Privacy Policy for ScholarLens

Effective Date: January 31, 2026

ScholarLens - AI Research Assistant ("we," "our," or "the extension") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and handle your information when you use our browser extension.

1. Information We Collect

To provide research assistance features such as AI summarization and citation generation, we collect the following types of information:

• Account Information:

  • When you register or log in, we collect your email address and password. These are used for authentication and to manage your access to our services.

• Content Data:

  • Page Content: When you trigger a summary, the extension extracts the text content (innerText) of the active tab.

  • PDF Data: The extension processes PDF files you upload or open in the browser to extract text for analysis.

• Academic Metadata:

  • We automatically extract document metadata, including titles, authors, DOI (Digital Object Identifier), publication years, and journal names.

• Local Storage Data:

  • We store your authentication token (scholarlensAuthToken) and settings (such as the preferred AI model) locally in your browser using chrome.storage.local to maintain your session.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the collected information solely for the following purposes:

• AI Summarization: Extracted text content is sent to our backend servers at https://wiseelement.cc to generate summaries using AI models.

• Citation Generation: Extracted metadata is used to format citations in various styles (APA, MLA, Harvard, GB/T 7714).

• Metadata Enrichment: We may use the DOI to query the Crossref API (api.crossref.org) to retrieve more accurate bibliographic information.

3. Data Sharing and Third Parties

• Backend Services: Your content and account data are processed by our secure backend at https://wiseelement.cc.

• Third-Party APIs: We interact with api.crossref.org to improve citation accuracy. This request does not include your personal identity.

• No Data Sale: We do not sell your personal data or browsing content to third parties or advertisers.

4. Permissions and Security

The extension requires the following permissions to function:

• activeTab & scripting: To read the content of the document you wish to summarize.

• storage: To remember your login status and preferences.

• sidePanel: To provide the user interface for interaction.

All data transmitted between the extension and our servers is encrypted via HTTPS to ensure security.

5. Your Choices

• Logout: You can clear your authentication data at any time by clicking the "Logout" button within the extension.

• On-Demand Processing: ScholarLens only reads page content when you explicitly click the "Summarize" button; it does not monitor your browsing history in the background.