Research Data Policy

This policy applies to market facts, benchmark observations, pricing, availability, source links, and historical snapshots used by the Signal Room.

Source rights and collection

Use sources that are publicly accessible and lawful to consult. Prefer primary sources such as official model cards, documentation, pricing pages, release notes, repositories, and benchmark publications. Do not bypass access controls, paywalls, authentication, rate limits, or technical restrictions.

Store only the facts and short summaries needed for market analysis. Do not mirror articles, proprietary datasets, benchmark submissions, or other copyrighted source material. A public URL does not imply permission to copy the underlying work.

Attribution and evidence

Every externally verifiable claim must retain a canonical source URL through the repository’s source or citation fields. Record the observation date and, when relevant, the source’s publication or release date. Prefer stable, first-party URLs; use independent benchmark sources for claims that the vendor cannot establish itself.

Label evidence as measured, vendor-reported, derived, estimated, or unknown. Do not combine measurements with incompatible conditions as though they were directly comparable. Calculated values must identify their formula and inputs.

Permitted use

Collected facts and links are used for research, comparison, summarization, and decision support. They must remain within the permissions and terms of their original sources. The repository’s MIT License covers original code and text; it does not relicense third-party trademarks, source publications, benchmark data, or linked materials.

Retention and corrections

Keep the current normalized facts required by the dashboard and dated archive snapshots needed to explain material changes. Retain citation links and changelog entries so published conclusions remain auditable. Do not retain raw scrapes, authentication material, private exports, or unnecessary personal data.

Correct demonstrably inaccurate data in the current dataset and preserve a short correction record when the change affects a published conclusion. Honor valid removal requests for material that should not have been collected while keeping a non-sensitive audit note when appropriate.

Update verification

For each refresh:

1. compare the current value with the most recent primary source;
2. confirm the product or model identifier, unit, currency, region, and date;
3. verify consequential comparative claims against an independent source when one is available;
4. preserve unknown values instead of filling gaps with unsupported estimates;
5. validate every citation and record the material change in the archive or changelog;
6. run bash src/scripts/release-check.sh; and
7. inspect the rendered dashboard for misleading presentation, unsafe links, personal data, secrets, and accidental source-text reproduction.

Privacy and security review

The delivered data was reviewed on 2026-07-21. It contains public model, provider, tool, benchmark, and infrastructure information, not customer or individual-level records. No credentials, private keys, authenticated URLs, private datasets, or sensitive personal information were identified. The project deployment email is intentionally public and is not research data.

Repeat this review whenever a new data class, ingestion mechanism, binary asset, or non-public source is proposed. Security concerns should follow SECURITY.md.