Privacy Policy

This policy explains what thematicanalysis.ai (“we”, “us”) does with your information when you use the site and the analysis tool. We built this tool to need as little of your data as possible: there are no accounts, and the research text you paste is not stored on our servers.

1. The text you analyse

When you run an analysis, the study findings or participant responses you paste are sent to our server and passed to a third-party AI provider that performs the coding and theme generation on our behalf. We do not save this text to a database or log it; it exists only for as long as it takes to return your results.

Your results (codes, themes, and the report) live in your browser session only. They are not stored on our servers and disappear when you close or reload the tab — so export your report before you leave if you want to keep it. The one exception is if you choose to email the report to yourself, which necessarily sends it through our server and our email provider; see section 2. We still keep no copy.

Do not paste directly identifying information about your participants. Anonymise transcripts and open-ended responses (remove names, contact details, and other identifiers) before analysing them, in line with your ethics approval.

2. Processing by our AI provider

The analysis is carried out by a third-party AI provider whose API we use to generate your results. We choose providers that do not use data submitted through their API to train their models, and we may change provider or model over time as the technology improves. Whichever provider is in use processes your text only to return your results, under its own applicable terms and privacy practices.

3. Limited data we do process

• IP address (transiently). We read the network IP address of requests to apply rate limits and prevent abuse. It is used in memory to count recent requests and is not stored as a permanent record by us.
• Email you choose to give. If you ask us to notify you when paid checkout launches, we log the email address you enter, along with the plan you were interested in, so we can email you once. Leave the field blank and no email is collected.
• Emailing your report to yourself. If — and only if — you use the “email it to yourself” option after an analysis, your finished report is sent from your browser to our server and on to our email provider (Resend) so it can be delivered to the address you gave. That report contains your themes and the verbatim quotes behind them. We do not keep a copy after sending it, and we do not store the report in any database. Every other way of saving your work — the Word download and the Markdown copy — happens entirely inside your browser and sends nothing anywhere. If your data is sensitive, use those instead. If you also tick the optional box asking for occasional tips for qualitative researchers, we keep your address on our mailing list until you unsubscribe; leaving it unticked means your address is used for that one delivery and nothing else.
• Server logs. Like most websites, our hosting provider records standard request metadata (such as timestamps and error information) for security and reliability. These logs do not contain the text you analyse.

4. Cookies and browser storage

We do not use advertising cookies or third-party tracking cookies. Two pieces of essential storage are always set, stay on your device, and are never sent to a third party:

• Theme preference — remembers whether you chose light or dark mode.
• Consent choice — remembers whether you accepted or rejected non-essential storage, so we don't ask again.

5. Optional analytics (only if you accept)

If — and only if — you press “Accept” in the consent banner, we load PostHog, a product analytics service, on the EU-hosted instance at eu.posthog.com. It helps us see which pages and features are actually used so we know what to improve. If you press “Reject”, or ignore the banner, PostHog is never loaded and no analytics data leaves your browser. Rejecting costs you nothing — every feature works either way.

When it is running, PostHog records:

• Page views — which pages of this site you open, plus the referring page.
• Feature events — that an analysis was started or finished and how long it took, which research mode and framework you picked, how many sources and roughly how many words were involved, whether a PDF was uploaded and how many pages it had, and which buttons and prompts you interacted with.
• Device and approximate location — browser, operating system, screen size, and a country/region-level estimate derived from your IP address by PostHog.
• A random visitor ID — stored in your browser's local storage so repeat visits can be counted once. PostHog keeps a profile against this ID holding the events and properties listed above, so activity across your visits can be seen together. It is not linked to a name or an account, because there are no accounts.

PostHog never receives the text you analyse, your codes, your themes, or your report — only the counts and metadata listed above. We configure it to use local storage rather than cookies, so accepting sets no tracking cookies. It is also disabled entirely during local development.

To withdraw consent, clear this site's storage in your browser: the banner reappears on your next visit and you can reject it. You can also use your browser's “Do Not Track” or an ad/tracker blocker, which will block PostHog regardless of what you chose.

6. Who we share data with

We do not sell your data. We share the minimum necessary with the service providers that run the tool: a third-party AI provider (to perform the analysis), our hosting provider (to serve the site and process requests), and — only where you accepted analytics — PostHog (to record the usage events described above). Each processes data only to provide their service.

7. Your choices and rights

Because we don't hold accounts or store your analyses, there is very little of your data for us to hold. You can clear the theme, consent, and analytics values at any time by clearing your browser's storage for this site. If you gave us an email for launch notifications and want it removed, contact us and we will delete it. Depending on where you live — including under the EU GDPR, UK GDPR, Canada's PIPEDA, or California's CCPA — you may have rights to access, correct, or erase personal data we hold and to object to its processing. Email us to exercise them.

8. Children

The tool is intended for students, researchers, and educators and is not directed at children under 16.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the tool evolves — for example when paid checkout launches. Material changes will be reflected here with a new “last updated” date.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Email hello@thematicanalysis.ai.