Privacy Policy

TrialCatcher connects people who want to take part in clinical research with the clinics running it. This policy covers trialcatcher.com — your account here, and what happens when you apply to a study. A clinic you apply to has its own privacy practices for the records it keeps about you as a patient; those are the clinic's, and it will give them to you.

TrialCatcher is not a healthcare provider and this policy is not a HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices — your clinic gives you that. Where a clinic uses TrialCatcher to run its recruitment, we act as its service provider under a written agreement, including a HIPAA business associate agreement where one is required, and we handle its patient records only on that clinic's instructions.

The short version

• We don't hold your medical records. The clinic does. When a clinic's staff open your details on this site, those details are read from the clinic's own database for that screen and are not stored here.
• We hold what you tell us — your name, contact details, the town you're in, the topics you say you're interested in, and what you do on the network.
• Interests are topics, not diagnoses. Saying you're interested in migraine research is not a record that you have migraines, and we never treat it as one.
• Every look at a clinic's own records is written down. When someone at a clinic — or anyone at TrialCatcher — opens records held in that clinic's own system, the access is recorded in that clinic's audit log, naming the person who looked. A clinic that has no system of its own yet, and works only from applications sent through this site, has no such log to write to; we are building the network-side equivalent for it.
• We measure traffic, we do not advertise to you. This site uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which channels people arrive from. Its advertising features are turned off: no advertising cookies, no ad profile built about you, and no joining your visit to a signed-in Google identity. Nothing you say you are interested in is sent to Google as an advertising signal.

What we collect

When you create an account: your name, email address, phone number, the city, state and ZIP code you give us, your public handle, and a password we never store in readable form. Your ZIP code goes to a clinic with an application so it can see how far you are from its site.

What you choose to add: a short bio, the research topics you're interested in, studies and clinics you save, searches you save, and who you follow.

What you post: anything you write in the Bonfire, in a clan, or in a message to another member or to a clinic. Treat a post as public unless the screen tells you otherwise.

When you apply to a study: the answers you give on that clinic's form, the contact details you confirm, and which consents you ticked. We record the fact and time of your consent because we have to be able to show it later.

Location, only if you ask for it. The map has a "near me" button. If you use it and your browser allows it, your device's coordinates are used to sort clinics by distance for that visit only — they are never stored, never put in a link, and never sent to a clinic.

Automatically: the usual server logs — an IP address, a browser type, the page requested, the time. They exist to keep the service up and to investigate abuse.

What we do not collect

• Your medical records, test results or diagnoses. If a clinic writes them, they stay in the clinic's own system.
• Advertising identifiers, or any profile built for advertisers.

Applying to a study, and being contacted

Applying sends your answers to that clinic and to nobody else. To apply you must agree to be contacted by that clinic — a clinic that cannot reach you cannot screen you. That is the sentence you tick, word for word, with the clinic's own name in place of "this clinic":

I authorize this clinic to contact me about this study by phone or email. This includes automated phone calls that may use an artificial or AI-generated voice, and calls may be recorded. I can withdraw consent anytime.

Text messages are separate and entirely optional:

I also agree to receive automated text messages (SMS) about clinical studies. Msg frequency varies; msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help. Consent is not required to participate.

You can withdraw any of it at any time — in your account, by telling the clinic, by replying STOP to a text, or by using the unsubscribe link on an email. Withdrawing consent does not affect a study you are already taking part in; the clinic will tell you how it handles that.

How a clinic's records are read here

When a clinic uses TrialCatcher to run its recruitment, its records stay in the clinic's own database. Each screen reads what it needs for that request and keeps nothing afterwards. Two things follow, and both are deliberate:

• If the clinic's database can't be reached, the screen says so instead of showing you an empty page that looks like an answer.
• If the access can't be written into the clinic's audit log, the records are not shown at all. No record of the look, no look.

Your application is the one thing that travels the other way. Your answers and the contact details you confirmed are held here only until the clinic confirms they arrived, and are then deleted from the network; if a clinic cannot be reached at all, they are deleted after seven days. We keep a receipt afterwards — which study you applied to, which clinic, when, and which consents you ticked — for as long as you have an account, because it is the record of what you agreed to. We do not keep your answers.

Who can see what

• Other members see what you make public: your handle, your public profile, your posts, and the clans you join. They do not see your email address, your phone number, or the studies you apply to.
• A clinic sees the application you sent it, and afterwards you are that clinic's lead or patient in its own system. It does not see your activity elsewhere on the network.
• TrialCatcher staff can access a clinic's workspace to support it. When we do, the same rule applies as for the clinic's own staff: the access is written into that clinic's audit log, naming the person.

Sharing

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not rent or share it for anyone else's marketing. Your phone number and your messaging consent are never shared with a third party for marketing — not by us, and not by a clinic under our agreement with it.

We use service providers to run the service — cloud hosting, email delivery, telephony for the calls a clinic makes, and AI services used to draft and translate text on the page. Patient records are excluded from translation. They act on our instructions, under contract, and only for what the service needs. We disclose information when the law requires it, or to protect someone's safety.

Cookies

This site uses cookies only to work: one that keeps you signed in, two that remember which member referred you — one signed so it cannot be tampered with, the other holding only that member's public handle so we can show who invited you — and the anti-forgery cookie every form needs. The referral cookies last up to 400 days and are refreshed each time you follow an invite link. Clinic staff also carry a short-lived cookie recording which clinic they are working inside. Your theme and language choices, and a cache of translated page text, stay in your own browser and are never sent to us. Google Analytics also sets its own cookies to count a visit and remember which channel you arrived from. There are no advertising cookies on trialcatcher.com, no ad profile is built about you, and your visit is never joined to a signed-in Google identity.

Keeping information

We keep your account for as long as you have one. Delete it and we remove your profile, your posts, comments and messages, and your saved lists — you can do it yourself in Settings, under Security. Two things survive, and here is why: the record that you consented, and the audit trail of who read what — both exist to protect you, and a log you can erase is not a log. An application already delivered to a clinic belongs to that clinic's records; ask the clinic.

Security

Everything travels over HTTPS. Passwords are stored hashed, never in readable form. Access to clinic data is limited to the clinic's own people and to the TrialCatcher staff supporting it, and every such access is logged. No system is perfect; if something happens that affects you, we will tell you.

Your choices

You can change your bio, your handle, your interests, and your privacy and notification choices in Settings. For anything else — a copy of everything we hold about you, a correction to your name, city or state, a new phone number, or deleting your account — email us at contact@trialcatcher.com and we will do it. If you live in a state whose privacy law gives you access, correction, deletion, or an appeal if we say no, those rights are yours here whichever state you are in. We will not charge you for it, and we will not treat you differently for asking.

Children

TrialCatcher is for adults. You must be 18 or older to hold an account. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18; if we learn we have, we delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it, and a material change is announced on the site before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about your information, or about this policy: contact@trialcatcher.com. If you think we have got something wrong about your privacy, say so — we would rather hear it from you than not hear it.

Effective 30 August 2026 · last updated 30 August 2026. See also our Terms.