What we do with what you tell us.

The short version

We ask for an email so we can send you a summary if you want one, and so you can come back to your chats. What you tell us in the chat isn’t connected to your name or email — those are stored separately, and the tools our team uses to read conversations don’t show who wrote them. We keep conversations so we can learn what’s missing and what to add next. We have never sold anything to anyone, we don’t advertise, and there is no tracking code on this site.

Who is responsible for your information

The Disability Tech Index is run by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Research Foundation (CPARF), a nonprofit registered in the United States, EIN 47-4851754, at 500 7th Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10018. If you want to reach a human about anything on this page, write to info@disabilitytechindex.org.

What we collect

• Your email address. Required before you can start a chat. A first name if you give one — it’s optional.
• What you type in the chat. Conversations are stored in full.
• Details we pick out of the conversation so recommendations fit: the conditions mentioned, what you’re trying to do, roughly where you are, and what you can spend. These are stored as separate fields, not just as text.
• Anything you put in a profile — the person’s name or label, disability, limitations, age range, location, how they pay for assistive technology, and your notes.
• Which recommendations you saved, tried, or ruled out, if you tell us.
• Basic technical records needed to run and protect the service, including your IP address for rate limiting and abuse prevention.

What we do with it

Three things, and no others:

• Answer your question. Your message, and any profile you chose, are used to find options that fit.
• Find what’s missing. When we can’t find a good match we record that as a gap. Those gaps decide what gets added to the Index next, and they help make the case for funding devices people need but can’t afford. This is aggregate work — it doesn’t need to know who you are.
• Tell you when something new fits, but only if you asked us to.

Who can see it

• Our team. Staff can read conversations to spot gaps and check that recommendations are honest. The tools they use don’t display your name or email alongside them.
• Anthropic and OpenAI. The chat is powered by their AI models, so your messages are sent to them to generate a reply and to search the catalog. Your name and email are not sent.
• Resend, which delivers our email, sees your address and the contents of what we send you.
• Supabase, which hosts the database, and Render, which runs the site.
• Voice typing. If you use the microphone button, your browser — not us — converts speech to text. In Chrome the audio goes to Google; in Safari, to Apple. Type instead if you’d rather it stayed on your device.

That is the whole list. We have never sold or rented anyone’s information, and we don’t give it to product makers, advertisers, or data brokers.

What we don't do

• We don’t sell your information, or accept payment to recommend a product.
• We don’t run ads or affiliate links.
• We don’t track you across other websites. There is no analytics or advertising code on this site.
• We don’t use cookies for tracking. The site stores a small amount of information in your own browser so you stay signed in and can return to a chat — that never leaves your device.

How long we keep it

We are honest about this one: right now we keep conversations indefinitely. We haven’t set an automatic deletion schedule yet, and we’d rather tell you that than imply otherwise. If you want your information removed sooner, ask us and we will do it — see below.

Your choices

• Stop the emails. Every email we send has an unsubscribe link. One click, no sign-in needed, and it takes effect immediately.
• Delete a profile. Open your profiles and use “Delete this profile”.
• Delete everything. Email info@disabilitytechindex.org and we will remove your account, your profiles, and your conversations, including the transcripts. A person does this by hand, so allow a few days. Copies may survive in database backups until those age out.
• Ask what we hold. Write to the same address and we’ll tell you.

Children

The Index is built for adults — including parents, carers, teachers and clinicians looking for technology on behalf of a child. It isn’t designed for children to use directly, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them. If a child has given us information, write to us and we’ll remove it.

Changes to this page

If we change how any of this works, we’ll update this page and change the date at the top. We won’t quietly start doing something this page says we don’t.