AI2 Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 1, 2021

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (“AI2” or “We”) is committed to maintaining your confidence and trust with respect to your privacy. Please read this privacy policy carefully to understand our practices about how we collect, use and share your personal information.

About our Privacy Policy

This privacy policy applies only to this website (allenai.org) and our other websites or services, including events, that refer or link to this privacy policy (each, a “Site” and together, collectively, the “Sites”), and any other personal information obtained when you call, email, or otherwise communicate with AI2. This privacy policy describes the types of information we collect on through the Sites, how we use such information and to whom and under what circumstances we may disclose it. It also describes your choices regarding use, access and correction of your personal information.

When you access the Sites on any computer, mobile phone, tablet, or other device (collectively, “Device”) or otherwise interact with AI2, this privacy policy applies. Please read this privacy policy carefully to understand our practices about how we collect, use and share your personal information. This privacy policy may be supplemented by additional privacy statements, terms or notices provided to you.

AI2 may modify this privacy policy at any time, and will post the current version on the Sites. We encourage you to periodically review our privacy policy to stay informed about how we are using the information we collect.

This privacy policy does not apply to any third party applications or software that integrates with the Sites, or any other third party products, services or businesses (collectively, “Third Party Services”). The organization (e.g., your employer or another entity or person) that entered into the User Agreement (“User”) controls the content submitted through the Sites and any associated User Data.

Information we Collect

We collect information about you in three ways: (i) information that you provide to us; (ii) from third-party sources; and (iii) through automated technologies.

1. Information you provide to us: We explain here what categories of personal information we have collected, where we got it from, and with whom we have shared it:

   1. Contact information: Such as name, email address, postal address, phone number, social media handle and ORCID.

      1. Source: From our users when they visit the Sites, call us, sign-up for emails or another service, or otherwise interact with us.

      2. Purpose for Collection: To communicate with and respond to our users about the services we offer or the work we do for them, including verification of identity or to meet legal obligations.

      3. Categories of Recipients: We may share this information with select marketing, information technology, or other service providers and partners.

   2. Account information and preferences: Such as account login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, password hints and similar security information; other account registration and profile information, including educational, professional and other background information, such as your field of study, current position, affiliation, academic homepage, practice area and areas of interests, and photo; communications preferences, such as your preferred language and the frequency, type and format of the alerts you sign up to receive.

      1. Source: From our users when they register for or update an account, use their accounts on the Sites or otherwise interact with us or users in connection with their accounts.

      2. Purpose for Collection: To allow our users to register and maintain their accounts and for us to provide our users services, deliver communications and otherwise assist with their accounts.

      3. Categories of Recipients: Our service providers who help us facilitate account log in and with website analytics, marketing and user activity on the Sites.

   3. User submissions: Such as: information that you communicate to us, such as questions or information you send to ai2-info@allenai.org, feedback@semanticscolar.org, legal@allenai.org, https://pages.semanticscholar.org/publisher-partners, https://pages.semanticscholar.org/data-partners, as well as our Site leaderboards, newsletter subscription web form and other webforms; data that you provide to us as part of interacting with the Site, such as your saved papers, email alerts, favorites and search queries.

      1. Source: From our users when they visit the Sites, call us, sign-up for emails or another service, or otherwise interact with us.

      2. Purpose for Collection: Improve our services, and let you know about new services and also prospecting for new partners.

      3. Categories of Recipients: We may share this information with select marketing, information technology, or other service providers and partners.

   4. Browsing information: Such as your IP address, MAC address or other device identifier, the kind of browser or computer you use, pages and content that you visit on the Sites, what you click on, what you view, and what you don’t click on, the state and country from which you access the Sites, date and time of your visit, web pages you linked to our Sites from, and browsing and search history.

      1. Source: Our Sites and your interactions with the Sites, including through the use of cookies and other tracking technologies explained further below.

      2. Purpose for Collection: To evaluate usage of the Sites and improve performance of the Sites and our services; to protect the security and integrity of the Sites and our business, such as preventing fraud, hacking, and other criminal activity or to meet legal obligations.

      3. Categories of Recipients: Our service providers who help us with fraud protection, website analytics, marketing and user activity on the Sites.

   5. Suspected crime information: Such as: details of your identity, image, name and address, suspected or alleged thefts, fraud, assault or other criminal behavior.

      1. Source: From crime and fraud prevention agencies, from you, witnesses, and from the police.

      2. Purpose for Collection: To protect users, the public and our business against risks and crime.

      3. Categories of Recipients: Law enforcement and other governmental authorities in accordance with applicable law, and our professional advisors.

2. Third Party Sources: We also may obtain personal information and other information about you from our parent corporation, affiliates and subsidiaries (collectively, “PGA Group”) as well as from third parties, including: (1) third party companies or individuals that help us process information and support the Sites (“Third Party Providers”); and (2) publicly-available sources and data suppliers from which we obtain data to validate or supplement the information we hold or to otherwise use in connection with operating our Sites and business.

   1. This data includes information such as: information we gather from public websites, author name information, affiliation, email addresses (from our publisher partners, aggregated data from our Third Party Providers, metadata from conference partnerships or other providers, and web crawls. This data may be combined with other information we collect and might include aggregate level data, such as which IP addresses correspond to zip codes or countries.

   2. Typically, Third Party Services are software that integrates with our Sites, and User can permit their authorized users to enable and disable these integrations. Once enabled, the provider of a Third Party Service may share certain information with AI2. Authorized users should check the privacy settings and notices in these Third Party Services to understand what data may be disclosed to AI2. When a Third Party Service is enabled, AI2 is authorized to connect and access other information made available to AI2 in accordance with our agreement with the Third Party Provider. AI2 does not, however, receive or store passwords for any of these Third Party Services when connecting them to the Sites.

3. Automated Technologies: The Sites may also automatically collect information about how you and your Device interact with the Site, such as:

   1. Device and connection information, such as IP address, browser type and version, operating system and other software installed on your Device, unique Device identifier and other technical identifiers, error reports and performance data and your activity on the Sites;

   2. Usage data, such as the features you used, the settings you selected, URL clickstream data, including date and time stamp and referring and exit pages, and pages you visited on the Site;

   3. For educational Sites, the course modules and test questions you view, answer or complete; and/or

   4. For location-aware Sites, the physical location of your Device.

Cookies

Like many websites, AI2 analyzes how visitors use our Sites through what is known as “cookie” technology or similar tracking tools. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your computer when you access the Sites and allows us to recognize you each time you visit the Sites. We may use cookies to: (i) allow you to use the Sites without having to re-enter your user name and password; (ii) enhance or personalize your Site usage and experience; (iii) monitor and track your Site usage; (iv) manage the Sites; and (v) understand, improve and research products, features and services, including to create logs and record when you access the Sites from different devices, such as your work computer or your mobile device, and to provide you with interest-based ads. For more information on our advertising, see below: “Interest-Based Advertising.” You can control cookies through your browser’s settings and other tools. However, if you choose to block certain cookies, you may not be able to register, login, or access certain parts or make full use of the pages and features that are currently on our Sites, or that we may put on our Sites in the future. Note that browser-management tools for cookies are outside of our control and we cannot guarantee their effectiveness. We may combine the information we collect through cookies, web beacons, or other technology tools with other information we have collected from you or information from other sources.

Interest-Based Advertising

We may use third-party advertising companies that use tracking technologies to serve our advertisements across the Internet. These companies may collect information about your visits to the Sites and other websites and your interaction with our advertising and other communications. These advertising companies serve ads on behalf of us and others on non-affiliated sites, and some of those ads may be personalized, meaning that they are intended to be relevant to you based on information collected about your visits to the Sites and elsewhere over time.

You have the choice to tell us not to collect and use this information, and in some jurisdictions, we will only engage in interest-based advertising if you opt-in. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices concerning interest-based ads, visit: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or http://www.aboutads.info/choices

How we use Your Information

This Section describes how AI2 may use your personal information. Depending on how you interact with us and the Sites, we may use your personal information in the following ways and contexts.

1. User Consent: We use information to fulfill requests made by you, such as to:

   1. Respond to your requests, inquiries, comments or concerns;
   2. Process and fulfill a request, order, download, subscription or other transaction; and/or
   3. Share information with third parties and to enable or permit Authorized Users to enable Third Party Services.

2. Manage the Site: We use information to provide, update, maintain and protect our Sites and our business. This includes use of information to:

   1. Provide, activate and manage your access to and use of the Sites;
   2. Notify you about changes, updates and other announcements related to the Sites;
   3. Enhance and improve the Sites, such as add new content and features;
   4. Allow you to participate in interactive features and personalize your preferences on the Sites;
   5. Send service, technical and other administrative emails, messages and other types of communications;
   6. If you are an administrator of an institution with a subscription to a Site, we will use your details to communicate with you about your institution’s subscription and related services. If you supply us contact information of your colleagues, we may include a reference to you when we contact those individuals with communications about the Site; and/or
   7. Engage Third Party Providers who may, for example, provide virtual computing and storage services. Additional information about the Third Party Providers we use to support delivery of our Sites is available upon written request to legal@allenai.org. We do not rent or sell your information in personally identifiable form to anyone.

3. Manage Security: We use information to enforce our rights, prevent fraud, and for safety and to protect and defend the rights, property or safety of AI2 or third parties, including enforcing contracts or policies, or in connection with investigating and preventing fraud or security issues, in the following ways:

   1. Provide technical, product and other support and help to keep the Sites working, safe and secure;
   2. Investigate and help prevent security issues and abuse;
   3. Conduct and administer user testing and surveys;
   4. Prevent or address service errors;
   5. Address security or technical issues; and/or
   6. Contact you to inform you about changes in our Sites, our service offerings, and important Site-related notices, such as security and fraud notices.

4. Legal and Corporate Compliance: We use information to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements required by applicable law, legal process or regulation.

5. Other Legitimate Interests: We use information in furtherance of other legitimate interests in operating our Sites and business. More specifically, we use information to:

   1. Conduct scientific research and for statistical purposes;
   2. Enhance and improve our events and Sites and develop new ones;
   3. Offer you customized content and other personalization to make the Site more efficient for you and more relevant to your interests and geography;
   4. Identify usage trends and develop data analysis, including for the purposes of research, audits, reporting and other business operations and scientific purposes; and/or
   5. Develop and provide search, learning and productivity tools and additional features.

If information is aggregated or de-identified so it is no longer reasonably associated with an identified or identifiable natural person, AI2 may use it for any business purpose. Users determine their own policies and practices for the sharing and disclosure of information, and AI2 does not control how they or any other third parties choose to share or disclose information.

Disclosure of Your Information

This Section describes how AI2 may disclose your personal information. Depending on how you interact with us and the Sites, we may disclose your personal information in the following ways and contexts. We may disclose information collected from and about you as follows:

1. To our related companies and service providers, to perform a business, professional or technical support function for us;
2. To our marketing partners or service providers in connection with marketing our current and future product and service offerings;
3. As necessary if we believe that there has been a violation of any Site terms of use or of our rights or the rights of any third party;
4. To respond to legal process (such as a search warrant, subpoena or court order) and provide information to law enforcement agencies or in connection with an investigation on matters related to public safety, as permitted by law, or otherwise as required by law; and
5. In the event that our company or substantially all of its assets are acquired, your personal information may be one of the transferred assets.

We may also disclose your personal information with your express consent. If information is aggregated or de-identified so it is no longer reasonably associated with an identified or identifiable natural person, AI2 may share it with third parties. Please note that if you voluntarily submit any personal information for posting on the Sites, such as a review or a blog post, the information becomes publicly available and can be collected and used by others, so you should use care before posting information about yourself online. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you may choose to share your information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your information will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. You understand that when you use public areas of the Sites, your information will be available to other users and in some cases may be publicly available. We recommend you be cautious about giving out personal information to others or sharing personal information in public areas, whether designated as public or private. We are not responsible for the personal information you choose to share in these public areas or for the actions of any third parties with whom you share personal information.

Access, Correction, and Deletion

We respect your right to access and correct your personal information. You may exercise your rights, subject to applicable laws, to request that we delete or restrict access to your personal data. We may need to retain it for legally permitted purposes and this will be explained to you if necessary. In addition, if you have claimed your author page in our Semantic Scholar service (“Semantic Scholar”) as described in the “Service Specific Details” section below, you may access your personal information by signing into your account. From there, you can correct or modify your information. If you need assistance correcting or updating your personal information, or would like to request that we delete your personal information, please contact us using the contact information detailed in the “Contact” section below.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information that we collect, access or process only for as long as necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was collected unless otherwise provided in agreements between you and AI2 or as required or authorized by law. Personal information that is no longer required to fulfill the identified purposes will be destroyed, erased or made de-identified.

Data Security

We work hard to protect information you provide from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access or disclosure. We take into account the sensitivity of the information we collect, process and store, and the current state of technology. We follow generally accepted standards designed to protect the information submitted to us, both during transmission and once it is received. If you have any questions about the security of your information, you can contact us using the contact information detailed in the “Contact” section below. Given the nature of communications and information processing technology, AI2 cannot guarantee that information, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, will be absolutely safe from intrusion by others. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where AI2 has given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of the Sites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone, and we urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of the websites like message boards. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the Sites.

Third Party Websites

The Sites may contain links to, or other options to redirect to or integrate with, third-party websites, such as (but not limited to) social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. We are not responsible for the activities and practices that take place on these websites. Accordingly, we recommend that you review the privacy policy posted on any external site before disclosing any personal information. Please contact those websites directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.

Locations of Processing

Your information will be stored and processed by AI2 in the United States. We take steps, including through contracts, to ensure that the information continues to be protected wherever it is located in a manner consistent with the standards of protection required under applicable law. If you are visiting the Sites from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States or other countries in accordance with this privacy policy. Where personal information is transferred from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses and Privacy Shield Frameworks to transfer the data and/or as otherwise authorized by applicable law. The data protection and other applicable laws of the United States or other countries may not be as comprehensive as those laws or regulations in your country or may otherwise differ from the data protection or consumer protection laws in your country. Your information may be available to government authorities under lawful orders and law applicable in such jurisdictions. By using the Sites and/or providing personal information to us, you consent to transfer of your information to our facilities as described in this privacy policy.

Grounds for Processing

When we collect from you any personal information within the scope of European data protection laws, we do so:

1. Where necessary to provide the Sites, fulfill a transaction or otherwise perform a contract with you or at your request prior to entering into a contract;
2. Where necessary for our compliance with applicable law or other legal obligation;
3. Where necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest;
4. Where applicable, with your consent;
5. As necessary to operate our business, protect the security of our systems and users, detect or prevent fraud, or fulfill our other legitimate interests as described in the sections above, except where our interests are overridden by your privacy rights; and/or
6. Where necessary to complete scientific research where omitting such personal information would render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of the specific scientific research purpose.

Where we rely on your consent to process personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, and where we rely on legitimate interests, you may have the right to object to our processing.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

AI2 may change this privacy policy from time to time. Laws, regulations and industry standards evolve, which may make those changes necessary, or we may make changes to our business. We will post the changes to this page and encourage you to review our privacy policy to stay informed. Under certain circumstances, we will provide additional notice, such as via email or through the Sites. If you disagree with the changes to this privacy policy, you should deactivate your account and immediately cease using the Sites.

Contact

If you have any questions, comments, complaints or requests regarding this privacy policy or our processing of your information, please contact us at the following:

By Mail:
The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
2157 North Northlake Way, Suite 110
Seattle, WA. 98103
Attn: Legal Department

By Email:
legal@allenai.org

If we need, or are required, to contact you concerning this privacy policy or any event that involves your information, we may do so by email, or mail.

Children Under the Age of 13

Our Sites are not intended for children under 13 years of age. No one under age 13 may provide any information to or on the Sites. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. If you are under 13, do not use or provide any information on the Sites or on or through any of its features, make any purchases through the Sites, use any of the interactive or public comment features of this Sites or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address or any screen name or user name you may use. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us using the contact information detailed in the “Contact” section above and we will delete that information immediately.

Service-Specific Details

1. Semantic Scholar. Please read the service-specific details below for additional information about AI2’s project, Semantic Scholar (https://www.semanticscholar.org/), which apply to Semantic Scholar in addition to this Privacy Policy:

   1. We collect author names as publicly accessible metadata from the web, publishers and other sources for display across our website including in association with papers, presentations, blog posts, code repositories, videos and citations/references. This data and content is stored indefinitely, but can be removed for display from our public-facing website by removing the associated content (note: we currently only have removal tools for presentations, papers, figures and tables). Removal does not result in complete deletion of the associated content.

   2. We use the author name from this publicly accessible metadata to auto-generate author pages where we display content associated with an author, compute citation statistics and display links to other authors.

   3. Author profile pages can be updated by using the “Claim Author Page” button on an author’s page to add/remove papers, add an affiliation, add a link to a homepage and add an ORCID ID to an author’s profile. Requesters who submit changes are required to provide their first and last name, e-mail address and justification which we store in a database to validate the request. You have the ability to un-claim a profile.

   4. We provide multiple options to sign in via third-party providers such as, for example, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and OpenAthens. As part of the sign-in process we collect and store the data such as user name, screen name, auth token, affiliation. Please contact us if you’d like further information about the data provided by your sign in provider.

2. Skylight. For information about how we collect, use and share your personal information in connection with our Skylight services, please review the Skylight Privacy Policy.

3. EarthRanger. For information about how we collect, use, and share your personal information in connection with our EarthRanger services, please review the EarthRanger Privacy Policy.