Privacy Policy

Effective October 18, 2026

Pocket Patient is a clinical-simulation app for Rutgers University psychiatry coursework. Students practise interviewing AI-simulated patients, and professors run courses and review their students' progress. This policy explains what data the app collects, how it is used and shared, and how you can delete it.

In short: we collect only what is needed to run your coursework. We don't show ads, don't track you across apps or websites, and don't sell your data. AI features are off until you agree, and you can delete your account and data from inside the app at any time.

Who can use Pocket Patient

The app is intended for Rutgers students and faculty and requires a @rutgers.edu or @scarletmail.rutgers.edu account. It is not directed to children.

Data we collect

Category	What	Why
Account	Email address, display name, role (student or professor), and a sign-in identifier from Google, Apple or email/password sign-in. If you use Sign in with Apple and hide your email, we receive Apple's relay address.	To sign you in and show the right features.
Coursework	Courses you join, your case conversations (your messages and the simulated patient's replies), diagnoses you submit, scores, and timing such as when messages were sent and read.	To run the simulation, grade cases, and show progress to you and your professor.
Course content (professors)	Courses, units and the disease documents you upload.	To build the cases your students receive.
Choices and reports	Your AI-consent decision (with its date and version) and any AI responses you report, with the reason you give.	To respect your consent and review reported responses.
Notifications	A push-notification token for your device, and your notification settings (on/off, quiet hours).	To tell you about new cases and patient replies.
Technical logs	IP address, the app endpoint requested, time and response status. Logs do not contain your message text.	To keep the service secure and reliable, limit abuse, and fix problems.

We do not collect your location, contacts, photos, payment information or advertising identifiers.

AI-generated patient responses

Simulated patients are generated by Google's Gemini models through Google Cloud Vertex AI. This only happens after you agree on the AI-consent screen. To generate a reply, follow-up or grade, we send the case conversation, the clinical details of the simulated condition, and the fictional patient's name and age. We do not send your name, email address or other account details. Please don't type personal health information about yourself or any real person into a case.

Google processes this content under its Google Cloud service terms, which state that customer data is not used to train Google's models without permission (see Vertex AI data governance).

You can withdraw consent at any time: tap the shield icon at the top of the home screen, then turn off "Allow simulated AI patient responses". AI cases stay disabled until you agree again.

Who can see your data

You can see your own cases, scores and progress.
Your professor can see transcripts, scores and analytics for students in the courses they teach, and nothing from other courses.
Other students cannot see your data.
The Pocket Patient team may access data when needed to operate, secure and support the app, and to review reported AI responses.

Service providers

We use these providers to run the app. They process data only to provide their service to us:

Google Cloud: hosting, database, file storage and logs (United States).
Google Firebase: sign-in and push notifications.
Google Vertex AI (Gemini): simulated patient responses and grading, only with your consent.
Apple: Sign in with Apple (if you choose it) and delivery of notifications to iPhones.

We don't sell or rent personal data, and we don't share it for advertising.

How long we keep data

Account and coursework data is kept while your account is active and is needed for your course. Case data older than three years may be removed.
When you delete your account, your data is removed immediately from our active systems (details below).
Server logs are kept for 30 days. Database backups, where kept, expire within 7 days.

Deleting your account

In the app, tap the shield icon at the top of the home screen, then Delete account. This permanently deletes:

your case conversations, diagnoses and scores
your course enrollments, AI-consent records and AI reports
your sign-in identity, sign-in sessions and push-notification token

We keep an anonymous placeholder record with no name or email so that a professor's courses keep working for their students. Course content a professor uploaded stays with the course. If you can't use the app, email us (below) from your account's address and we'll delete it for you.

Notifications

The app asks for permission before sending notifications. You can turn them off, or set quiet hours, in the app's notification settings or in your device settings.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest. Access requires sign-in, and role-based checks limit each person to their own data or their own courses. We don't store passwords; Google Firebase and Apple handle credentials.

Student records

Coursework in Pocket Patient may be part of your education record at Rutgers. It is handled for the course's educational purposes and is not disclosed outside the course except as described here or as required by law.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date above and tell you in the app before material changes take effect.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: tobiaat@rwjms.rutgers.edu