Privacy Policy

Political Pillars Inc. ("Pillars," "we," "our," or "us") respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and safeguard your data when you use our mobile application ("App") and website (pillarsapp.us), collectively referred to as the "Services."

By using our Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

We collect the following types of information:

A. Information You Provide

• Account Information: When you create an account, we collect your email address and display name. You may sign up using email and password, Apple Sign-In, or Google Sign-In. If you use Apple or Google Sign-In, we receive the name and email address associated with that account.

• Address Information: You may optionally provide your home address or ZIP code to identify your elected representatives and legislative district. This is entered manually, we do not use your device's GPS or location services.

• Bill & Politician Tracking: You may choose to track bills or follow politicians. These preferences are stored to personalize your experience.

• Feedback: If you submit feedback through the app, we collect your message, a category you select (bug, feature, design, or other), and automatically include your device information (device brand, model, operating system, and app version) to help us debug issues.

• Referrals: If you share your invite code with others, we track successful referrals (inviter and invitee) to award in-app badges.

B. Automatically Collected Information

When you use Pillars, we may automatically collect:

• Push notification tokens: If you enable notifications, we collect your device's push notification token to send you updates about elections, bill status changes, executive orders, and other civic activity.

• Analytics data: We use PostHog to collect anonymized usage analytics, including screens viewed, actions taken (e.g., tracking a bill, viewing a representative), and engagement patterns. Your user ID and email are associated with analytics events to help us understand usage, but this data is not shared with third parties for advertising.

• Error and crash data: We use Sentry to collect error reports and crash data to improve app stability. This includes stack traces and device context but does not include passwords or personal content.

• Gamification data: We automatically track your civic engagement activity to power the in-app badges and leveling system. This includes counts of unique bills viewed, politicians viewed, executive orders read, daily login streaks, and actions visited.

C. Information from Third Parties

We incorporate publicly available government and civic data from the following sources to power the app's features:

• Congress.gov — Federal bill text, status, and legislative actions

• LegiScan — State-level bill data and legislative tracking

• Google Civic Information API — Election information, polling locations, and elected officials

• OpenStates — State legislator information and contact details

• Federal Register — Executive orders and presidential actions

• U.S. Census Bureau — District boundary and geographic data

• Federal Election Commission — Campaign finance data

This data is publicly available and does not include personal information about our users.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

• Provide and improve our Services

• Personalize your experience based on your interests and address

• Identify your elected representatives and legislative district

• Send push notifications about election reminders, bill status changes, executive orders, and other civic updates (if enabled)

• Track your badges, achievements, and civic engagement progress

• Process referral invitations and award related badges

• Analyze usage trends to improve app functionality

• Diagnose errors and improve app stability

• Prevent fraud, abuse, and maintain platform security

• Comply with legal obligations and applicable laws

3. How We Share Information

We do not sell personal information.

We use the following third-party service providers to operate the Services:

• Supabase — Authentication, database hosting, and data storage

• Expo (Expo Push Notifications) — Delivery of push notifications to your device

• Railway — Application server hosting

• PostHog — Anonymized product analytics

• Sentry — Error and crash reporting

These service providers only access your data as necessary to perform their functions and are obligated to protect your data with the same or equal level of protection as described in this Privacy Policy.

We may also share limited, non-identifiable, aggregated data for research, analytics, or reporting purposes with:

• University partners or civic organizations studying civic engagement

• Legal authorities if required by law or to protect Pillars' rights and users' safety

All shared analytics are anonymized and cannot be traced back to individual users.

4. Data Retention

We retain your information only as long as your account is active or as needed to provide our Services. Specifically:

• Account data (email, display name, preferences) is retained until you delete your account.

• Push notification tokens are retained while notifications are enabled and removed when you delete your account.

• Gamification data (XP, badges, streaks) is retained until you delete your account.

• Feedback submissions are retained until you delete your account.

• Analytics data is retained by PostHog and Sentry according to their respective retention policies and is not linked to your account after deletion.

• Notification logs are deleted when your account is deleted.

We may also retain certain information as required to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

5. Data Deletion

You can delete your account and all associated personal data at any time by:

In the app: Go to your Profile > Delete Account. This permanently removes your account, tracked bills, followed politicians, notification preferences, push tokens, gamification data, referral history, feedback, and all other personal data from our servers.

On the web: Visit pillarsapp.us/delete to request account deletion.

By email: Contact us at hello@pillarsapp.us to request deletion.

When you sign out, locally stored data (address, tracked bills, followed politicians) is also cleared from your device.

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

6. Data Security

• We use industry-standard security measures to protect your data, including:

• Encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS) for all data transmission

• Secure authentication through Supabase Auth (including Apple and Google OAuth)

• Encrypted on-device storage for sensitive data

• Environment-based secrets management (no credentials stored in code)

• Row-level security policies on database tables

However, no system is completely secure, and you use the Services at your own risk.

7. Children's Privacy

Pillars is intended for users 13 years and older. If you are under 13, please do not use our Services or provide personal information. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If we become aware of such data, we will delete it immediately.

8. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights:

• Access and Correction: Request access to or correction of your personal data by contacting hello@pillarsapp.us.

• Deletion: Delete your account in-app or request deletion by email (see Section 5).

• Opt-Out of Notifications: Disable specific notification categories in Settings, or disable all notifications at the device level.

• Opt-Out of Analytics: Contact us at hello@pillarsapp.us to request removal of your analytics data.

• Revoke Consent: You may revoke consent for data collection by deleting your account.

9. International Users

If you access Pillars from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be processed in the U.S. and may be subject to U.S. laws.

10. Links to Other Websites

Our Services may include links to third-party sites (e.g., official government pages, voter registration portals). We are not responsible for their privacy practices and encourage you to review their privacy policies.

11. Updates to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app or by other means. The "Last Updated" date at the top reflects the most recent revision. Continued use of the Services after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact us at: hello@pillarsapp.us