CardCite for Chrome: Privacy Policy

Local by default

CardCite does not collect, transmit, or store your personal data on any external server. The extension stores your preferences (such as your team name, citation formatting, and display settings) and any citations you save to your Citation Library using Chrome's built-in storage (chrome.storage.sync and chrome.storage.local).

Unless you turn on the optional sync feature described below, this data stays on your device and your Chrome profile, is not transmitted anywhere, and is not accessible to the developer. The one other case in which CardCite contacts an outside service is the public catalog lookup described below, which sends only a document identifier and never anything about you.

The extension reads metadata from the web page you are currently viewing only when you click the extension icon. This information is used solely to generate a citation on your device and is not transmitted anywhere.

Public catalog lookups

When a page or PDF you are citing carries a DOI or an ISBN, and CardCite could not find a detail such as the author, date, page numbers or edition on the document itself, CardCite asks a free public catalog for that missing value: Crossref (the publishers' DOI registry) for a DOI, and Open Library (a library catalog) for an ISBN.

These requests send only the identifier that the document itself prints, for example a DOI such as 10.1234/abcd.5678. They contain no personal information, no account details, no browsing history, and no identifier of you or your device. Nothing is stored by CardCite as a result, and the returned value is only ever used to fill a field that was left blank.

This behavior is controlled by the setting Fill missing details from identifier lookups in the extension's Settings page. It is on by default and you can turn it off at any time, after which CardCite contacts no outside service at all unless you enable sync. (When you cite a PDF, CardCite also downloads that PDF from the site you are already viewing it on, so that it can read the document's text and details. No other site is contacted.)

Optional sign-in and cross-device sync

CardCite includes an optional feature, off until you choose to enable it, that lets you sign in with your Google account to sync your citation library across devices and to insert citations into Google Docs using the CardCite Google Docs add-on.

If you enable this feature:

• You sign in with Google. CardCite receives your basic Google account identity (your email address and standard sign-in identifiers) and uses it only to identify you and connect you to your own library.
• Your citation library is transmitted to and stored in CardCite's backend, hosted on Google Cloud (Firebase / Firestore) so it can be synced to your other signed-in devices and read by the CardCite Google Docs add-on.
• Your Google Docs are never read. The companion Google Docs add-on writes the citation you select at your cursor and does nothing else. It does not read, collect, store, or transmit the contents of your document, and nothing you have written in a document is ever visible to CardCite or sent anywhere. This is covered in full by the Google Docs add-on policy.
• Your library stays private. Access is protected by per-user security rules, so each signed-in user's library is private to their own account. The infrastructure is operated by the developer, who maintains the systems that keep sync and the Google Docs feature running. Your data is never sold, shared, or used for any purpose beyond providing these features to you.

You can turn the feature off and sign out at any time. Signing out ends the extension's access to your Google account on that device. Citations you have stored remain in your personal library unless you delete them.

No analytics or tracking

CardCite does not use analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking services. Only two kinds of external service are ever contacted: the public catalogs Crossref and Open Library, which receive nothing but a document's own DOI or ISBN, and, if and only if you enable sync, Google Cloud / Firebase, which hosts your library.

Data retention and deletion

Your citations and preferences remain available until you remove them. You can delete individual citations or clear your library from within the extension. If you have enabled sync, deleting a citation removes it from your synced library as well.

Limited Use disclosure

CardCite's use of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.