Overview
AIConfPaper is a free semantic-search engine over publicly accepted papers from top AI conferences. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. The service is operated by an individual based in the Republic of Korea. We collect as little personal data as possible: you can search papers without an account, and a free account only adds the ability to save papers into collections and export your own data.
If you have any questions about this policy or how your data is handled, contact us at contact@aiconfpaper.com.
Information We Collect
- Account information: your email address and password when you sign up, plus an optional display name. Your password is hashed and managed by our authentication provider; we never see or store your plaintext password. If you share a collection publicly, your display name (if set) is shown next to it.
- Collections: the folders you create, their optional descriptions, the IDs of papers you save, and the metadata of any external arXiv papers you add to a collection.
- Sharing, following, and collaboration: whether you have made a collection public, which shared collections you follow, and collaboration memberships. If you join a collection as a collaborator, the collection's owner can see your account email in the member list so they can manage members.
- Feedback: if you send feedback, we store the message, its category, the page it was sent from, and (for feedback sent without an account) an optional contact address you may provide. Feedback is read by the operator, who may attach a reply that is shown back to you.
- Short-lived anti-abuse counters: to keep the service available we keep short-lived technical counters used only to enforce fair-use limits. They expire automatically and are not used to profile you.
- Basic server logs: our hosting and infrastructure process standard technical information (such as IP address and request details) needed to operate the service securely.
We do not let you upload files or documents, and we do not collect content beyond what is described above.
How We Use Your Information
- To create your account and keep you logged in.
- To save, display, and let you manage and export your collections.
- To operate the sharing features you choose to use: showing a collection you made public (with your display name, if set), keeping the collections you follow up to date, and letting collection owners manage collaborators.
- To read and respond to feedback you send us.
- To send transactional email (signup confirmation and password reset).
- To prevent abuse of the service and keep it available for everyone.
- To diagnose and fix bugs and keep the service running reliably.
We do not use your account information to build advertising profiles or to train AI models, and we do not sell your data. To keep the service free we display third-party advertising (see Advertising below); our ad partner may use cookies to serve and measure ads, but this does not rely on your account data.
Legal Bases (GDPR)
Where the EU General Data Protection Regulation applies, we rely on the following legal bases:
- Performance of a contract: to provide your account, store your collections, and deliver the service you request.
- Legitimate interests: to prevent abuse, keep the service secure and available, and fix problems, balanced against your rights.
For advertising cookies, where consent is required (for example for users in the EEA or the UK), we rely on your consent, which you can give or withdraw at any time through the consent controls shown to you. For the core service (your account, collections, and security) we rely on contract and legitimate interests as described above. Our traffic analytics is privacy-first and aggregate, and does not use tracking cookies.
Search Queries
When you search, your query is processed by our own search technology running on our own servers and compared against the public papers in our index to return relevant results. Your query is not sent to any third-party large language model, is not tied to your account for profiling, and is not used to build advertising or to train models.
Cookies & Local Storage
- Authentication session cookie: a cookie from our authentication provider that keeps you logged in.
- Local storage: your language and theme preferences are stored in your browser's localStorage.
- Bot protection: Cloudflare Turnstile may set an anti-bot cookie on the login and signup forms.
- Advertising: our ad partner, Google AdSense, may set and read cookies to serve, personalize, and measure ads. See the Advertising section below, including how to opt out.
For traffic measurement we use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is privacy-first: it does not use cookies and does not track you across sites. It only produces aggregate visit statistics.
Third-Party Processors
We use a small number of service providers (subprocessors) to operate AIConfPaper. We share only what each provider needs for its purpose:
- Supabase: authentication and database; stores your account and collection data.
- Hetzner: server hosting, located in the EU (Germany/Finland).
- Cloudflare: DNS, Turnstile bot-protection, and privacy-first Web Analytics (aggregate, cookieless).
- Resend: transactional email only (signup confirmation and password reset).
- Google AdSense: third-party advertising; Google may use cookies and device/usage data to serve and measure ads (see Advertising below).
To show citation counts and paper metadata, we also query public academic sources using only a paper's title or identifier, never your personal data.
Advertising
AIConfPaper is free to use and is supported in part by advertising. We use Google AdSense to display ads. Google and its advertising partners may use cookies or similar technologies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites, and to measure ad performance. We do not share your account information (such as your email) with advertisers.
- You can manage or opt out of personalized advertising in your Google Ad Settings.
- You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalization at aboutads.info/choices (or youronlinechoices.eu in the EU).
- For details on how Google uses information from sites that use its services, see Google's policy.
If you are in the EEA, the UK, or another region where consent is required, we ask for your consent before serving personalized ads, and you can change your choice at any time.
Data Retention and Destruction
We keep your personal data only for as long as needed for the purposes described in this policy, and we destroy it without undue delay once that purpose has been achieved or you ask us to:
- Account information and collections: kept until you delete them or delete your account, at which point they are removed.
- Feedback: kept while we act on it; you can withdraw (delete) your own feedback at any time from the feedback page, and deleting your account removes the link between feedback and your account.
- Short-lived anti-abuse counters: expire automatically after a short period.
- Basic server logs: kept for a short period for security and troubleshooting (generally no more than 90 days) and then deleted or anonymized.
International Transfers
Because the operator is based in the Republic of Korea and our processors are located in the EU and elsewhere, operating the service involves transferring personal data across borders, including Korean users' data being processed by providers such as Supabase, Hetzner, Cloudflare, and Resend. We rely on the safeguards each provider makes available for such transfers, which for our EU/US-based processors include the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses where applicable. For users in Korea, these transfers are handled in line with the international-transfer requirements of the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA, Article 28-8), on the basis of the equivalent safeguards above and, where required, your consent.
Your Rights
Subject to applicable law (including the GDPR and Korea's PIPA), you can exercise the following rights at any time:
- Access and view your collections directly in the account and collections area.
- Export (data portability): download your collections as an Excel file from the collections area.
- Correction: update your account details, such as your display name.
- Deletion: delete your account from the account page, which removes all of your data.
- Restriction or suspension of processing: ask us to limit or pause how we process your data.
- Objection: object to processing based on our legitimate interests, such as anti-abuse handling.
- Withdrawal of consent: where we ever rely on consent, withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing.
You may also email us at contact@aiconfpaper.com for any request, and we will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law. Our practices are aligned with the GDPR and the Republic of Korea's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA).
Privacy Contact and Complaints
For any privacy request or question, the contact point for handling personal-data matters is contact@aiconfpaper.com.
If you are in the EU/EEA or the UK, you may lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. If you are in Korea, you may report concerns to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC, www.pipc.go.kr) or KISA's Privacy Report Center (privacy.kisa.or.kr, dial 118).
Security
We take reasonable measures to protect your data: passwords are hashed and never stored in plain text, all connections use HTTPS, and access controls ensure each user can access only their own data. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to keep your information safe.
Children
AIConfPaper is not directed to children under 14. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 14. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can remove it.
Paper Content and Takedown Requests
Papers and their metadata belong to their original authors and publishers. We provide search, links to original sources, and short snippets (such as brief abstract excerpts) rather than re-hosting full content. If you are a rights holder and believe content should be removed or corrected, please send a good-faith request to contact@aiconfpaper.com and we will respond promptly.
Governing Law
This Privacy Policy and any matter relating to it are governed by the laws of the Republic of Korea, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, and the courts of the Republic of Korea have jurisdiction, except where mandatory consumer or data-protection laws of your country of residence grant you additional protections.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the policy on this page and revise the "last updated" date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
Contact
For any questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or your data, please contact us at contact@aiconfpaper.com.