Privacy Policy

EM Salary Map is a physician-built platform for emergency medicine compensation transparency. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and how we protect it.

We designed this platform with privacy as a core constraint — not an afterthought. Your individual salary data is never displayed to other users.

Account information: your email address, hashed password, role (attending or resident), and residency program if applicable. We also store which user invited you.

Salary data: hourly rate, employment type (W-2 or 1099), and work zip code. We compute and store a corrected 1099-equivalent rate and a geographic coordinate derived from your zip code.

Usage data: basic server logs including IP addresses and timestamps for security monitoring. We do not use third-party analytics or tracking scripts.

Your salary submission is used exclusively to compute the aggregated, anonymized heatmap visible to members. Individual submissions are never shown — all displayed values are the product of Inverse Distance Weighting interpolation across multiple data points.

Your email is used for authentication only. We do not send marketing emails, newsletters, or share your email with third parties.

Invite chain records (who invited whom) are stored for community integrity and abuse prevention. This data is visible only to site administrators.

The map uses spatial interpolation (IDW) to blend nearby salary submissions into smooth regional estimates. No individual data point is ever displayed directly.

A minimum density threshold prevents inference of individual submissions in sparse areas.

The combination of interpolation smoothing and density thresholds means that even if only one physician submits in a region, their data will not appear on the map until enough nearby submissions exist.

Data is stored in a PostgreSQL database hosted on Neon, with servers located in the United States. Database connections are encrypted via SSL.

Passwords are hashed using bcrypt with a cost factor of 12 and are never stored or transmitted in plain text.

Invite tokens are generated using cryptographically secure random values.

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information or individual salary data with any third party.

Aggregated, anonymized statistics (such as average rates by region) may be referenced in public contexts, but never in a form that could identify individual users.

You can view, edit, or delete your salary submissions at any time through your profile page.

You can request full account deletion by contacting us. Upon deletion, your salary data will be removed, which may affect the interpolated map in your region.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.

We use a single session cookie for authentication. This cookie contains an encrypted JWT token and is required for the Service to function.

We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking cookies, or fingerprinting techniques.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

Questions or concerns about your privacy? Reach out at your@email.com.