Terms of Use

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (“SIB”) is committed to open research and open knowledge. Through its Expasy bioinformatics resource portal, SIB provides the national and international research community with access to over 160 databases and software tools (the “resources”). These resources, developed by SIB Groups, support a range of life science and clinical research domains (read more in About Expasy). Expasy also offers an AI-driven tool that enables users to query structured biological knowledge in natural language across the resources available (“ExpasyGPT”).

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of the www.expasy.org website (“Expasy”) operated by SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics ("SIB", "we", "us"). By accessing or using Expasy, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree with these Terms, you must not use Expasy.

1. Content available. SIB imposes no other restriction on the use or redistributions of the resources referenced on Expasy than those provided by the owner of the dedicated resource. When using a resource in your work, you must comply with the terms of use of each resource and provide proper attribution in accordance with the corresponding copyright notice and good scientific practice. The SIB name and logos must not be associated with publicity or business promotion without SIB’s prior written approval.
2. Limited Liability. Expasy website and the resources are provided “as is” and “as available”. SIB makes no representation or warranties of any kind, express or implied, regarding the correctness, accuracy, reliability and completeness of any particular resources referenced on Expasy. SIB shall not be liable for any indirect incidental or consequential loss or damages, resulting from the use of Expasy and any of the references resources. SIB also bears no responsibility for the consequences of any temporary or permanent discontinuity of the Expasy.
3. Data Protection. Please refer to the SIB Privacy Policy to know more on how SIB process your personal data when you use our websites.
4. Service Providers. Expasy uses a large language model API provided by OpenAI Ireland Ltd to process your user queries. When you use ExpasyGPT, the following personal data may be processed: text input from your chat (which includes details about your request), as well as technical data like your IP address and usage times. This data is processed to respond to your requests and to improve the quality and efficiency of ExpasyGPT.
   Your data may be shared with OpenAI Ireland Ltd, the provider of the OpenAI’s GPT API, and its affiliated companies. It is possible that this may also include a data transfer to affiliated companies of OpenAI Ireland Ltd. in the USA. For more details, please refer to OpenAI’s Data Processing Addendum.
   OpenAI retains your data sent through ExpasyGPT for up to thirty days, after which it is deleted, unless legal requirements mandate otherwise. Your data is not retained or used for training their models.
5. If you have any questions about Expasy, you can contact the Expasy Helpdesk.
6. These Terms and the use of Expasy are governed by Swiss substantive law, without reference to its conflict of laws provisions. The competent courts in Lausanne, Switzerland, have exclusive jurisdiction. We reserve the right to amend and update these Terms at any time.

Last revised: 1 October 2025