Last updated July 3, 2026
Privacy policy & terms of use
Firstlight was built for families in a hard season, so this page is written the way we'd want it explained to us: plainly. The short version — your data lives on your computer, encrypted, and we never see it. There is no Firstlight account and no Firstlight server.
What Firstlight is — and is not
Firstlight is an information monitoring and summarization tool. It searches public research sources — ClinicalTrials.gov, PubMed, openFDA drug updates, and Europe PMC preprints — matches them to a profile you enter using deterministic rules, and produces source-backed briefings you can bring to your oncology team.
Firstlight is not a medical device, a diagnostic system, or a substitute for an oncologist. It does not determine treatment, trial eligibility, or medical appropriateness, and it never presents treatment decisions, eligibility certainty, "best treatment" rankings, or diagnostic claims. Every finding requires review by a licensed clinician.
Where your data lives
- Firstlight is local-first. The patient profile, findings, and reports are stored in a local database on your own device.
- Identifying fields — name, date of birth, location, and free-text notes — are encrypted at rest using a key held in your operating system's keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager), with a protected local key file as a fallback.
- There is no account, no cloud sync, and no Firstlight server. We do not receive, store, or have any way to access your data.
- The app contains no analytics or telemetry. When it checks research sources, those requests go directly from your device to the public source (for example, ClinicalTrials.gov) and are subject to that source's terms.
Optional AI assistance (off by default)
Firstlight can optionally use an AI provider to draft cautious discussion questions and a short case framing for your reports. This mode is off by default and only activates if you explicitly enable it and acknowledge a disclosure.
When enabled, Firstlight sends only a minimized, de-identified oncology context: cancer type, coarse stage group, biomarkers, a state-level location, and the public titles of findings. Your name, date of birth, contact details, exact address, doctor and hospital names, notes, and local file paths are never sent — this boundary is enforced in code, is fail-closed, and is covered by an automated test suite anyone can run. The full technical specification is public in SAFETY.md.
Two honest caveats. First, de-identified cancer context can still be sensitive — a rare diagnosis with an unusual biomarker combination can be distinctive. Second, when this mode is on, the de-identified context goes to the AI provider you configured, under that provider's own terms. Firstlight does not claim HIPAA compliance; it is a personal tool that keeps your data local, not a healthcare provider's system of record.
Your controls
- Activity log — a local, append-only record of data-affecting actions, viewable on the in-app About / Support page.
- Export my data — download a portable JSON copy of everything Firstlight stores.
- Delete all my data — permanently remove all profiles, findings, monitoring runs, and report files from your device.
This website
firstlighthq.com is a static informational site. It uses Google Analytics to count visits (which sets cookies and processes your IP address under Google's privacy policy); we see only aggregate statistics. The site has no accounts and no forms. Downloads are served from GitHub Releases under GitHub's privacy statement. The website and the desktop app are separate: nothing the app does touches this site.
Terms of use
- Firstlight is free, open-source software provided as is, without warranty, for informational and organizational purposes only.
- You are responsible for reviewing all findings with a qualified clinician before acting on them.
- Firstlight and its authors are not liable for clinical decisions made using the information it surfaces.
- Public source data is subject to those sources' own terms; AI summaries (when you enable them) are subject to your chosen AI provider's terms.
- The software is licensed under AGPL-3.0-only.
Questions and reports
Questions about this policy or the product are welcome on GitHub issues. Security and privacy vulnerabilities should be reported privately — see SECURITY.md. If this policy changes, the "last updated" date above changes with it, with history visible in the public repository.