Privacy policy

What we collect

• Account details. You sign in with an emailed code, Google or Microsoft. We store your name, email address, profile image and time zone.
• Your notebook. The notes, comments, protocols, samples, projects and files that you and your lab add, and the earlier versions of each note.
• Assistant usage. A ledger of each assistant and dictation request: the size of the request and reply, the cost and the timing. It never includes the text or the audio.
• Audio recordings. When you dictate, we may receive a recording of what you say, only to write out the words. We don't keep it. See Dictation.
• Feedback. What you write or dictate when you send us feedback, with the page you were on and your browser. The ResearchHub team reads it to improve Lab Notes.
• Product analytics. Events about how Lab Notes is used, carrying IDs, counts and settings. See Analytics.
• Billing details. If you or your lab subscribe, Stripe processes the payment and we never see your card number. We keep what we need to manage the subscription, such as the plan, the number of seats and the payment status, and for invoices, the billing email and PO number you give us.

How we use it

We use your information to:

• run Lab Notes: show your notes to you and, when you share them, your lab, answer your questions from your notes when you use the assistant, and send the emails the service needs;
• bill for paid plans and count assistant use against your plan;
• keep Lab Notes secure and working, and fix problems;
• see which features are used, through analytics that never include your notes.

We use your notes only to run Lab Notes for you and your lab.

Who can see your notes

• Your lab. Notes and projects start as Only me. When you choose Share with lab, the members of your lab can read them.
• Only you. An Only me note or project is visible only to you. The lab's owner can't see it either, and the assistant never uses it to answer anyone else.
• Our staff. We don't read your notes, except when you ask us for support or the law requires it.

The assistant

When you use the assistant to ask a question, change a note or import a protocol, the text it needs is sent through OpenRouter to Anthropic's Claude models. Dictation recordings go through OpenRouter to Google's Gemini models (see Dictation).

• Requests are routed only to providers with zero data retention: they don't store your prompts or the outputs.
• No provider may train on your notes.
• We keep a usage ledger for each request (the size of the request and reply, the cost and the timing) so we can count use against your plan. It never contains the text.

The assistant can make mistakes. Our terms explain what that means for you.

Dictation

While the assistant is connected and your plan has assistant use left, the microphone buttons record what you say. Lab Notes receives each phrase as an audio recording and sends it through OpenRouter to Google's Gemini models, which write out the words.

• As with the assistant, recordings go only to providers with zero data retention. They don't store the audio or the words, and none may train on them.
• We don't keep the recordings. Each one adds a row to the usage ledger (its size, the cost and the timing), never the audio or the words.
• On a computer, browsers with their own speech recognition, such as Chrome, Edge and Safari, also hear the audio to show the words as you speak.

If the assistant isn't connected or your plan's assistant use has run out, the microphone buttons use only your browser's own speech recognition. Lab Notes then receives only the words that appear in the box, never the audio.

Your browser's recognition sends the audio to its maker's speech service (Google for Chrome, Apple for Safari, Microsoft for Edge), or recognizes it on your device when it can.

Files

Files you upload, such as photos of gels and plates or CSVs, are stored privately in Vercel Blob. They're served only to signed-in people who can see the note they belong to, after an access check.

Analytics

We use PostHog for product analytics. Events carry IDs, counts and settings only. They never include note text, project names, file names or images.

PostHog session replays mask all text and inputs and block images, so a replay shows the layout of a page, not what's written on it.

Email

We send email through Resend: sign-in codes, invitations, trial reminders and billing notices. Emails never contain note text; they carry counts and links instead.

Who helps us run Lab Notes

We share information with these providers only as needed to run Lab Notes:

• Vercel hosts Lab Notes and stores uploaded files (Vercel Blob).
• Neon runs our Postgres database, in the United States.
• OpenRouter routes assistant requests to Anthropic's Claude models and dictation recordings to Google's Gemini models, with zero data retention.
• Stripe processes payments. Card numbers go to Stripe, never to us.
• Resend delivers our email.
• PostHog provides product analytics and masked session replays.
• Google and Microsoft handle sign-in, if you choose them.

Where your data is stored

Lab Notes is hosted on Vercel, and our database runs on Neon Postgres in the United States. If you use Lab Notes from outside the United States, your information is transferred to the United States.

Cookies

• A sign-in session cookie keeps you signed in. Lab Notes doesn't work without it.
• PostHog sets analytics cookies so we can understand how the app is used.

Keeping and deleting your data

• We keep your notes for as long as your account or lab exists.
• You can export your notes anytime as Markdown, Word or a printed PDF.
• To delete your account or a lab, email labnotes@researchhub.com. After deletion, copies in our backups roll off within 30 days.

Your choices

You can keep any note or project Only me, export your notes, and email labnotes@researchhub.com to ask for a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete it. Depending on where you live, you may have other rights under local privacy law; email us to use them.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects how we handle your notes, we'll tell you before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions or requests about privacy: labnotes@researchhub.com.