Privacy Policy

Last updated: March 2026

Your privacy is important. This policy explains how Citation Crosschecker handles your data.

                📌 Summary: Your document is processed in memory and never permanently stored. No personal data is collected. Results are temporary and cleared when you close your browser.
            

1. Data We Process

When you use Citation Crosschecker, we process the following data:

Uploaded Document: The DOCX or PDF file you submit for analysis
Extracted Citations: Citation texts extracted from your document
References: Reference entries from your document's bibliography
Verification Results: The analysis results displayed in your browser

2. How We Handle Your Data

2.1 Document Storage

✓ No Permanent Storage Your uploaded document is never saved to disk. It is processed entirely in memory (RAM) during the analysis and discarded immediately after processing completes.

2.2 Results Storage

Verification results are stored temporarily in your browser session. They are cleared when you:

Refresh the page
Close your browser tab or window
Navigate away from the page

2.3 No Persistent Database

⚠️ Important Citation Crosschecker uses no persistent database. There is no long term storage of user data, documents, or verification results.

3. Third Party Services

To verify citations, we use publicly available academic databases:

Service	Purpose	Data Shared
OpenAlex	Citation verification	Citation text (author, year, title)
Crossref	DOI and citation verification	Citation text (author, year, title)

🔒 Note Only the citation text is shared with these services. Your full document content is never transmitted to third parties.

4. Data Flow

Here is how your data moves through the system:

Step 1: You upload a document to the server
Step 2: The document is loaded into memory for processing
Step 3: Citations and references are extracted
Step 4: Citation texts are sent to OpenAlex and Crossref for verification
Step 5: Results are displayed in your browser
Step 6: The document data is cleared from memory

5. What We Do Not Do

❌ We do not store your documents permanently
❌ We do not use persistent databases
❌ We do not track your identity or IP address
❌ We do not sell or share your data
❌ We do not log document content
❌ We do not use cookies for tracking

6. Caching

To improve performance and respect API rate limits, we cache verification results in memory. This cache:

Stores only verified citation results, not your original document
Is cleared when the server restarts
Helps reduce repeated API calls to OpenAlex and Crossref

7. Data Retention

Data Type	Retention Period
Uploaded Document	Processed in memory, discarded immediately after analysis
Verification Results	Session only (cleared on page refresh or browser close)
Cached Verification Results	In memory only, cleared on server restart
Error Logs	Anonymous error messages only, no document content

8. Your Rights

You have the right to:

Know what data is processed
Request deletion of any session data (refresh the page or close your browser)
Opt out by simply not using the service

9. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your data:

All processing occurs in memory, not on disk
No permanent storage reduces data exposure risk
Application hosted on secure infrastructure (Render.com)
Server instances are ephemeral and reset periodically

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or how your data is handled, please contact:

Prof. Anokye M. Adam
University of Cape Coast
Email: anokye.adam@ucc.edu.gh

Citation Crosschecker is an academic tool for citation integrity analysis. By using this service, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to this privacy policy.