Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

When you create or manage an account

• Identity and contact information, currently your first and last name and email address.
• Alert choices, including communities, topics, custom keywords, neighborhoods, public places, recreation interests, whether you requested email alerts, and pause or unsubscribe status.
• Account records, such as signup source, acceptance of the current terms, account-access events, and alert delivery status.

When you contact us

• Coverage requests, including the public body and state you request, your name, email address, optional phone number, and notes. The current form sends this information to PorchPing by email rather than creating a resident account.
• Support and feedback, including your name, email address, category, and message. The current form sends this information to PorchPing by email.

When you explicitly email elected officials and staff through an agenda item, we share your name, email address, message, selected position and feelings, and that item's agenda context with the contacts shown before you send. Replies go directly to your email address. PorchPing stores the request and delivery status without automatic expiration, accessible to authorized operators for support. These emails cannot be edited or recalled; recipients retain their own copies. Account deletion removes your stored message from PorchPing's active application, but does not remove copies already sent to recipients or email providers. Contacting officials does not itself change alert preferences or email consent. Visitors who verify their email may create an account for their message and separately request email alerts by explicitly selecting interests and consenting. Existing subscribers retain their saved choices and pause state. Earlier private feedback is never automatically forwarded.

Information collected through operation of the Service

• Technical records, such as IP address, browser information, request time, requested page, and security or error logs generated by our hosting and application infrastructure.
• Essential session data, used for security, form protection, and authorized operator access. We also use the browser session to associate observed briefing activity with the email link you followed. We do not use advertising cookies.
• Aggregate website analytics, such as pages viewed, referral source, campaign parameters, approximate country, browser, operating system, device type, and clicks or submissions for major public actions such as starting or completing signup. We use Plausible Analytics, which does not place analytics cookies, create persistent identifiers, or track people across websites or devices. We do not send Plausible resident names, email addresses, topic choices, custom keywords, form contents, or activity on private preference and admin pages.
• Email delivery records, such as recipient, subject, delivery provider identifier, and whether a message was accepted, delivered, failed, or bounced.

Briefing reminders: For newly sent agenda alerts enrolled in reminders, PorchPing may record whether someone using your private briefing link interacts with the visible briefing page, and whether that happened before or after a reminder was accepted for delivery. This does not establish who read it or whether they understood it. We use this temporary record to avoid unnecessary reminders and count aggregate outcomes. This reminder record is not sent to an analytics provider and does not infer interests, record individual link clicks, or use tracking pixels. Someone with your private link can affect this record.

The visit record expires 30 days after the agenda email enters this program and is cleared by our regular cleanup job. Only aggregate visit counts remain afterward; email delivery and consent records retain their existing retention rules. Pausing or unsubscribing stops new visit recording and reminders. Disabling JavaScript may prevent a visit from being recorded. Protected backups follow their normal replacement lifecycle.

Optional civic definitions: We count anonymous definition opens on agenda articles to improve our explanations. We keep only a total for each shared term, without individual event records, reader identifiers, agenda identifiers, or opening times. The counting request sends no cookies or referring page address. These totals are not unique-reader counts or evidence of what someone knows, and do not change alert preferences. We do not send them to an analytics provider.

Public meeting records

We collect agendas, packets, attachments, meeting details, and related public records from official sources or from files submitted by authorized PorchPing operators. Those records may contain information about people named in government proceedings, but PorchPing does not treat that public-record content as a resident profile.

Legacy records

Older records may contain a mobile number, SMS consent history, or SMS delivery history from an earlier version of PorchPing. The current resident signup does not request a mobile number or enroll people in SMS alerts.

2. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• create, authenticate, secure, and maintain accounts;
• match reviewed public meeting items to selected communities and topics;
• send requested agenda alerts, private sign-in links, and necessary service messages;
• explain why an item matched and link to the official source;
• process coverage requests, feedback, privacy requests, and support inquiries;
• honor pause, unsubscribe, access, correction, and deletion choices;
• measure aggregate website traffic and signup completion so we can operate, troubleshoot, protect, and improve the Service; and
• comply with law, enforce agreements, and protect rights and safety.

We may use aggregated or deidentified information that cannot reasonably be linked to a person. We will not attempt to reidentify it except to test and improve deidentification safeguards.

3. Automated processing and public-record explanations

Automated tools may help extract, classify, compare, and summarize public meeting materials and match them to topic choices or custom keywords. A PorchPing operator must review and approve a meeting record and its resident-facing matches before alerts are sent. Automated output may still contain mistakes, so alerts distinguish PorchPing explanations from official source material.

We do not intentionally send a resident’s name, email address, topic choices, custom keywords, or other account information to a generative-AI provider to create agenda explanations. We do not use automated processing to make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about residents.

4. How we disclose information

We may disclose information to:

• Service providers that host the application and files, deliver email, provide privacy-friendly aggregate website analytics, maintain infrastructure, or help us secure and support the Service. They receive information needed to perform those services for us.
• Professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants, auditors, and insurers when reasonably necessary.
• Authorities or other parties when we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect rights, safety, property, users, or the Service.
• A business successor in connection with a financing, merger, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar transaction, subject to applicable law.
• Others at your direction or with your consent.

Municipalities and public bodies provide the records we monitor but do not operate PorchPing. We do not give them resident identities, email addresses, topic choices, or custom keywords unless a resident directs us to do so or the law requires it.

We do not sell personal information for money, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use it to serve targeted ads.

5. Retention

We keep account information and preferences while an account is active. We retain consent, unsubscribe, delivery, security, and access records for as long as reasonably necessary to honor choices, demonstrate compliance, prevent abuse, resolve disputes, and protect the Service. Coverage requests, feedback, and support correspondence may remain in our email systems and our providers’ systems while needed to respond and maintain an appropriate business record.

When we grant an account-deletion request, we delete or deidentify account information from active systems unless retention is reasonably necessary for legal, security, fraud-prevention, dispute, or suppression-list purposes. Residual copies may remain temporarily in protected backups until those backups are overwritten under their normal lifecycle. Public government records, operational records that do not identify a resident, and deidentified information may be retained longer.

6. Your choices and privacy requests

You can use a private preferences link to change communities, topics, or custom keywords, pause agenda alerts, or unsubscribe. You may also ask to access, correct, or delete personal information associated with your account.

Send a request to [email protected] from the email address associated with your account. We may verify your identity and authority before acting. We will respond as required by applicable law. Where applicable, an authorized agent may submit a request, and you may appeal a decision by replying with “Privacy Appeal” in the subject line. We will not discriminate against you for exercising an applicable privacy right.

7. Email and legacy SMS choices

The current resident service sends agenda alerts by email. Use the unsubscribe link in an alert or your private preferences page to stop optional alerts. We may still send messages needed to provide account access, respond to support, protect the Service, or give legal notice.

If you previously enrolled in SMS alerts, you may revoke that legacy consent by replying STOP to a PorchPing text or contacting us. We may keep a minimal suppression record so we can honor an opt-out after other account information is deleted. See our Email Terms.

8. Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed for the nature of the information we handle. No system or transmission method is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Protect access to your email account and tell us promptly if you believe a private PorchPing link or account has been compromised.

9. Children’s privacy

PorchPing is a general-audience service and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate deletion steps. People from 13 to the age of legal majority may use PorchPing only with a parent’s or legal guardian’s agreement.

10. United States service and external links

PorchPing is intended for use in the United States. Information is processed in the United States and may be handled by providers in other locations where permitted by law. Links to government websites and other third parties are governed by those parties’ privacy practices, not this Policy.

11. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy as the Service and law change. We will update the effective date and provide reasonable notice if a change materially affects how we use information already collected. We will seek consent before a materially different use when required by law.

Briefing activity

When you follow a link in a new agenda email and interact with the visible briefing, PorchPing records the email, first and latest observed activity, active days, and which agenda items you interact with. These observations are linked to your account and visible only to the service owner for 30 days after the email is prepared. We then remove the individual observations and keep aggregate totals. We do not import earlier clicks or send these activity records, your identity, or private links to Plausible or Postmark click tracking.

We use this information to understand whether briefings are useful and notice reduced engagement. An interaction does not prove you read an item, agree with it, or want alerts about it; it never changes your selected interests. Automated tools, forwarded links and passive reading can make these observations incomplete or misleading. Pausing or unsubscribing stops new engagement recording. You may request access to or deletion of these records through support.

Contact us

PorchPing is operated by VoteVoteWin LLC.

Questions, notices, and privacy requests may be sent to [email protected].

Mail: VoteVoteWin LLC, 653 W 23rd St, Panama City, FL 32405.