Privacy

Last updated: October 17, 2026

ScienceMadeReadable is run by Maxime Rivest, in Canada, who is responsible for the personal information described here. Questions, a copy of what we hold about you, a correction, or a complaint: mrive052@gmail.com.

Using the site and the API without an account

• No cookies, no ads, no third-party trackers, no analytics company.
• To improve the service, we keep usage statistics on our own server: the pages visited, what is searched and opened, and how long pages stay open; for programs and AI apps, what they ask the API. A visitor is identified only by a code that changes every day, so we can't recognise anyone from one day to the next, and internet addresses are not kept. These statistics are deleted after 25 months. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, the site sends us nothing.
• To share the search fairly, our server counts requests per internet address for one minute, in memory only.
• Your own browser remembers, for you only and never sent to us, the path you have walked and the studies you have opened in this tab (to show your path and mark what you have seen; gone when the tab closes), and that you closed the "New here?" note.

If you make an account

You sign in with GitHub or Google. We never see or store a password. We keep:

• your email address and name, as GitHub or Google give them to us, and your GitHub username if you use GitHub;
• an id for your login at GitHub or Google, so the same login finds the same account;
• your API keys, as fingerprints only (we can check a key, but can't read it back), with their names and the day they were made and last used;
• how many requests your keys made each day;
• a sign-in cookie on api.sciencemadereadable.com, for 30 days, only to keep you signed in;
• if you pay: the ids Stripe gives your subscription and you as a customer, and the subscription's status.

We never keep what you search with your keys next to your account. We don't sell or share any of it, and we don't use it for advertising. We use your email only about your account or your plan.

Payments

Stripe takes payments. Your card details go to Stripe, never to us. Stripe keeps its own records of payments, which the law requires (Stripe's privacy policy: stripe.com/privacy).

Where it is kept

On our own server in Canada. Requests reach it through a relay server in Canada (OVH), which keeps no log of them. GitHub, Google and Stripe are in the United States and handle your data under their own policies.

Deleting

On your account page, "Delete my account" erases everything listed above at once. (Cancel a paid plan first: Stripe keeps its payment records, as the law requires.) Signing out ends the sign-in cookie.

Changes

If this changes in a way that matters, we'll say so on your account page before it applies.