Privacy Policy

The short version

TapTrust publishes public information about water utilities and lets residents follow them and send them feedback. We collect the minimum needed to do that. We do not run analytics or advertising trackers, we do not build behavioural profiles, and we do not sell personal information.

Information you give us

Depending on how you use TapTrust, we may hold:

• Account details — your email address and name, handled by our authentication provider (see “Who processes data for us”). We never see or store your password.
• Utilities you follow, and which channels you chose for alerts (email, SMS, browser push).
• Feedback you submit — your ratings, your comment, and an optional location you type in, linked to your account.
• Browser push subscriptions, if you opt in — a push endpoint and keys issued by your browser.
• Utility staff details, if you claim a utility — your name, job title, work email and phone, so the claim can be verified.
• Billing details, if your utility subscribes — handled entirely by Stripe. We store only a customer reference, never card numbers.

What we do not collect

We do not use analytics platforms, advertising networks, session recording, or tracking cookies, and there is no such code in the site. We do not track which pages you read, we do not fingerprint your device, and we do not buy or enrich data about you from other sources.

How your feedback is used

Feedback you submit is shared with the utility it concerns so they can read and respond to it. Utility profile pages display only aggregate ratings and a review count — your individual comment is not published on the site. Ask us and we will delete feedback you have submitted.

Information from public records

Most utility profiles are built from public data published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Drinking Water Information System, together with information a utility provides about itself. That is information about organisations, not about you.

Who processes data for us

We use these providers, and only for the purpose listed:

• Clerk — accounts, sign-in and passwords.
• Vercel — application hosting and server logs.
• Neon — the database.
• Stripe — subscription payments for utilities.
• SendGrid — sending alert and notification email.
• Twilio — sending SMS alerts, where a plan includes them.
• Mapbox — turning a place name or ZIP code into map coordinates so search and maps work.
• OpenAI — producing plain-English summaries of utility water-quality reports. Report content is sent; your personal information is not.
• Your browser’s push service — delivering browser notifications you opted into.

How long we keep things

Account information is kept while your account exists. Feedback and follows are kept until you delete them or close your account. We keep an internal record of significant administrative actions — such as a utility publishing an alert or a claim being approved — so there is an audit trail; those entries reference the account that acted.

Your choices

You can, at any time:

• Unfollow a utility, or change which alert channels you use, from your account page.
• Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct anything that is wrong.
• Ask us to delete your account and the data attached to it.

Children

TapTrust is intended for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.

Security

Connections to TapTrust are encrypted in transit. Passwords are handled by our authentication provider and are not stored by us. Access to administrative tools is restricted to authorised staff. No service can promise perfect security, and we will not claim otherwise.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information, we will update this page and the date at the top. Material changes affecting how we use information you have already given us will be communicated to account holders.