Privacy and data handling

What this page covers

DebateLens holds material that can be sensitive: broadcast recordings, transcripts, coded observations, and the interpretations a researcher attaches to them. This page states what is collected, who can reach it, and how it is removed.

It describes the system as currently implemented. Where a detail has not been independently verified, it is marked as such rather than asserted.

Account data

Creating an account stores your email address, a display name if you give one, and an authentication record. Signing in with Google stores the email address and profile name returned by Google. Passwords are never stored in readable form.

Research material

Recordings, audio files and transcripts you upload are held in private storage. Studies, turns, observations, evaluations and reports are stored in a database with row-level access rules that bind every record to the account that created it.

No other account can read your studies or your uploads. Access is checked on the server for every request, not only in the interface.

Automated processing

When you run an analysis, extracts of your material — audio segments, video frames and transcript text — are sent to the AI models that perform transcription, coding and the comparative evaluation. Those providers process the content to return a result. Your material is not used by DebateLens to train any model.

If you do not want a recording sent for automated processing, upload a transcript instead, or code the study manually.

Retention and deletion

Material is retained for as long as the study exists in your account. Deleting a study deletes its turns, observations, evaluations and reports. Deleting a media asset removes the stored file.

To have an entire account and all of its material removed, use the support route below; the request is carried out manually.

Public figures and broadcast material

Televised debates are public political speech, and analysing them is ordinary scholarly work. That does not transfer broadcast rights: you remain responsible for holding the right to upload and retain any recording you place in the system, and for the terms under which you publish extracts of it.

Raising a concern

A published support address is being confirmed. Until then, requests about access, correction or deletion should be raised through the researcher who operates this installation.