Privacy
Privacy Policy
Effective 30 October 2026
What Arche collects, where it is kept, and who can see it. In short: your work stays where you put it, AI runs only on private models, and your data is never sold or used for training.
1Who we are
Arche is run by Heterodox Labs, Inc. (“we”, “us”), a Colorado corporation with its office at 273 Granby St, Suite 250, Norfolk, VA 23510, USA. This policy covers archescience.ai and the Arche apps. Reach us at hello@archescience.ai.
2What we collect
- Account details: your email address, name, username, profile picture, research interests, the labs and organizations you join, when you agreed to these terms, and whether you have confirmed your email address.
- What you keep on Arche: labs, files, experiments, Vision runs (video footage, lab logs, notes, summaries), discussion posts, attachments and literature lookups that you set to Public or Private-global.
- Activity records: changes made in labs and organizations (who did what, and when) are written to an append-only log so members can trust the history.
- Usage counts: the number of AI requests and literature lookups per account, so limits can be applied fairly.
- Page views: Vercel Web Analytics records which pages are opened, with anything typed into the address bar after the page path removed. It does not use cookies.
- Technical logs: our hosting providers keep standard request and error logs (such as IP address and browser type) for security and to fix problems. When an account is created we also keep a one-way hash of the IP address for a day, to limit automated sign-ups.
3What stays in your browser
Anything you set to Private-local (files, experiments, Vision runs and their footage) is stored only in the browser you are using. It is not uploaded to Arche. When you switch something to Private-local, Arche keeps a copy in this browser and then deletes the copy on Arche. Clearing site data, or using another browser or device, means it is not available there.
Assistant chat history is also kept only in this browser, separately for each account. It stays there when you sign out and comes back when you sign in again on the same browser; clearing site data deletes it. On a shared computer, clear site data when you finish. Some preferences, such as layout choices, are stored the same way.
4AI features and Venice
The assistant, Vision lab logs and summaries, and literature lookups are powered by Venice.ai. When you use them, the text, images or video frames needed for the answer are sent from our servers to Venice. This includes Private-local material you choose to ask about; it passes through to Venice and is not saved on Arche.
We only use models that Venice lists as private. Before each request our server checks Venice's live model list and sends nothing if it cannot confirm the model is private. Venice states that it does not store prompts or responses for these models.
Your data is not used to train AI models.
5Literature search
To find papers, our servers send search keywords drawn from your question to OpenAlex and arXiv, and may download openly available paper pages and PDFs from journal and preprint sites. These requests come from our servers, not your browser, and do not include your account details.
6Who can see your work
- Public: anyone, including people without an account.
- Private-global: you and the lab or people it is shared with, according to the lab's settings. It is not listed publicly.
- Private-local: only this browser.
7Service providers
We use a small number of providers to run Arche:
- Supabase, for the database, sign-in and file storage.
- Vercel, for hosting and page-view analytics.
- Venice.ai, for AI features, as described above.
- Mailchimp (Intuit), for our email updates, as described below.
We do not sell your data and do not use it for advertising.
8Emails from us
We email you about your account, for example to confirm your email address or reset your password. These emails are part of the service.
When you create an account we also add your email address and name to the Heterodox Labs, Inc. mailing list, kept with Mailchimp, for occasional updates about Arche. Every update has an unsubscribe link, and you can also ask us to remove you by emailing hello@archescience.ai. Unsubscribing does not affect your account.
9How long we keep it
We keep your account and what you store on Arche until you delete it or close your account. Deleted items are removed from Arche straight away, and may remain in backups for a limited time before those are overwritten.
Activity records are kept for the life of the lab or organization so its history stays intact. They describe what changed, not the contents of your files.
To close your account and delete its data, email hello@archescience.ai from the address on the account.
10Security
Data travels over encrypted connections, and access rules in the database decide who can read or change each item. No system is perfectly secure, so please keep your own copies of important research records.
11Your choices and rights
You can view and edit most of your information in Arche. You can also ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to delete it by emailing hello@archescience.ai. Depending on where you live, you may have further rights under local law, and we will honour them.
12Age
Arche is meant for people 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect data from children.
13Changes to this policy
If we change this policy, we will update it here. For changes that affect how your data is used, we will ask you to review and agree again before you continue.
Questions? Email hello@archescience.ai. See also the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.