Terms of Use & Privacy Notice

1. Agreement

These Terms of Use and the Privacy Notice below (together, the "Terms") are an agreement between you and the Dermatordle team ("Dermatordle," "we," "us"). They apply to the Dermatordle website, daily cases, archive, accounts, and related features (the "Service").

Dermatordle is an independent project created by medical students. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) or any other school, hospital, or organization, and any institution named by a user is for that user's profile only.

By creating an account, or by using the Service without an account, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Who can use Dermatordle

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use the Service. By using it, you confirm that you are 18 or older and able to agree to these Terms.

You may not use the Service if you are barred from doing so under applicable law or if we have previously ended your access.

3. Educational use only. Not medical advice

Dermatordle is an educational tool for practicing clinical pattern recognition. It is intended for students, trainees, clinicians, and other learners.

• Nothing in the Service is medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment recommendation, and it is no substitute for professional judgment, supervision, or consultation.
• Do not use the Service to evaluate, diagnose, or make decisions about any real patient, including yourself.
• Using the Service does not create a doctor–patient or any other professional relationship.
• Cases, clues, and teaching points are simplified for learning. They may be incomplete, may not reflect every presentation, and may contain errors. Always confirm information with current, authoritative clinical sources.
• The Service does not provide continuing education credit, certification, licensure, or any formal assessment, and your results do not measure clinical competence.

If you have a health concern, contact a qualified healthcare professional. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.

4. Your account

• Give accurate information when you sign up and keep it reasonably up to date.
• An account is for one person. Don't share it or let others use it.
• Keep your password confidential. You are responsible for activity under your account. Tell us promptly if you believe it has been accessed without permission.
• We may refuse, suspend, or remove accounts that violate these Terms or that appear fake, automated, or abusive.

5. Acceptable use

When using the Service, you agree not to:

• Copy, download in bulk, scrape, or redistribute cases, images, answers, or teaching content, or use them to train or build other products or datasets;
• Attempt to identify, contact, or learn more about any person shown in a clinical image;
• Submit anyone's protected health information or other personal information about patients anywhere in the Service;
• Interfere with, overload, probe, or bypass the security of the Service, or access data or accounts that aren't yours;
• Use bots or scripts to play, create accounts, or inflate statistics or community results;
• Reverse engineer the Service except where the law allows it despite this restriction;
• Use the Service for anything unlawful, harassing, or misleading, including impersonating another person or institution.

6. Content and clinical images

The Service, including its design, text, cases, teaching material, and software, belongs to Dermatordle or its licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable permission to use the Service for your own non-commercial learning, subject to these Terms.

Many clinical images come from third-party sources and are used for education under their licenses or permissions, with credit shown where required. Those images remain the property of their owners. You may not reuse them outside the Service unless the owner's license allows it.

Clinical images depict real people. Please treat them with the same respect you would give a patient. If you believe an image is used without permission, identifies someone who should not be identifiable, or should be removed for any other reason, tell us (see Contact) and we will review it promptly.

7. Feedback

If you send us ideas, corrections, or suggestions, you allow us to use them to improve Dermatordle without payment or obligation to you. Please do not include patient information in feedback.

8. Beta service and availability

Dermatordle is in beta. We may add, change, pause, or remove features, cases, and content at any time, and the Service may be unavailable, slow, or contain bugs. Progress and statistics may be reset or lost during development. We do not promise that any particular case, feature, or record will remain available.

9. Ending your use

You may stop using the Service at any time and may ask us to delete your account (see Your choices). We may suspend or end your access if you violate these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service. Sections that by their nature should continue after termination, including sections 3, 6, and 10–14, will continue.

10. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, Dermatordle disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service or its content is correct, current, uninterrupted, secure, or free of errors or harmful components.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Dermatordle and its team members, contributors, and licensors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, reputation, or opportunity, arising from or related to the Service or these Terms, including any decision made or action taken based on the Service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us to use the Service in the 12 months before the claim (if any) or US $50.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

12. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend and hold harmless Dermatordle and its team members from claims, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your misuse of the Service or your violation of these Terms or of anyone else's rights.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Dermatordle, its research program, or the law changes. The version and effective date at the top of this page will change when we do. For material changes, we will give reasonable notice, for example in the app or by email, and may ask you to accept the new version. Continuing to use the Service after changes take effect means you accept them.

14. General

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Alabama, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us and try to resolve the issue informally for at least 30 days. Any dispute that is not resolved informally will be brought only in the state or federal courts located in Jefferson County, Alabama, and you and Dermatordle consent to those courts' jurisdiction, except where the law of your place of residence gives you a right to bring a claim elsewhere.

These Terms are the entire agreement between you and Dermatordle about the Service. If any part is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms; we may transfer ours in connection with a change in who operates the Service.

15. What we collect

Account details

Email address and password (handled by our authentication provider; we never see your password in plain text), and your profile details: name, degree, training level, training year, specialty, and (optionally) school or program.

Demographics

Your gender and race and ethnicity, which we ask for at sign-up. "Prefer not to say" is always an option, and you can change your answers on your Account page. They are never shown on your profile or to other users.

Gameplay

Cases you open and finish, the guesses you enter and when, number of attempts, time spent on each clue and on the whole case, which clues and images you saw and in what order (including each image's skin tone), Round 2 choices, how often and how recently you have seen the same condition, whether you played the daily case or an archived one, your 1–5 difficulty ratings, and completion dates.

Choices you make

Your research participation choice and the version of these Terms you accepted, with dates.

Basic technical data

A random device ID created by your browser (it contains no name or email), a general device type (phone, tablet, or computer), time zone offset, app version, and the network and security information that hosting and authentication providers process to deliver the Service, such as IP address and browser type.

Playing without an account

If you play without an account, your progress is saved in your browser, and the gameplay described above is also sent to us under your browser's random device ID, with no name, email, or profile attached. If you later sign in on that browser, your progress is added to your account.

We don't use advertising trackers or sell ads, and we don't ask for patient information.

16. How we use it

• To run the Service: sign you in, sync progress across devices, and show your stats, streaks, and case history;
• To check, using grouped totals only, whether Dermatordle teaches equally well for learners of different genders, races, and ethnicities;
• To show anonymous, aggregated community results for a case (for example, the average number of guesses) once enough players have finished it;
• To maintain, secure, debug, and improve Dermatordle, including reviewing which cases or clues are too hard, too easy, or confusing;
• To communicate with you about your account, security, or changes to these Terms;
• For educational research, only if you opt in (section 17);
• To comply with the law and protect the rights and safety of users and others.

17. Research participation (optional)

Research participation is separate from accepting these Terms. Your account works the same whether or not you opt in.

• If you opt in, your gameplay may be included in educational research about how people learn to recognize skin conditions, including across skin tones.
• Research datasets use a coded participant identifier instead of your name or email. Your training details and demographics may be included only in grouped form, and groups too small to protect identity are combined or withheld.
• Research is conducted only under a protocol reviewed or exempted by an appropriate institutional review board (IRB) or ethics process, and any additional consent that process requires will be requested separately.
• Results are shared only in aggregate, de-identified form, for example in academic presentations or publications. Small groups are combined or withheld to reduce the risk of re-identification.
• You can withdraw at any time in your profile. Withdrawal stops new use of your data; data already included in completed, de-identified analyses may not be removable.

18. Sharing

We do not sell or rent your personal information. We share it only:

• With service providers that host and operate Dermatordle on our behalf, such as our database and authentication provider (Supabase) and content-delivery networks, under terms that limit their use of the data;
• With team members and collaborators who need it to operate, secure, or evaluate the Service, subject to confidentiality;
• As de-identified or aggregated information, such as community results or approved research findings;
• If required by law or legal process, or to protect the safety, rights, or property of users, the public, or Dermatordle;
• With a successor if the Service's operation is transferred, subject to this notice.

Some case images load directly from third-party image libraries. Those sites may receive standard technical information, such as your IP address, when your browser requests the image, under their own privacy policies.

19. Storage and retention

Your data is stored with our service providers, which may be located in the United States or other countries. We keep account and gameplay data while your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. When you ask us to delete your account, we delete or de-identify your personal information within a reasonable time, except where we must keep it for legal, security, or dispute-resolution reasons, or where it is already part of completed de-identified research or aggregated results.

20. Your choices

• Edit your profile at any time on your Account page.
• Change your research choice at any time on your Account page.
• Download your data with "Download my data" on your Account page.
• Delete your account by emailing [email protected] from the address on your account.
• Play without an account. Your gameplay is then recorded only under a random device ID. Clearing your browser data starts a new ID.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights, such as to access, correct, delete, or object to certain uses of your personal information. Contact us to make a request; we will respond as required by applicable law.

21. Security

We use reasonable safeguards, including encrypted connections and access controls that limit each account to its own data. No online service is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security. Use a strong, unique password and sign out on shared devices.

22. Age requirement

Dermatordle is only for adults 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that someone under 18 has created an account, we will delete it and its data.