Privacy notice
BioMed Explorer is a free learning site about how medicines work. It is a small educational project maintained by one person, Paco Yiu, in Hong Kong. This page says plainly what the site keeps, why, and how to remove it. You never need an account to learn here. There are no ads, no advertising or tracking cookies of our own, and nothing is sold.
The short version
- Your learning progress is saved in your own browser. We keep no copy of it on our server.
- When you ask the AI Tutor, your question and a short summary of your progress are sent so the answer fits you. We do not store them.
- If you sign in with Google (optional), we keep your Google name, email address and profile-picture link, and nothing else from your Google account.
- You can sign out or delete your account at any time from Settings.
What stays in your browser
- Learning progress (XP, streaks, quiz history, saved words, settings) is stored in your browser's local storage on your device. We keep no copy of it on our server. (A short summary travels with AI Tutor questions, as described below.)
- AI Tutor conversations are saved only in your browser; we keep no copy. Use "Reset Learning History" in Privacy and data to clear them.
What is sent to our server
- AI Tutor questions. When you ask the AI Tutor something, your question and the chat so far are sent through our server to Google's Gemini API to produce a reply. So that answers fit you, the request also carries the page you are on, your learning level, a short summary of your progress (level, XP, strongest and weakest subjects, number of lessons completed) and a few notes from your session, such as topics you viewed or goals you mentioned. Your whole progress record is included in the request, but our server reads only that summary. We do not store any of it. Google handles it under its own terms for the Gemini API.
- A necessary cookie. The AI Tutor sets one cookie,
biomed_uid, containing a random identifier. It is used to count your daily AI Tutor allowance: our database keeps how many questions that identifier asked each day, not what was asked. It does not track who you are and is not used for advertising or analytics. - A limit per internet connection. To stop one person from using up the shared AI Tutor allowance by clearing their cookies again and again, we also count tutor questions per internet connection for people who are not signed in. We never store the address itself, only a scrambled code that changes every day. It cannot be turned back into an address or matched to the same connection on another day, and it is deleted within two days.
- Feedback you send. If you use the feedback form, what you write, your browser or device type, the page you were on and the app version are stored on our server. Name, email, institution and details about who you are (such as role or year) are optional. A copy is also emailed to the site owner through an email delivery service (Resend). We show a comment publicly and anonymously only if you tick the box agreeing to that; it then appears with the month, your star rating, a reference code and a general label such as "University student", never your name or email.
Signing in with Google (optional)
If you choose "Continue with Google", Google tells us three things: your name, your email address and a link to your profile picture, together with a Google account identifier. We store those so that your AI Tutor allowance, and in future your plan and saved progress, follow you to any device. We never see your Google password, and we do not read your contacts, mail, files or anything else in your Google account.
- We use this information only to run your account on BioMed Explorer. We do not sell it, share it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.
- While you are signed in, the necessary cookie above carries your account identifier instead of a random one.
- The Google sign-in button is loaded from Google only when you open the sign-in page. Google may set its own cookies and sees your IP address, under Google's own privacy policy. We load it nowhere else on the site.
- Signing in is meant for people who can have their own Google account. Younger learners can use the whole site without signing in.
BioMed Explorer's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Statistics and third parties
- Visitor statistics. Where enabled, Umami records page views and broad usage events without cookies and estimates unique visitors. It is not sent your name, email, AI questions or learning records. Cloudflare separately collects aggregate traffic and performance data. You can exclude your browser from Umami in Privacy and data.
- Fonts. Some fonts load from Google Fonts, which sees your IP address like any web request.
- Email delivery. Feedback notifications to the site owner are sent through Resend, which handles the message text and any name or email you included.
- Server logs. Our server records technical events, such as errors and the number of messages in a tutor request, but not what you type.
- Where it is kept. The site runs on Cloudflare. Feedback and account records are stored in a Neon (PostgreSQL) database hosted in the United States.
Keeping and removing your data
- Your account. Choose Settings, Delete my account. This removes your account record (name, email, picture link), your plan and your saved AI Tutor usage.
- Feedback. To remove something you submitted, write to the address below and mention roughly when you sent it.
- Your browser's data. Clear it with Reset Learning History, or by clearing this site's data in your browser.
Your rights and contact
Where Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance applies, we aim to follow its data-minimisation and purpose-limitation principles. You can ask to see, correct or delete personal data we hold about you by writing to [email protected]. This page is for general information and is not formal legal advice. We will update it, and the date above, when what the site does with data changes.
BioMed Explorer is for learning only. It is not medical advice. See the medical disclaimer on the site.