PhD Quest is committed to protecting your personal data and your rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679). This policy explains what we collect, why, and how you can exercise your rights.
1. Data We Collect
•Account data: your name and email address (managed by the authentication provider).
•Research data: your research journey, reflections, quiz attempts, draft chapters, and feedback records you create within PhD Quest.
•Uploaded content: draft text and files you submit for AI feedback; large content may be stored in file storage associated with your account.
•Usage data: aggregated, anonymized analytics events to improve the service.
2. Lawful Basis for Processing
•Performance of a contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)): processing your data to deliver the research-advisor features you requested.
•Legitimate interests (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)): product improvement and security, balanced against your rights.
•Consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)): where you explicitly consent to optional processing, such as AI-assisted feedback on your drafts.
3. Data Retention
•We retain your research data for as long as your account is active so you can continue your doctoral journey.
•When you exercise your right to erasure, your personal research data is deleted from the active database.
•Anonymized, aggregated analytics may be retained indefinitely as it no longer identifies you.
4. AI Processing & Third Parties
•Draft text and feedback requests are processed by AI language models to generate supervisor-style feedback and integrity checks.
•When "live research" features are enabled, queries may be sent to web-search services to retrieve real academic sources.
•We minimize the personal data sent to these processors and do not use your drafts for external model training.
5. Your Rights
•Right of access: request a copy of your personal data via the Account → Export panel.
•Right to portability: download all your data in a machine-readable JSON format.
•Right to rectification: edit your research journey and drafts at any time within the app.
•Right to erasure: permanently delete your research data via the Account → Erase panel.
•Right to object: withdraw consent or object to processing at any time.
•Right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory data protection authority.
6. Contact & Complaints
To exercise any right above, use the in-app Account panel, or contact Base44 support. If you believe your data has been mishandled, you may lodge a complaint with your local Data Protection Authority or the supervisory authority of your habitual residence.