Last Updated: August 19, 2026
Psyche exists to advance the science of self-understanding. This policy explains the two levels at which your data can support that mission: a baseline that applies to everyone who uses Psyche, and an explicit, optional level you can choose to opt into. The difference between the two comes down to one question — can anything that leaves Psyche be traced back to you?
Using Psyche means your responses help improve Psyche and contribute to research in a form that can never be traced back to you as an individual. Under this baseline:
This baseline is part of using the platform, covered by our Terms and Privacy Policy. It uses a pseudonymous research identifier internally so we can study patterns over time — but nothing that leaves Psyche under this level can be linked back to you.
If you turn on Contribute to Science in your settings, you allow more:
This is the level where individual-level data leaves Psyche — always pseudonymized, always to vetted researchers under agreement, never to advertisers, and never sold. You can turn it off at any time (see "Your Control").
Two different kinds of sensitive answer are covered here, and they are handled differently. Both are special category data under privacy law (GDPR Article 9).
Ethnicity, race, religious affiliation and sexual orientation. These are optional demographic answers, and we will not store them at all unless you have turned on Contribute to Science. If it is off, our servers refuse to save them and tell you so. That opt-in is your explicit consent, and it is the only basis we hold them under.
The sensitive assessments. Three assessments produce special-category answers: the two neurodivergence screeners (AQ-28 and ASRS), and the social and economic attitudes scale (SECS), which asks about political views. We keep those answers because your result is computed from them and shown back to you — that is what you asked us for when you opened the assessment, and we cannot show you a result while discarding the answers it is made of. We do not treat opening an assessment as your agreement to anything beyond giving you your own result.
For the two screeners, the US basis is the provision in Washington's My Health My Data Act and Nevada's SB 370 that permits collecting health data to the extent necessary to provide a service you requested. Those laws cover health data only, so they do not reach the political answers; no US state privacy law that applies to us treats political opinions as sensitive data. GDPR Article 9 covers all three and has no equivalent "necessary for the service" basis. Peli is available in the United States only; if you are in the EEA or UK and want these answers held on an explicit-consent basis, turn on Contribute to Science — that is where our explicit-consent record lives — or don't take those three assessments.
Contribute to Science governs research use, and for the four demographic fields it also governs storage. It is opt-in, and opting in is the only thing that lets your individual-level answers leave Psyche or lets us contact you about a study. The baseline internal analysis described under Level 1 — population norms, reliability and validity statistics — runs either way and leaves Psyche only as aggregate findings. If you don't opt in: your sensitive-assessment answers are still stored so you can read your own results, and the four demographic fields are not stored at all.
Withdrawing Contribute to Science does more than stop future use. It erases the four special-category demographic fields, which we have no basis to keep once the consent is gone, and it deletes every sensitive-assessment attempt — all three — including the results you can currently read. We do that not because we lose the basis to hold them, but because we said we would: the data is gone, not flagged off. If you want to keep those results, export them before you turn this off.
We will not attempt to re-identify data we have anonymized, and we require the same of every recipient. We have never received payment or other consideration for anyone's answers, and we do not sell them. The Terms reserve the ability to license fully anonymized, aggregated data — statistics from which no individual can be identified — for the scientific purposes listed there; individual-level answers are never sold, licensed, or exchanged for anything.
We use two levels of protection, matching the two levels of participation above.
For internal research (Level 1) and for the datasets shared under Contribute to Science (Level 2), your data is pseudonymized: direct identifiers (name, email, IP address) are removed and replaced with a research identifier. Pseudonymized data lets us conduct longitudinal research and keeps your identity separated from your responses.
Pseudonymized research data retains:
The research identifier — and, for opt-in users, the mapping that lets Psyche reach you for recruitment — is stored separately from your account and is accessible only to authorized personnel. That mapping is never shared with any external party.
Anything shared outside Psyche under the baseline (Level 1) is aggregate only — population-level patterns with no individual rows. Aggregate findings cannot be traced to any individual, even by us.
Individual-level data only ever leaves Psyche under Contribute to Science (Level 2), and only in pseudonymized form to vetted researchers under a data-use agreement.
If you delete your account, any research contributions we retain are reduced to fully anonymized or aggregate form — the research identifier is destroyed and replaced with a one-way hash, and quasi-identifiers (exact birth date, country, IP) are removed.
| Use | Level | What leaves Psyche |
|---|---|---|
| Psychometric validation (factor structure, IRT, reliability) | Internal (everyone) | Nothing individual — internal only |
| Population norms | Internal (everyone) | Nothing individual — internal only |
| Published scientific findings | Internal (everyone) | Aggregate only |
| AI / model training | Internal (everyone) | Nothing — trained on patterns, not memorized responses |
| Research datasets for external researchers | Opt-in only | Pseudonymized, individual-level, vetted recipients under agreement |
| Study & cohort recruitment (e.g. pharmaceutical research) | Opt-in only | Nothing until you agree to a specific study; contact is Psyche-mediated |
Permitted recipients (aggregate findings from everyone; pseudonymized individual-level data only from opt-in users):
Never, for any purpose:
We never sell data that identifies you, and we never share the mapping that could re-identify you.
We only share data — aggregate or pseudonymized — for uses intended to improve outcomes for people: advancing scientific understanding, improving healthcare, or developing better assessment tools. We will not share data for purposes designed to coerce, manipulate, or exploit individuals, including advertising, behavioral targeting, or surveillance. This principle guides every decision we make.
To be precise: turning this off does not delete your results or your account. Your assessment responses stay in your account, linked to you, because that's what lets us show you your own results. If you want everything removed, delete your account and we remove your personal data within 30 days.
We remove your personal data within 30 days. Behavioral response-quality signals are deleted. Any research contributions we retain are reduced to fully anonymized or aggregate form and can no longer be traced back to you.
Research data is:
If you have questions about how your data is used for research, please contact us.
This policy may be updated periodically. Significant changes will be communicated via email or platform notification.