Privacy policy.

1. Who we are

Mastering Robotic Thoracic Surgery (“MRTS”, “we”, “us”) is owned and operated by MRTS LLC, a limited liability company organized under the laws of the State of Georgia, United States; it operates the video library at mrtsurgery.com with its team of practicing surgeons. MRTS LLC is the data controller for the personal data described on this page, including, for visitors in the European Economic Area, under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You can reach us about anything privacy-related at info@mrtsurgery.com.

2. What we collect

Account data

• Your name — first and last name, so we can address you on your account page and in the emails we send you, and so the MRTS team knows who its users are. You can change it at any time from your account page.
• Email address and password. Your password is stored only as a salted cryptographic hash — we never see or store it in plain text.
• Account timestamps — when your account was created, when your email was confirmed, and when you last signed in.
• Consent records — when you accepted the Terms of Service and, if you chose to subscribe, when you opted in to (or out of) our email updates, which version of the consent wording you agreed to, and a record of which newsletters were sent to you. Each newsletter carries a personal unsubscribe link tied to your account.

We do not ask for your phone number, institution, or any demographic information.

Library activity

• Watch progress — which procedures you have watched and how far through each one you are, so we can resume playback and show your viewing activity on your account page.
• Saved procedures — the videos you bookmark.
• Questions you send us — if you use “Ask a question” on a procedure page, we keep the question, the procedure it concerns, your name and email address, and our answer, so the team can reply and see what has been answered. A notification of each new question, and any reply you send to our answer, arrives in our team mailbox as ordinary email.

Security and technical data

• Bot protection at registration. When you create an account, Cloudflare Turnstile checks that you are human. As part of that check, Cloudflare processes your IP address and certain browser signals. We do not receive or store this data — we only receive a pass/fail result.
• Server logs. Our hosting and database providers keep standard, short-lived request logs (including IP address and browser user-agent) for security and reliability. Our video provider similarly sees your IP address and device information while streaming video to you.
• Authentication cookies. Strictly necessary, first-party cookies that keep you signed in. See the Cookie Policy for details.

What we deliberately do not do

• No analytics, page-view tracking, or advertising pixels.
• No profiling or automated decision-making.
• No selling or renting of personal data — to anyone, ever.

3. Why we process your data

• To provide the service (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b) — contract): your account (including your name, which we use to address you), sign-in, watch progress, saved procedures, and answering the questions you send us exist so the library works as you expect.
• To keep the service secure and run it responsibly (Art. 6(1)(f) — legitimate interest): bot protection at registration and short-lived server logs help us prevent abuse and diagnose problems, and knowing the names of the people who register helps us run a resource intended for medical professionals.
• With your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): if you tick the optional box at registration (or subscribe later from your account page), we use your email address and first name to send you MRTS newsletters, newly released procedures, educational updates, product announcements, webinars, and other communications from MRTS. This is strictly opt-in — the box is unchecked by default and declining it changes nothing about your account. You can withdraw consent at any time from the Email preferences section of your account page or via the unsubscribe link included in every such email, and we stop sending immediately. Essential service emails (such as account confirmation or password reset) are sent regardless, because the service cannot work without them.

4. Who processes data on our behalf

We use a small number of specialist providers (processors) to run MRTS. Each processes only what is needed for its role:

MRTS and these providers are based in the United States, so your data is processed there. For users in the European Economic Area, transfers of personal data to the US are safeguarded by the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and/or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, as applicable to each provider.

5. How long we keep data

• Account data and library activity are kept until you delete your account. Deleting your account permanently removes your profile, watch progress, saved procedures, and the questions stored with your account. Emails already delivered to our mailbox remain there as ordinary correspondence, and the record of which newsletters were sent keeps the address but is no longer linked to you.
• Server logs are retained briefly by our providers under their standard schedules and then deleted.

6. Your rights

Under the GDPR you can, at any time:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate data — your name can be edited directly on your account page.
• Delete your data — you can do this yourself: your account page has a delete-account option that permanently erases everything we hold about you, immediately.
• Receive a copy of your data in a portable format.
• Object to or restrict processing based on our legitimate interests.
• Complain to your national data protection authority if you believe we have mishandled your data.

For anything you cannot do from your account page, email info@mrtsurgery.com and we will respond within one month.

7. Children

MRTS is a professional education resource intended for medical professionals and trainees. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

8. Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and revise the effective date above. Material changes will be announced on the site before they take effect.