Citewise privacy policy

Citewise is built to need as little of your data as possible. It has no accounts, no analytics and no advertising.

What stays on your device

Your bibliography, your chosen citation style and your settings are saved in your browser's own storage. They are never sent anywhere. When you cite the page you have open, Citewise reads that page's title, author, date and site name inside your browser to build the citation.

What Citewise looks up

To build a citation from something you paste or type, Citewise has to ask for the details. It sends only what you entered, and only to the service that holds the answer:

- A web address: Citewise requests that page directly, without your cookies, the same way your browser would if you opened it.

- A DOI: sent to CrossRef (api.crossref.org).

- A PubMed article: its ID is sent to PubMed (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).

- An ISBN or a book title: sent to Open Library and Google Books.

- A video link: sent to YouTube, Vimeo or TikTok to get the uploader's name.

These services receive the request from your browser, as they would on any visit. Citewise does not tell them who you are. 

Feedback you choose to send

Nothing is sent unless you press the button. If you suggest a feature or report a bug, Citewise sends your message, the page link if you add one to a bug report, the Citewise version and your browser's name. If you remove Citewise and pick reasons on the way out, it sends those reasons and your browser's name. Both are stored with the date they arrived, with a hosting provider. No name, email, account or IP address is saved with them, so they cannot be linked back to you. Please leave personal details out of your message. Feedback is used only to fix problems and improve Citewise. Feature ideas and bug reports are deleted after 90 days. Removal reasons are deleted after one year.

What Citewise does not do

Apart from the above, Citewise does not collect, store, sell or share personally identifiable information, health information, financial information, authentication credentials, location data, browsing history, or user activity such as clicks, keystrokes or mouse movement.