1. What this page is

This page describes the current data-handling practices of the AI Spend Index project team. It is published by the project operators as a public commitment to how confidential company submissions are handled. It is not a Stanford University contract and it is not an NDA.

2. Scope of submitted data

Identifiable submitted data includes company names, submitter email addresses, and any submission details that could reasonably identify a contributing organization when paired with other available information.

The project uses submitted data to operate the benchmark, provide contributor-only pseudonymous peer views, publish one overall public market distribution, and produce related academic research outputs.

3. What different audiences can see

• Public visitors see only the overall distribution across the full dataset. No public segmented cuts or company-level rows are shown.
• Approved contributors see pseudonymous company rows with company aliases plus bucketed industry, region, and engineering headcount bands instead of company names.
• Company names are not displayed to other contributors or to the public.
• No de-identification method eliminates all risk. Contributors are prohibited from attempting re-identification.

4. Technical and operational safeguards

• Company names and submitter email addresses are encrypted at rest.
• Data is encrypted in transit.
• Identifiable submitted data is not sold, licensed for lead generation, or used to train AI models.
• Access to identifiable submission data is limited to the named project operators and approved service providers with a need to know.
• Contributor access is restricted to authenticated accounts tied to eligible released self-submissions. Standard sign-in uses work email, and a personal-email option is also available. Disposable domains are rejected.

5. Service providers and access

The project currently relies on Supabase for database and authentication, Vercel for hosting, and Resend for transactional email delivery.

6. Correction, deletion, and retention

Contributors may request correction or deletion of identifiable submitted data by contacting the project team from the email address associated with the submission.

• Production records and active research datasets will be updated or deleted within 30 calendar days where reasonably practicable.
• Routine backups may retain prior copies for a limited period and may not be overwritten immediately.
• Previously published aggregate analyses and already-distributed benchmark outputs are not retroactively revised.

7. Incident response

If the team confirms unauthorized access to identifiable submitted data or account credentials, it will investigate and respond in accordance with applicable law, Stanford requirements, and law-enforcement needs.

Where notice is legally required or otherwise reasonably appropriate, affected individuals or contributing organizations will be notified after the scope of the incident is determined, the incident is contained, and steps necessary to restore system integrity are underway.

8. Related documents

This commitment should be read together with the Data Use Terms and Privacy Policy.

9. Contact

Questions about this commitment or requests to correct or delete identifiable submission data can be sent to ydebl at stanford.edu.