment:

• Account Information: When you register or sign in, we process your email address, display name, user profile role (e.g., Student Scholar, Principal Investigator, Clinical Advisor), and authentication tokens via Google Firebase Authentication.
• Research Contributions: Lab notebook logs, paper drafts, dataset metadata, track interest selections, and peer review submissions created within the workspace.
• Local Storage & PWA Data: Service worker caching details, offline state storage, and user preferences (e.g., active color themes, display mode options) stored locally on your device.
• Technical Diagnostics: Anonymous analytics and performance diagnostics (such as browser type, page load latency, and error trace logs) to optimize platform speed and reliability.

We process personal and scientific data strictly for legitimate educational, academic, and platform operational purposes:

• Facilitating collaborative research tracks, lab notebook management, and peer feedback among verified scholars.
• Verifying student and advisor credentials to maintain high scientific integrity and ethical standards.
• Personalizing workspace preferences, notification feeds, and administrative oversight tools.
• Detecting, investigating, and preventing unauthorized system access or abuse.

As a platform dedicated to empowering high school, undergraduate, and early-career researchers in medicine and life sciences:

• We comply with youth privacy principles and do not collect unnecessary personal identifiable information from student scholars.
• Student scientific submissions are protected against public indexing until explicitly approved for open-access publication by the author and faculty advisor.
• We do not target advertisements or monetize student data under any circumstances.

We uphold strict data security standards to protect your scientific findings and personal data:

• Zero Data Selling: We never sell, rent, trade, or monetize your personal information or unpublished research data to third parties or data brokers.
• Encrypted Infrastructure: All network communication is encrypted in transit via SSL/TLS, and database entries are safeguarded using Cloud Firestore security rules.
• Strict Access Controls: Only authorized platform administrators have access to infrastructure control panels for system maintenance.

You maintain full ownership and control over your account data and scientific research logs:

• Access & Export: You may request a complete export of your submitted lab notebooks and profile data.
• Correction & Update: You can update your display name, role, and visual theme preferences anytime in Settings.
• Account Deletion: You may request full account deletion and data removal by contacting our privacy team.

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, your scientific data rights, or platform security practices, please reach out to our team: