Privacy

The short version

• No account. You cannot register, and we have no user table.
• No name, email address, phone number or postal address is ever requested.
• No analytics, no advertising, no session replay, no tracking pixels, no cookies set by us.
• No third-party scripts of any kind are loaded.
• Your searches run entirely inside your browser and are never transmitted.
• We do not ask for, and would not accept, intimate photographs or sensitive uploads.

Why your question never leaves your device

The Ask and Search tools work by matching what you type against a list of articles that is already part of the page you downloaded. The matching happens in JavaScript, on your device.

Concretely, that means:

• There is no search API to call, so there is nowhere for your words to be sent.
• Search terms are not added to the URL, so they do not appear in your browser history or get bookmarked.
• They are not sent to analytics, because there is no analytics.
• They are not written to error logs, because no server handles them.
• They are not stored. Closing the tab discards them completely.

This is verified by an automated test that inspects the built site for any outbound request code. If someone adds a fetch call to the search, the build fails.

What the hosting provider may process

This site is hosted as static files on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare may process technical information needed to deliver the site — such as IP addresses, user agent strings and request times — for security and abuse prevention, and may retain some of it in server logs. We do not control that and do not have access to it.

We cannot promise complete anonymity. Your internet provider, your network and your browser can all see that you visited this site. We can only promise that we do not collect your data ourselves.

What is stored on your own device

Two things, and only if you change them yourself:

• Text size preference — saved in your browser's local storage under gc:text-scale, only when you use the text size control. It is never sent anywhere.
• Age preference — saved under gc:age-level, only when you choose an age pathway. It is never sent anywhere.

You can delete both at any time by clearing your browser data for this site. Some browsers block local storage in private mode; if so, the preferences simply do not persist.

Children and young people

Much of this audience is under 18, which brings stricter expectations rather than looser ones. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, of any age, because we do not collect it at all.

We do not publish user-submitted questions. We do not create health profiles or retain symptom histories. There is no mechanism on this site by which a reader's health information could be linked to an identity.

We would like to note one honest limit: we cannot prevent a person under 18, or anyone else, from browsing a health site without telling a parent or guardian. That is generally a good thing, and it is also why the site is designed so that asking does not require permission.

Corrections and reports

If you report a correction or contact us, we will receive whatever details you choose to give us. We will use them only to answer you, and we will not add you to any mailing list.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the change is committed to this site's public version history with a date. We would rather you could see what changed than have to take the current version on trust.

Not legal advice

This page describes what the code does. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer, and it does not address the specific requirements of any particular jurisdiction. Before launch, this policy needs review by someone qualified in the relevant privacy and child-protection law where the site is published.