Privacy Policy

POLISCOPE turns government records into civic information. You can browse and complete setup without an account. We do not sell personal information, run behavioral advertising, or use your private reading activity to train shared AI models. Account sync is optional, and a signed-in user can permanently delete an account in the product.

Information you provide

• Account details such as email address, display name, password hash, and optional profile settings.
• In the POLISCOPE mobile app, confirmation that you are 18 or older. A signed eligibility proof is stored locally in the app with an expiration date. We do not ask for a date of birth or identity document, and this confirmation is not independently verified. The website does not display this confirmation.
• Optional civic setup choices, including resolved jurisdiction, topics, political perspective, follows, saved items, ballot choices, alerts, notes, and reading preferences.
• Private Play activity: quiz attempts, answers, results, reports, and civic-practice progress. Signed-in rounds belong to your account across web and mobile. Guest official quizzes use an anonymous device credential; moving that history into an account is an explicit choice.
• Political Compass responses, optional self-placement, importance ratings, and dated results. Guests keep these on their device or browser. Signed-in users can choose private account saving to use their Compass across devices, or keep a local copy. Signing in does not automatically upload an existing guest or native device copy. Account saving does not publish your answers or political portrait.
• Location lookup input, such as a ZIP code, address, or device location, when you ask us to resolve districts or a ballot. Typed address queries are sent to geocoding providers to return matches; when Google-powered address autocomplete is active, your queries and your selected suggestion are processed by Google as described in the Google Privacy Policy. Anonymous onboarding keeps the resulting public jurisdiction on the device and clears the typed lookup. A signed-in ballot flow stores only the coarse result on your account: ZIP code, county, and state. The saved ballot location does not include your exact street address or coordinates, and the typed input is discarded once your districts are resolved. You can change or delete the saved location at any time in your settings.
• If you choose to submit a meeting check-in, we store its evidence, including the selected photo's capture time and GPS coordinates when available. The photo itself stays on your device and is not uploaded.
• Content and communications you submit, including community activity, corrections, support requests, and professional workspace material.
• Subscription and donation records. POLISCOPE CORP is controller for account, usage, and subscription data; POLISCOPE CIVIC FOUNDATION INC is controller for gift data. Payment providers, including Stripe and the applicable app marketplace, process payment details; POLISCOPE receives provider identifiers, status, amount, and billing history rather than full card numbers.

Information generated through use

• Device or anonymous identifiers, app version, platform, push token, network and security logs, approximate location derived from network information, and error diagnostics.
• Requests, viewed or read records, search and Ask activity, feature interactions, and delivery history when needed to operate, secure, or personalize a feature you chose.
• Authentication-provider identifiers and profile fields returned by Google, Apple, Meta, or X when you choose that sign-in method. POLISCOPE does not retain Apple access tokens; an encrypted Apple refresh credential may be held only so deletion can revoke Apple authorization.

Government records and other sourced public-interest material are part of POLISCOPE's public corpus. This policy distinguishes that source material from private account and device data.

• Provide the feed, ballot, search, Ask, alerts, saved work, account sync, and professional tools you request.
• Resolve jurisdiction, rank relevant records, preserve user choices, and maintain continuity across devices.
• Authenticate users, prevent abuse, investigate failures, protect public data integrity, and enforce access boundaries.
• Process subscriptions or donations, send requested service communications, and answer support or rights requests.
• Measure reliability and aggregate product use. Personalization and behavior tracking controls are available in Settings where implemented and default to the product's disclosed state.
• Save and restore the quizzes and Compass you choose to use. Knowledge scores do not infer your political views, and Compass answers do not change quiz questions or scores. Private Compass answers are not sent to AI providers for scoring, used for advertising, or included in generic analytics.

We disclose information only to operate the service, follow your direction, protect the service, or comply with law. Processors may include cloud hosting and database providers, Stripe for payments, Resend for service email, Sentry for diagnostics, push-delivery providers, social sign-in providers you select, address search and geocoding providers (Google Places when Google-powered autocomplete is active, Photon, OpenStreetMap Nominatim, and the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder), and AI providers used for a requested analysis. They receive only the information needed for that task under their applicable contracts and terms.

POLISCOPE CORP operates the donation pages for POLISCOPE CIVIC FOUNDATION INC. Donor payment data is processed by the Foundation's own Stripe account. POLISCOPE CORP is controller for account, usage, and subscription data, while POLISCOPE CIVIC FOUNDATION INC is controller for gift data. Data shared between the entities is limited to facilitating the contribution and maintaining transactional records; donor records are not sold or used for commercial marketing. POLISCOPE Civic Foundation Inc. has applied to the IRS for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; the application is pending. We cannot yet confirm that contributions are tax-deductible.

Public contributions are public by design and are labeled with the identity or organization you choose to publish. Private reading, ballot, note, support, and workspace state is not made public merely because the underlying government record is public.

We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, prevent harm or fraud, or complete a business transfer subject to this policy. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We retain account and feature data for as long as the account or requested feature needs it, and operational records for as long as needed for security, delivery, dispute, audit, or legal obligations. Retention differs by record because a login credential, a security event, a payment receipt, and a published government source serve different purposes.

A signed-in user can choose Settings → Data export & deletion → Delete account. Deletion starts immediately, cancels connected web subscriptions, revokes Sign in with Apple authorization when a revocation credential exists, removes credentials and personal consumer state, invalidates issued sessions, and clears native account data. POLISCOPE's native-store purchase identifiers are erased, but Apple and Google Play subscriptions must be cancelled in the relevant store. Limited billing, security, or professional audit facts may remain only with a non-identifying account tombstone when deletion would break a required record or another member's work.

Official quiz attempts, answers, and reports are retained for up to 365 days from completion, or from the start of an unfinished round, and can be erased from Play. Compass provides export, Clear answers, and Forget all controls. Clear answers preserves cosmetic choices; Forget all removes the selected owner's Compass data, including its account copy when account saving is active. Account deletion removes account-saved Compass state. Separately saved copies on other devices must be removed on those devices.

• Use core public browsing and setup without creating an account.
• Change local scope, interests, appearance, notification, personalization, and privacy controls in Settings.
• Disconnect optional social accounts and revoke push permission through POLISCOPE or device settings.
• Choose local or account saving for Compass, explicitly move guest quiz history into your account, and export or remove Compass data from Political Compass. Saving privately is separate from any public sharing action.
• Delete a signed-in account in product. You may also send an access, correction, portability, objection, or deletion question through Support. Applicable law determines the scope of each request.

POLISCOPE uses access controls, hashed passwords and tokens, encryption for retained provider credentials, transport security, and account-aware data boundaries. No system is perfectly secure; report a suspected security or privacy problem through Support.

The POLISCOPE app, community participation, and AI-powered interactive features are intended for adults 18 and older. Do not use them if you are under 18. Only the mobile app requires adult-access confirmation; it is self-attestation, not independent age verification. If you believe a minor provided personal information, contact us for removal.

The service is operated from the United States. If you use it elsewhere, information may be processed in the United States and other locations used by our processors, subject to applicable safeguards.

We will update the date above when this policy changes. Material changes may also be announced in the product when appropriate. Questions and privacy requests can be submitted at poliscope.vote/support.