Privacy policy

Who we are

Dental Evidence is a clinical evidence search service for dental professionals, at https://dentalevidence.com. This policy covers what we collect when you use the service, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it.

Clinical responsibility sits in our terms of use: Dental Evidence does not accept responsibility for clinical outcomes connected with anything you read here.

Do not enter patient information

The service answers clinical questions. It is not a place for patient records. Do not enter names, dates of birth, contact details, chart numbers, images, or anything else that identifies a specific patient. We are not acting as your HIPAA business associate, and no business associate agreement is in place unless we have signed one with you. Ask your questions in general clinical terms.

What we collect

• Account details. Your email address and, when you use email signup, password credentials handled by our authentication provider. If you choose social sign in, Google or Facebook provides your verified email and basic profile identity. We never receive your provider password.
• Communication preferences. Your optional choices about receiving the clinical evidence digest and Dental Evidence product or company updates.
• Professional profile. Your name, practice name and address, and National Provider Identifier. The NPI confirms you are a licensed professional, and we may check it and your practice address against public registries. If you enable a public profile, we publish your name, practice details, verified status, and any optional contact, biography, hours, insurance, service, and price-range information you provide. We do not publish your email address or NPI number.
• Public-profile questions. We keep questions submitted through a dentist profile, their category, and any generated answer for up to thirty days so the dentist can review them and see recent trends. A clinical question and answer approved by the dentist remains public for up to twelve months, unless removed sooner.
• Searches and results. The questions you ask, the search mode you choose, and a record of the answer returned and the sources cited. We use these to run the service, investigate faults, and improve retrieval quality.
• Feedback. Any rating or comment you submit about an answer.
• Billing information, for advertisers only. Subscription status and billing records for advertiser accounts. Card details are entered with our payment processor, which holds them. We never receive or store a full card number. Dentist accounts are free and we collect no payment information for them.
• Technical records. Standard server and security logs, including IP address, browser type, and timestamps, plus a cookie that identifies your browser so we can apply free-search limits before you sign in.

Why we use it

We use it to run and secure the service, verify professional eligibility, answer your questions, bill advertisers, respond to support requests, detect abuse, meet legal obligations, and improve the quality of search results. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your searches to build advertising profiles.

Who we share it with

Each provider receives only what it needs to do its job:

• Supabase, our database and authentication provider, which stores your account, profile, and search records.
• Google and Meta, when you choose Google or Facebook sign in, which authenticate your identity and share the basic account details you authorize.
• Stripe, our payment processor, which handles advertiser subscriptions and card details.
• OpenAI, which receives the text of your query and the passages retrieved for it in order to generate an answer. Keep patient-identifying information out of your queries.
• PubMed and PMC, run by the US National Library of Medicine, which we query for literature. These receive search terms, not your identity.
• Our hosting provider, which serves the site.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, to protect our rights or the safety of others, or in connection with a merger or acquisition.

How long we keep it

Search records expire thirty days after the search. Account, profile, and any advertiser billing records last while your account is active, and afterwards for as long as we need them to meet tax, accounting, and legal obligations. When you delete your account we delete or anonymise the associated personal data within a reasonable period, except where we are required to keep it.

Answers published on our clinical answers pages are a separate case. We select those by hand, we re-run the question ourselves rather than republishing a search you ran, and they carry no account or identifying information.

Dentist-approved profile FAQs are also public. They keep no visitor contact information, display their approval date, and stop appearing after twelve months unless regenerated and approved again.

Your choices

Review and update your profile from your account at any time, and ask us to export or delete your data whenever you want to. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict certain processing, or to complain to a data protection authority. Email hello@dentalevidence.com and we will respond within the period applicable law requires.

Security

We encrypt data in transit, restrict access to production systems, and use database rules that limit each account to its own records. No service can promise perfect security. If a breach affects your personal data we will notify you and any regulator as the law requires.

International transfers and children

Our providers may process data in countries other than your own, under the safeguards applicable law requires. The service is meant for dental professionals and is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes and contact

If we make a material change to this policy we will update the date above and, where appropriate, notify you. Send privacy questions to hello@dentalevidence.com. The laws of [State/Country] govern this policy.

See also our terms of use and contact page.