Privacy policy

Privacy policy

Effective Date: August 8, 2026

Last Updated: August 8, 2026

PLEASE READ THIS POLICY CAREFULLY, INCLUDING SECTION 6 (PUBLIC NATURE OF PUBLISHED CONTENT AND BLOCKCHAIN PERMANENCE) AND SECTION 9 (YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS AND CHOICES), AS THEY AFFECT HOW YOUR INFORMATION IS HANDLED.

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) explains how Vitahash LLC, a limited liability company organized under the laws of [State of Formation] (“Vitahash,” “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), collects, uses, discloses, and protects information in connection with the Vitahash website, mobile applications, and related services located at vitahash.org (collectively, the “Service”).

This Policy is incorporated by reference into, and should be read together with, our Terms of Service. Capitalized terms not defined in this Policy have the meanings given to them in the Terms of Service.

Please read this Policy carefully. It contains an important notice, in Section 6, about how the permanent, blockchain-based nature of the Service affects your ability to have certain published information deleted.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly.

  • Account information: the email address you use to register and sign in via magic link, and any display name, username, profile photo, biography, or institutional/professional affiliation you choose to add to your profile.
  • Published Content: the text, images, abstracts, titles, keywords, and other material you submit as Blog Posts or Research Articles, including author names and contribution-weight allocations entered in the Authorship Attribution Modal.
  • Communications: information you provide when you contact us for support, submit a copyright notice, or otherwise correspond with us.
  • Peer review activity: if you participate as a reviewer or editor, the comments, ratings, and decisions you submit through the review workflow.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically.

  • Usage data: pages and profiles you view, articles you read, Content you Like or Verify, Users you follow, search queries, and general interaction patterns with the Service.
  • Device and log data: IP address, browser type, device identifiers, operating system, referring URLs, and timestamps, collected automatically by our servers and infrastructure providers.
  • Cookies and similar technologies: we and our service providers use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember preferences, and understand how the Service is used. You can control cookies through your browser settings, though disabling them may affect the functionality of the Service.

2.3 Blockchain and Wallet Data. When you publish Content, the Service generates a Custodial Wallet address associated with your account and writes a cryptographic hash of your Content, together with authorship and timestamp metadata, to a public blockchain ledger, as described in Section 7 of our Terms of Service. Your Custodial Wallet address and the associated Blockchain Stamp are, by design, publicly visible both on the Service and on the underlying public ledger.

2.4 Information from Third Parties. If you sign in or verify your account using an institutional email domain, or if we receive information from service providers (such as email delivery, analytics, or fraud-prevention vendors), we may combine that information with the information described above.

2.5 We Do Not Currently Collect Payment Information. Vitahash does not currently charge for any feature of the Service, and we do not currently collect payment card or billing information from Users. If we introduce a paid subscription plan in the future, payment information will be collected and processed by a third-party payment processor under its own privacy policy, and this Policy will be updated accordingly.

2.6 Sensitive Information. We do not ask you to provide sensitive personal information (such as health data, government identifiers, or precise geolocation) to create or maintain an account. If you choose to include such information within Content you author and publish — for example, within a Research Article — you do so at your own discretion and subject to Section 6.3 of our Terms of Service, and you remain solely responsible for ensuring you have any consents required to include it.

3. How We Use Information

We use the information described above to:

  • Create and maintain your account, authenticate you via magic link, and operate your Custodial Wallet;
  • Publish and display your Content, generate Blockchain Stamps, and calculate citation-based metrics such as the B-Index;
  • Operate platform features, including the Discover feed, Following feed, Like and Verify functions, and the peer review workflow;
  • Provide, personalize, and improve the Service, including through our AI-assisted writing and originality-scanning features;
  • Communicate with you about your account, respond to support requests, and send Service-related notices;
  • Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, security incidents, and violations of our Terms of Service, including manipulation of the B-Index or citation activity;
  • Comply with legal obligations and enforce our agreements; and
  • With your consent or as otherwise permitted by law, send product updates or promotional communications, which you may opt out of at any time.

4. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA, UK, and Swiss Users)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information under the General Data Protection Regulation and equivalent UK/Swiss law:

  • Performance of a contract — to create your account, authenticate you, operate your Custodial Wallet, and provide the core Service you have requested;
  • Consent — for optional features such as marketing communications and non-essential cookies, which you may withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal;
  • Legitimate interests — to secure the Service, prevent fraud and B-Index manipulation, improve our features, and operate the peer review and Discover feed systems, provided these interests are not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights; and
  • Legal obligation — to comply with applicable law, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, and address copyright notices under Section 15 of our Terms of Service.

Publication of Content, including the associated Blockchain Stamp, occurs at your direction and on the basis of performance of our contract with you (namely, providing the publishing and permanence features you request when you click “Publish”), together with your consent captured through the Authorship Attribution Modal.

5. AI-Assisted Features

When you use optional AI-assisted features (such as abstract generation, title and keyword suggestions, tone adjustments, or the plagiarism/originality scanner), the text you submit to those features is transmitted to our AI model provider(s) to generate the requested output. We enter into data processing terms with these providers that restrict their use of your submitted content to providing the requested output on our behalf, and that prohibit its use to train the provider's general-purpose models, except where a provider's standard commercial terms do not offer that restriction, in which case we will identify the applicable provider and practice on request. You should avoid submitting sensitive personal information (such as patient-identifiable data) to AI-assisted features. As described in our Terms of Service, use of AI-assisted drafting features triggers a public disclosure notice on the resulting published Content.

6. Public Nature of Published Content and Blockchain Permanence — Important Notice

6.1 Published Content Is Public. Your profile, published Blog Posts and Research Articles, author names and contribution weights, Like and Verify activity on published Content, and B-Index are, by design, visible to the public and to other Users. Do not include information in published Content or your public profile that you do not want to be publicly visible.

6.2 Blockchain Records Cannot Be Deleted by Us. As explained in Section 7 of our Terms of Service, when Content is published, a cryptographic hash and associated metadata (including author names and timestamps) is written to a public, third-party blockchain ledger that Vitahash does not control and cannot alter or erase. This means that even where we honor a request to delete your account or Content from the Service, the underlying blockchain record will continue to exist and be publicly accessible through the ledger itself and through independent block explorers, outside of our control. We are able to remove your Content and metadata from our own systems, de-index it from the Site and search, and disable any Vitahash-hosted verification page, but we cannot cause its removal from the underlying blockchain.

6.3 Consider This Before Publishing. Because of this permanence, please carefully review any Content, author list, and personal information before publishing or submitting it for peer review.

7. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information for money. We may share information as follows:

  • Publicly, as described in Section 6, where you choose to publish Content or maintain a public profile;
  • With service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as cloud hosting, email delivery, analytics, AI model providers, and blockchain infrastructure providers, under contractual obligations to protect your information;
  • With other Users, where necessary to operate collaborative features such as multi-author attribution or peer review;
  • To comply with law, respond to legal process (such as a subpoena or court order), or protect the rights, property, or safety of Vitahash, our Users, or the public;
  • In connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of all or part of our business, in which case information may be transferred as part of that transaction; and
  • With your consent, or at your direction.

8. Data Retention

We retain account information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. If you delete your account, we will delete or de-identify non-published personal information within a reasonable period, except where retention is necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, or, with respect to previously published Content, to preserve the integrity of the public scholarly record and previously issued citations, as described in Section 6 above and Section 19 of our Terms of Service.

9. Your Privacy Rights and Choices

9.1 Account Information. You may access and update most of your account and profile information directly within the Service. You may request deletion of your account by contacting us at info@vitahash.org.

9.2 Regional Privacy Rights (GDPR/UK GDPR). Depending on your location, you may have rights under applicable law to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to processing of, or receive a portable copy of your personal information, and rights related to automated decision-making. To exercise these rights, contact us at info@vitahash.org. We will respond as required by applicable law, and you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. As explained in Section 6, we may not be able to fully honor a deletion or erasure request with respect to information already recorded on a public blockchain ledger, and we will explain the scope of any limitation at the time of your request.

9.3 California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA). If you are a California resident, you have the right to know the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you; the right to request deletion; the right to correct inaccurate personal information; and the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, and of the use of “sensitive personal information” beyond what is necessary to provide the Service. In the preceding twelve months, we have collected the categories of personal information described in Section 2 for the business and commercial purposes described in Section 3, and have disclosed those categories to the service-provider and other-User recipients described in Section 7. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined under the CCPA. To exercise your California rights, contact us at info@vitahash.org. We will verify your request using information associated with your account (such as confirming access to the email address on file) before responding, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights.

9.4 Nevada Residents. Nevada law permits residents to opt out of the sale of certain “covered information” for monetary consideration. We do not sell covered information as defined under Nevada law. Nevada residents may still submit a request regarding this practice to info@vitahash.org.

9.5 Cookie Choices. You can manage cookies through your browser settings. Where required by law, we will request your consent before placing non-essential cookies and will provide a mechanism to withdraw that consent.

9.6 Marketing Communications. You may opt out of promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included in those emails. You will continue to receive Service-related and transactional communications.

9.7 Do Not Track. Our Service does not currently respond to “Do Not Track” browser signals.

10. Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed to, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from, individuals under 18 years of age. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a person under 18, we will take reasonable steps to delete it, subject to the blockchain limitations described in Section 6. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at info@vitahash.org.

11. International Data Transfers

Vitahash is based in the United States, and information we collect is processed and stored in the United States and other countries where our service providers operate. If you access the Service from outside the United States, including from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States and other jurisdictions that may have data protection laws different from those of your home jurisdiction. Where required by applicable law, we implement appropriate safeguards for such transfers, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent recognized transfer mechanism, copies of which are available on request to info@vitahash.org.

12. Data Security and Incident Notification

12.1 Safeguards. We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, including with respect to the private keys underlying Custodial Wallets. However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for maintaining the security of the email account used to access your Vitahash account, since it is your primary means of authentication.

12.2 Incident Notification. If we become aware of a security incident that compromises your personal information in a manner requiring notification under applicable law, we will notify affected Users and, where required, applicable regulators, without undue delay and in accordance with the timelines and content requirements of such law.

13. Third-Party Links and Services

The Service may contain links to third-party websites, and relies on third-party infrastructure such as blockchain networks, cloud hosting, and AI model providers, as described in Section 16 of our Terms of Service. This Policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, the privacy practices of any third party. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party service you interact with, including any blockchain network explorer used to view a Blockchain Stamp.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice by posting the updated Policy on the Site with a new “Last Updated” date and, where required by law or where changes are significant, through additional notice such as email or an in-product notification. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the revised Policy constitutes your acceptance of the changes.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise any privacy rights described above, please contact us at:

Vitahash LLC

P.O. Box #571

Nassau, Delaware, 19969

Email: info@vitahash.org

If we designate a Data Protection Officer or EU/UK representative, their contact details will be posted here.