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Basil Brief — privacy

What we record, why we record it, and how to have it deleted.

Last updated: 31 August 2026. Basil Brief is a beta service.

Read this first. Basil Brief runs on our servers and records every question and every answer, on purpose, so we can improve the service. Do not enter client confidences, privileged material, or anything you would not want us to read.

Basil Brief is not the Basil notetaker. The notetaker runs on your device and never sees your content. This is the opposite product, and the notetaker's privacy policy does not apply here.

What we collect

What	Why	Where it is kept
Your email address, and your name and profile picture if you sign in with Google	To create your account and to contact you about the beta	Google Firebase Authentication
Every question you ask and every answer we return, with the authorities we retrieved and whether the answer's citations checked out	To find where the service gives poor answers and to fix them	Google BigQuery, in the United States
Your conversation history	To show your recent research when you come back	Google Firestore, in the United States
Standard web analytics: pages viewed, and for each answer its citation score, how many sources it used, and whether a file was attached	To see how the service is used	Google Analytics. We do not send your questions or answers to Google Analytics.

Files you upload are not stored

When you attach a document or an image, we read it in memory to answer that one question and then discard it. We do not write it to disk, to a database, or to file storage. We record only the file type, such as "application/pdf", so we can see that a file was attached. We never keep its contents or its name.

Who else sees your questions

Google Cloud processes your questions to search the corpus and write the answer, using Vertex AI in the United States. Google acts as our processor and does not use your questions to train its models.
Nobody else. We do not sell your data, we do not share it with advertisers, and we do not give it to other companies.
Our own team reads questions and answers to improve the service. That is the point of the logging, and it is why the warning above matters.

How long we keep it

We keep your account, your history and the question log for as long as the beta runs. We have not set an automatic deletion date yet. Ask us and we will delete your data.

Deleting your data

One conversation: hover it in the Recent list and press the ×. It is removed from your history.
Your account and everything in it: email michael@stajer.net and we will delete your account, your history and your question log.

Cookies and browser storage

Basil Brief stores a sign-in token in your browser so you stay signed in. Google Analytics sets its own cookies to count visits. There are no advertising cookies.

Where you are

Basil Brief is operated from the United States and your data is processed there. If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Union, you have rights over your data, including the right to see it and to have it deleted. Email us and we will act on the request.

Children

Basil Brief is a professional research tool for adults. It is not for anyone under 18.

Changes

This is a beta and the service changes often. When we change what we record, we change this page. The date at the top tells you when it last changed.

Contact

Email michael@stajer.net with any question about your data, or to ask for it to be deleted.