Privacy Policy
VideoIndex is a video indexing project. This site (videoindex.org) is a static page. The demo (videoindex.app) lets signed-in visitors ask questions about a fixed set of public YouTube videos. This policy describes what those services collect and what happens to it. It is written to be read, not skimmed; it is short because we collect little.
1. What we collect
1.1 Sign-in with Google or GitHub
To use the demo you sign in with a Google or GitHub account. We request only basic profile
scopes (Google: openid, email, profile; GitHub:
read:user, user:email). From the provider we receive and keep in your
session: your account identifier, display name, e-mail address and profile picture URL, and which
provider you used. We do not receive your password, your contacts, your repositories, your
calendar or anything you post on those services, and we never write to your account.
1.2 Session cookie
After sign-in we set one cookie, vi_session, containing the profile fields above, a
signature and an expiry. It is HttpOnly, Secure and valid for 7 days. Signing out deletes it.
A short-lived vi_oauth cookie (10 minutes) protects the sign-in handshake. There are
no advertising, analytics or third-party tracking cookies.
1.3 Questions you ask
The questions you type are sent to our server, which searches the video index and forwards the question together with excerpts of the videos (transcript, on-screen text, selected frames) to a large language model provider (currently Google's Gemini) to compose the answer. The provider processes this under its own terms; we send no account information with it.
We keep a record of each question: the text, the answer, the videos cited, which search tools ran and how long they took, the number of model tokens and the cost, and the collection it was asked about, linked to your account. We use these records to run the service (the daily allowance, cost limits, fixing failures) and to improve it: questions help us measure answer quality and build test sets. We do not use them to train machine-learning models and we do not publish them.
When a question has already been answered for the same collection, we may show the stored answer instead of composing a new one, to anyone who asks it. The stored answer is derived from the videos alone and carries no link to the account that first asked.
1.4 Server logs
Like every website, our web server records the IP address, time, requested URL, status code and browser user agent of each request. Cloudflare sits in front of our servers and keeps its own logs under its policy. We use these logs for security and operations only and rotate them within 30 days.
1.5 Embedded YouTube player
The demo plays videos through YouTube's embedded player. When a video loads, your browser connects to YouTube (Google), which may set its own cookies and collect data under the Google Privacy Policy. We do not control that collection.
1.6 Your account record and usage events
When you sign in we keep a small account record on our server: your provider and account identifier, e-mail address, display name, profile picture URL, the time of your first and latest sign-in and how many times you have signed in. For each sign-in we also keep the time, your browser user agent, the page you returned to, and your IP address in a keyed, one-way hashed form (we cannot recover the address from it). We keep a per-account count of questions per UTC day to enforce the daily allowance.
The demo also records how it is used: pages and collections opened, videos played, citations and chapters clicked, links copied, and errors. These events are sent to our own server only (no third-party analytics) and carry a random per-tab identifier and, when you are signed in, your account. We use them to understand which collections are useful and where the demo fails.
For operations we keep request traces: timings of each request and of each step of an answer. A trace carries the question text, the collection and a pseudonymous account identifier derived from your account (never your e-mail, name or IP address).
All of this stays on our own server in the United States (Google Cloud), reachable only from that machine.
2. What we do not do
- We do not sell, rent or share personal data with third parties for their own purposes.
- We do not use your data for advertising or profiling.
- We do not train models on your questions.
- We do not share your account record, questions or usage events with anyone except the model provider that composes each answer (question and video excerpts only, as described in 1.3).
3. Why we process this data
Sign-in exists to keep the demo available: it lets us give each person a fair daily allowance of questions, which cost money to answer, and to block abuse. Processing rests on our legitimate interest in operating the service and, for the sign-in itself, on your request to use it.
4. Retention
- Session cookie: 7 days, or until you sign out.
- Account record and sign-in history: until you ask us to delete them.
- Daily question counts: a few days (only the current day's count is used).
- Usage events: 180 days.
- Request traces: 30 days.
- Questions and answers: kept, because they are how we measure and improve answer quality; deleting your account removes the link to you (see 5).
- Server logs: up to 30 days.
5. Your rights and choices
You can sign out at any time, which removes the session cookie. You can revoke the demo's access from your Google account permissions or GitHub authorized applications. To delete your data, open the account menu (your name or picture on videoindex.app) and choose Delete my data, or contact us (section 8): we delete your account record and sign-in history, and replace your account in usage events and question records with a random pseudonym so they can no longer be linked to you. For additional privacy related queries please contact us: vi at videoindex.org.
6. Children
The demo is not directed at children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data.
7. Changes
We will post any change to this page and update the effective date above.
8. Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: write to vi at videoindex.org or to the support e-mail shown on the sign-in consent screen.