Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Methea is operated by Bermet Koshoeva, a sole proprietor (ИП / individual entrepreneur) registered in the Kyrgyz Republic. This policy — and our handling of your personal data — is governed by the laws of the Kyrgyz Republic, without limiting any data protection rights you have under the law of your own country (see section 7).

For the purposes of the EU/UK GDPR and similar laws, we act as the data controller for the account data you give us, and as a processor for the research content you upload (including any third-party personal data contained in it — see section 6).

2. What we collect

Account data. Your email address, and your name if you sign in with Google. Handled via our authentication provider (Supabase Auth).

Research inputs. The material you enter or upload to build your research: your topic and research question, degree level and discipline, any reading list you paste, and any assignment brief / Terms of Reference (TOR) files you upload. We extract and store the text of uploaded files; we do not retain the original file.

Interview transcripts. If you use the analysis features, the transcript text you upload is stored and processed. Transcripts may contain the verbatim words and personal data of your interview participants. See section 6 for your responsibilities here.

Usage data. Basic technical data needed to run and secure the service (e.g. authentication sessions).

Payment data. We do not collect or store payment card data directly. Purchases are handled by Paddle, our merchant of record — see section 4.

3. How we use your data

We use your data solely to provide the Methea service: to generate framework suggestions, methodology guidance, interview guides, and to code and synthesise your qualitative data against your chosen framework. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.

4. AI processing, sub-processors, and payments

To provide the service, your research text (brief, framework inputs, and transcript excerpts) is sent to third-party providers that process it on our behalf:

Text sent to Anthropic's API is not used to train Anthropic's models. Transcript excerpts are truncated before being sent (currently to ~12,000 characters for coding). We will keep this list of sub-processors current.

Payments. Purchases are handled by Paddle.com Market Limited, acting as our merchant of record. Paddle bills you directly, issues invoices/receipts, handles VAT and sales tax, and processes refunds. Paddle receives your billing details (name, email, payment method) directly and processes them under its own privacy policy — Methea does not see or store your card details.

5. Data retention and deletion

We retain your research content for as long as your account and project exist, including its version history (which lets you review changes over time).

You can request deletion of your account or a specific project at any time by emailing privacy@methea.app, and we will delete the associated data, including transcripts and their version history. (Self-service in-app deletion is on our roadmap; until then, deletion is handled on request.)

6. Interview participants — your responsibility

When you upload interview transcripts, you are responsible for having the appropriate legal basis to do so — for example, participant consent and/or ethics/IRB approval from your institution. Methea prompts you to confirm ethics status before generating an interview guide, but the responsibility for lawful collection and processing of participant data rests with you as the researcher. Where possible, we recommend pseudonymising participants before upload.

7. Your rights

Depending on your location (including under EU/UK GDPR), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, export, or restrict processing of your personal data, and to object to processing. To exercise any of these, email privacy@methea.app. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.

8. Security

Access to your data is protected by row-level security so that you can only reach your own projects, and data is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to fix issues promptly.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves (for example, when we add transcription or new features). We will update the "last updated" date and, for material changes, notify you.

10. Contact

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@methea.app