Privacy
Privacy policy.
AtomicMD was designed by an emergency physician, for the shift. The physician dictates, AtomicMD transcribes and proposes a note, documents and billing, and the physician reviews, corrects and signs everything: nothing happens without them. This page says what we collect, what we do with it, and what we will never do.
In brief
The essentials, in five lines.
- Everything stays in Quebec. Your data is hosted and processed in the Montreal region.
- AtomicMD does not train on your data, and neither do our providers.
- No selling, no advertising, no profiling. Ever.
- No automated decisions. AtomicMD suggests, the physician decides.
- Your rights are exercised by writing to us, and a person answers.
1 · Collection
What we collect.
The physician's voice. Dictation is the heart of the service: the physician records their own voice. They may also choose to record an encounter: in that case they discuss it first with the person concerned, who may decline, and that consent is recorded. No recording ever starts on its own.
The clinical text of the case. What the physician dictates or writes is transcribed, then analyzed by AtomicMD, in Quebec. The text is stripped of its identifiers before analysis. Clinical values are never touched.
A document image, when the physician asks for it to be read. It is processed, then forgotten.
The visit's identity: a label, age, sex, the stretcher or bed, the reason for the visit, and the health insurance number when it is used for billing. These records stay in the solution; they never go to an artificial-intelligence model.
Your account: email, name, licence number if you choose to provide it, and your consents.
2 · Consents
What you accept, and how to withdraw it.
Ambient listening to an encounter requires the patient's agreement. The physician attests to it in the application before recording can begin: without that attestation, nothing records. The method of the consent and when it was given are kept with the record. The patient may refuse with no consequence for their care, and withdraw their agreement at any time.
The physician's consents are separate and managed one by one from their settings: each carries its state, the date of the decision and the version of the text accepted, and is withdrawn in one click in the same place.
Nothing is presumed. An optional consent is unchecked by default, and service emails, verification codes and security notices, never depend on one.
3 · Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence, plainly.
AtomicMD transcribes dictation, structures the note, suggests a differential, prepares documents and formats billing. All of it happens in Quebec, in the Montreal region.
AtomicMD takes no action. It does not diagnose, prescribe or dispose: every suggestion waits for the physician's review and signature. It is never an automated decision.
Your data is not used to train any model, by us or by our providers.
4 · Use
What we do with it, and never will.
Your information serves to deliver the service, to secure it, and to reach you when needed. Nothing else.
No data selling. No advertising. No profiling. No model training on your content.
No automated decisions. AtomicMD suggests, the physician decides, one suggestion at a time.
A person, always. Since no decision is rendered automatically, there is no automated decision to contest. Any observation about what was written is presented to the treating physician, who read and signed it, and who can correct it. For the application itself, the privacy officer receives and handles any observation.
6 · Subprocessors
Who processes what, and where.
We work with a small number of infrastructure providers, each for one specific role: hosting the application, holding the database, transcribing and analyzing. All of it lives in Quebec, in the Montreal region. Only the delivery of this website goes through a global network, and no clinical data passes through it.
Each is bound by contract: your data serves to deliver the service, never their own purposes, and never to train a model. The list of names is provided on written request to the privacy officer.
7 · Retention
How long.
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Audio recordings (the dictation) | 48 hours, then automatic purge |
| Transcripts | 7 days, then automatic purge |
| Notes and documents | 90 days by default, then automatic purge |
| Practice billing | Kept for the life of the account, under professional and tax obligations |
| Access and AI-processing logs | 3 years |
| Your account (email, name, optional licence, consents) | As long as you use the service, or until you ask for its deletion |
| Beta application emails | At most 12 months after the decision, then deleted; deletion on request at any time |
These windows are enforced by an automatic purge built into the product, and they already apply to simulated charts: the discipline does not wait for real data. The log window is a constant in the code: it depends on no operational setting. Billing is the one exception to the automatic purge: it leaves only when the physician deletes the chart or the account is deleted. You may ask at any time for the deletion of your account and everything it holds.
What grounds these periods. Clinical records are held on behalf of the physician, in the course of their practice and under their professional responsibility; the official record remains the institution's. The health insurance number is held only because the Régie requires it for billing. Practice billing is kept under the physician's professional and tax obligations. Everything else is destroyed when its class expires.
8 · Protection
How long.
AtomicMD is designed to keep little, for a short time. Purges are automatic.
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Audio recordings | 48 hours |
| Transcripts | 7 days |
| Notes and documents | 90 days |
| Practice billing | Life of the account |
| Your account | While in use, or until you ask for deletion |
| Access log | Three years |
9 · Your rights (Law 25)
Your rights.
The physician exercises most rights directly on screen: viewing and exporting their record, correcting their note, deleting a case or their account. The export returns a complete archive, in open formats readable by any software: structured data as JSON, documents as self-contained HTML. No request, no delay, no dependence on us.
For everything else, access, correction, withdrawal of a consent, deletion, de-indexing, a complaint or a simple question: write to the privacy officer at confidentialite@atomicmd.ca.
What happens next. We acknowledge receipt, we verify your identity by a means proportionate to what is asked, and we answer within thirty days of the request, as the law requires. A refusal is given in writing with the provision that grounds it and the recourse left to you. Every request and its handling are recorded.
For a patient: the person able to review what was written about them is their physician, and documents filed in the institution's record follow that institution's rules.
Cessation of dissemination and de-indexing. Nothing the solution holds is published, disseminated or indexed: no clinical content exists outside the application, and this site carries none. A de-indexing request therefore comes down to a destruction, which we handle as such once we have verified that no legal obligation stands in the way. If one does, we tell you why.
After a death. The spouse and close relatives of a deceased person may receive the records concerning them where the law allows, and a person may object in writing during their lifetime. The solution does not hold the patient's record: such a request is handled by the institution, and we assist for what lives with us.
If our answer does not satisfy you, you may file a complaint with the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec.
10 · Incidents
If an incident happens.
Every privacy incident is entered in a register. If an incident carries a risk of serious harm, the Commission d'accès à l'information and the persons concerned are notified, as the law requires.
11 · Minors
Updates.
Any change to this policy carries its date at the top, and the version in force is published here.
12 · Person in charge
The privacy officer.
The privacy officer is Charles Kalash, reachable at confidentialite@atomicmd.ca: a person answers, not a voicemail.