Privacy Policy

CucurbitAgent is a non-commercial research platform operated by the Beijing Vegetable Research Center (BVRC), Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (BAAFS). We collect as little information as possible — only what is needed to verify you are a real person, keep the service running, and fix problems when they occur. We do not collect passwords, do not track you across other sites, and do not sell or share your data.

1. What We Collect

Only the following:

• Email address — used solely to verify that you are a real person. Sign-in is by a one-time code sent to your email; we never ask for or store a password.
• Professional role — the category you select at registration (e.g. researcher, student), for our records only.
• Search and query records — when you look up a gene, run an analysis, or ask the CucurbitAgent assistant a question, the text of your query is logged together with your user ID and a hashed IP address. This is used to reproduce and diagnose problems and to understand which features are used.
• Error logs — server-side error and diagnostic messages generated while you use the platform, used solely to find and fix bugs.
• Feedback you choose to submit — anything you enter on the Feedback page. We only record this when you actively submit it.

For technical integrity only, verification codes and session tokens are stored as salted cryptographic hashes (not plaintext) and are deleted shortly after use. To display the aggregate visitor statistics in the site footer, an approximate country is derived from your IP address and stored as a hash; the raw IP is not retained.

2. Why We Collect It

• To confirm you are a real person and to keep you signed in.
• To reproduce, investigate, and fix errors you encounter.
• To understand which modules are useful and to improve the platform.
• To respond when you contact us or submit feedback.

3. The AI Assistant

When you ask the CucurbitAgent assistant a question, your query text is sent to our AI model provider (Zhipu AI) in order to generate a response. This is the only situation in which your input leaves our servers. Apart from this, your information is not shared with any third party.

4. How Long We Keep It

• One-time sign-in codes: deleted immediately after use or after 10 minutes.
• Sessions: expire after 30 days of inactivity.
• Search / query logs and error logs: kept for up to 90 days, then deleted.
• Your email, role, and feedback: kept for as long as your account exists, and deleted on request.

5. Security

No passwords are stored. Codes and tokens are stored only as salted hashes. Data is hosted on institutionally controlled servers. As with any online service, absolute security cannot be guaranteed.

6. Your Rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of the information we hold about you, and you may withdraw your consent at any time (which will close your account). To do so, email bvrc@nercv.org.

7. Changes to This Policy

If this policy is updated, the version and date above will change. Where a change is material we will ask for your agreement again the next time you sign in.

8. Contact

Questions about your data? Email bvrc@nercv.org, or write to:
Beijing Vegetable Research Center (BVRC), BAAFS
No. 50 Zhanghua Road, Haidian District, Beijing, China