Axelium browser companion — Privacy policy

Last updated: 13 October 2026

The Axelium browser companion is a Chrome extension that helps you bring full-text PDFs into your evidence-synthesis reviews on Axelium. This policy explains exactly what data it handles, where that data lives, and the things it deliberately never does. It covers the extension only; the Axelium web service is covered by Axelium’s main privacy policy.

The short version

• The companion fetches PDFs in your own browser session, using access you already have, and uploads them to the review you choose.
• It never sends paywalled content through Axelium’s servers to fetch it, and it never sells or shares your data with advertisers.
• Your sign-in token and any publisher tokens you enter are stored on your device. Publisher tokens are encrypted and never leave your machine.
• You can disconnect or uninstall at any time.

What the companion stores on your device

• Your Axelium connection token. When you click “Sign in” and approve the connection, a token that lets the companion act for you is stored in your browser’s extension storage. It is used only to talk to your Axelium account, expires after 180 days, and can be revoked at any time from Axelium → Settings → Connected applications, or by signing out in the companion.
• Publisher access tokens (optional). If your institution gives you a publisher text-and-data-mining token and you choose to add it in the companion’s Settings, it is encrypted and stored only on your device. It is used solely to request PDFs directly from that publisher and is never transmitted to Axelium or anyone else.
• Whether you have allowed journal pages. The companion asks your browser once, when you first start it, for permission to read journal pages. Your browser words that request broadly; the companion uses it only for the pages described next, and you can withdraw it at any time from your browser’s extension settings.
• Page content, while it is working. On the journal page for a paper in your review — one it opened for you, or a well-known publisher page you opened yourself — the companion reads the page to find the article’s PDF and to recognise a sign-in wall or a “prove you are human” check. It does not read pages you are merely browsing. Almost always this happens entirely in your browser and the page is not sent anywhere. What is recorded is the outcome — which journal, whether a PDF was found, and why not if it wasn’t.
• A summary of the page, when the ordinary routes have failed. If the companion cannot work out where a paper’s PDF is on its own, it can ask an AI assistant to look at that one page. When it does, a summary of the page — its links, buttons and visible text, not the whole document — is sent through Axelium to the assistant. Before it leaves your browser, the summary has email addresses, anything that looks like a password or access key, card numbers and long reference numbers removed, and your own name is removed again on arrival.
  This is deliberately rare and strictly capped: only for papers the ordinary routes have already failed on, never twice for the same paper, and no more than a handful per run. It never happens on a site that has shown a “prove you are human” check. The assistant is only ever asked where the PDF is — it is never given the PDF, and it cannot type, sign in, or buy anything.

What the companion sends to Axelium

• PDFs you capture. When you approve a capture, the PDF is read in your browser and uploaded to the specific review you selected, so it can be parsed for your synthesis.
• Capture outcomes. Which studies were resolved, which still need a manual upload — so your review’s queue stays accurate.
• Your reviews’ “needs full text” list. The companion reads which papers in your reviews still need a PDF so it can offer to fetch them.

What the companion never does

• It never fetches paywalled content from Axelium’s servers — every paywalled retrieval happens in your browser, using the access you already have.
• It never reads a page you are merely browsing. Once you have allowed journal pages, it reads only the pages it opened for papers in your review and the well-known publisher pages you open yourself, and nothing on any other site.
• It never starts working on a review you have not allowed it to work on. Permission is given per review, it names exactly what will happen, and you can withdraw it at any time from the companion or from your Axelium settings.
• It never sells, rents, or shares your data with third parties, and it is not used for advertising or any purpose unrelated to bringing full-text into your reviews.

When it works on its own

For a review you have explicitly allowed, the companion can work through the papers that review still needs without asking each time. This is what that means in practice:

• It applies to that one review and the papers it still needs, and to nothing else. Any other review asks again.
• It opens a few pages at a time in a minimised window — never more than one per journal at once, and never more than three papers a minute from any one journal. It does not fetch anything you could not open yourself.
• It keeps going when the companion’s panel is closed. While it is running, the toolbar icon shows how many papers are left, so you can always see that it is working.
• If a journal signals that it would rather you slowed down or signed in again, it stops for that journal and records why.
• Anything it saves is recorded as having been fetched automatically rather than by you. Each review has a list of exactly what it fetched, and you can remove any of it from there — on its own or all at once. Before anything is removed you are told what else goes with it, because a paper an extracted value relies on takes that record with it.

Permissions, in plain terms

• Publisher sites you allow — so it can read the PDF from a paper you have open. Each publisher must be enabled by you.
• The active tab — to identify the paper you currently have open, only when you click.
• Storage — to keep your connection token and settings on your device.

Retention & deletion

Tokens and settings remain on your device until you sign out or uninstall the extension, which clears them. Your Axelium connection token also expires automatically after 180 days. PDFs you upload are stored with the relevant review in your Axelium account and are governed by Axelium’s main data policy; deleting the review or document there removes them.

Contact

Questions about this policy: privacy@axelium.ai.