Privacy Policy

Effective Date: September 26, 2026 Last Updated: September 26, 2026

The Short Version

Civic helps you find the people who represent you and follow the bills that affect your life. Here is a plain-language summary of what that means for your data. The full policy below has the details, and it's the version that applies if the two ever seem to differ.

What we collect. Your account details (name, email, sign-in provider), your address or location so we can match you to your districts, the bills you follow, whether you approve or disapprove of bills, a device token if you turn on notifications, and how you use the app, which we measure without linking it to your account. If you join the subscriber list on our website, we collect the email address and phone number you enter.

What stays private. No one is entitled to see your ballot but you. If you mark your choices on the My Ballot page, they stay on your phone; we cannot see them, and nothing leaves your phone unless you choose to add them to an anonymous tally or save them to an encrypted history that only you can open. The bills you follow and whether you approve or disapprove of them are private. They are never shown to officials or anyone else as your individual activity, and other users see them only if you add friends and turn on sharing with them. Approvals and disapprovals may be counted in aggregate numbers, such as "62% of Civic users in your district who weighed in disapproved of this bill," which never show who weighed in.

What we will never do. We do not sell your personal information. We do not give your name, address, contact information, follows, bill positions, or usage to any official, candidate, campaign, political party, PAC, data broker, or advertiser. We do not use your political views to target you, and we do not let anyone else use them to target you.

Friends. You can add friends on Civic, but only by sending or accepting an invite; there is no search for people. Friends see your name, photo, and the badge you wear. They see your reactions and when you say you voted only if you turn that on, and you can turn it off at any time. We never use your friends list or your connections to advertise to you or target you, and we never give them to anyone.

Your control. You can see, change, and delete your data. Deleting your account deletes your profile, address, follows, and bill positions.

1. Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy explains how Civic ("Civic," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares personal information through our mobile application, website (civicpolitics.com), and related services (together, the "Service"). It applies to everyone who uses the Service, whether or not you create an account.

By using Civic, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information in three ways: what you give us, what we collect automatically, and what we display from public sources.

A. Information You Provide

Account information. When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and the sign-in method you use (Google, Apple, or email and password). If you sign in with Google or Apple, that provider sends us your name and email address (or an Apple private relay address). We do not receive your Google or Apple password.

Address and location. To match you with your representatives and districts, we ask for your home address or, with your permission, your device's location. We store the address and the districts it resolves to (for example, your congressional, state legislative, and city council districts). You can use Civic without giving a precise location, with reduced functionality.

Bills you follow and your bill positions. We collect the bills you follow and whether you approve or disapprove of a bill (your "bill positions"). Bill positions are stored together with your districts so they can be counted by district.

"I voted." If you tap "I voted" on the My Ballot page, we store the date of that election with your account so we can stop reminding you to vote in it. This records only that you told us you voted. It never records how you voted, and we do not check it against any voter roll. We share it only with your friends, and only if you have turned on sharing with them (see Section 4E). If you would rather tell us nothing, turn election reminders off in your notification settings instead.

Friends. If you use friends, we store who you are connected to, the invites you create and accept, and your settings for what friends can see. To show you to your friends, we keep a small public profile: your display name, your profile photo, the badge you wear, and, if you choose, the other badges you have earned. It contains nothing else.

Corrections you report. If you report a mistake in our data, such as a wrong office, photo, or party for a candidate, we store what you reported together with your account and your display name, so we can review the correction and credit the people who send them. A report records the entry you were looking at. It never records how you marked your ballot.

Supporter tier information. If you purchase a Civic Supporter tier (Supporter, Sustainer, or Superstar), we store your tier, status, and transaction history. Payments are processed by Apple for the App Store or Google for Google Play under their own privacy policies. We never receive or store your card number.

Website subscriber list. If you sign up for updates on civicpolitics.com, we collect the email address and phone number you enter. This list is separate from your Civic account.

Support and feedback. When you contact us or send feedback, we collect what you send us and your contact details so we can respond.

B. Information We Collect Automatically

Usage and analytics data. We collect information about how you use the Service: the screens you visit, the features you use, searches within the app, the device and operating system you use, your app version, and general performance and crash information. We use PostHog for this analysis. This data is not linked to your Civic account, name, email address, or home address. It is tied only to a random identifier stored on your device.

What analytics never sees. The My Ballot page, your voting history, and the picture of your ballot are excluded from analytics and from session recording altogether. No event, recording, or screen capture of them reaches our analytics provider, so your marked choices cannot turn up there even by accident.

Push notification tokens. If you turn on push notifications, we store a device token so we can send you updates about bills. You can turn notifications off at any time in your device settings or in the app.

Location data. If you grant location permission, we use your device's location to determine your districts. We store the resulting address and districts. We do not track your location in the background.

Log data. Our infrastructure providers automatically record standard technical data such as IP address, request times, and browser or device type for security and reliability.

C. Information From Public Sources

Civic displays information about elected officials, legislation, and government bodies. This comes from government websites, official records, and other public sources. It is not information about you, but if you are an elected official, information about you in your public capacity may appear in Civic. See Section 11.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

Show you your government. Match your address to your districts, show you your representatives, and surface bills that affect you.
Run the features you use. Save the bills you follow, record your bill positions, and send the notifications you have turned on.
Connect you with friends. Show you and your friends to each other, and, only when you have turned sharing on, tell your friends when you react to a bill or say you voted.
Produce aggregate counts. Combine bill positions from many users into counts and percentages by district, state, or nationwide. Aggregates never identify you.
Manage Supporter tiers. Process purchases and comply with tax and accounting requirements.
Improve Civic. Understand which features are used, find and fix bugs, and decide what to build next.
Communicate with you. Send service messages (such as account or security notices), respond to support requests, and send updates to people who joined our subscriber list. You can unsubscribe from updates at any time.
Keep Civic trustworthy. Detect fake accounts and bulk or automated activity that could distort aggregate counts.
Meet legal obligations. Comply with applicable law and respond to lawful requests.

We do not use your political views, bill positions, follows, friends list, or connections to target advertising to you, and we do not permit anyone else to.

4. What Others Can See

A. Your Follows and Bill Positions Are Private

Other users cannot see which bills you follow. They cannot see whether you approved or disapproved of a bill unless they are your friend and you have turned on sharing with friends (see Section 4E). No official, organization, or other outside party receives your individual follows or bill positions. The only outside companies that handle this data are the service providers in Section 5A, which store and process it for us and may not use it for anything else.

B. Your Ballot Choices Never Leave Your Phone Unless You Send Them

No one is entitled to see your ballot but you. The choices you mark on the My Ballot page are stored only on your device. We do not receive them, cannot see them, and do not include them in any analytics. Two things can move a copy of them off your device, and both happen only when you choose them:

The anonymous tally. When you lock your ballot you may choose to add your choices to Civic's tally. If you do, each choice is sent under a random identifier your device creates, with the election, the race or question, and the choice, and nothing else: no account identifier, no name, no address, no device identifier, and no time finer than the day. We cannot connect a tally entry to you. Your device keeps the random identifiers, so you can withdraw your choices from the tally at any time, and unlocking your ballot withdraws them automatically. Totals are shown only after election day and only for races and questions with enough entries that no one can be singled out (see Section 4C).
Your encrypted history. After an election you may save your ballot to a history that can follow you to a new device. Before it leaves your phone it is encrypted with a key that only your phone and your passphrase can unlock. We store the encrypted copy and cannot read it, and we cannot recover it if you lose your passphrase and your devices.

To show you a ballot at all, we work out which races and questions apply to your address, so our servers do know that your account looked up a ballot and which contests are on it. That is the address and district information described in Section 2A, and it is the same lookup that finds your polling place. What we do not have is your marks: which candidates you chose, and how you answered each question.

C. Aggregate Counts

Your bill positions, and ballot choices you chose to add to the anonymous tally, may be counted in aggregate statistics such as "1,240 Civic users in your district weighed in on this bill; 62% disapproved" or, after an election, "Civic users who shared their ballot chose this candidate at 55%." These aggregates may be shown within Civic, shared with elected officials' offices, or published. They contain counts and percentages only. They never include names, addresses, email addresses, account identifiers, or anything else that identifies an individual, and we apply minimum group sizes so that small counts cannot be used to single anyone out.

D. What We Never Share

We do not sell your personal information. We do not give your name, address, contact information, bill positions, follows, or usage to any official, candidate, campaign, political party, political action committee, data broker, or advertiser, unless you choose to send it to them yourself. If Civic is ever acquired or merges with another company, these commitments will bind the acquirer, or we will notify you and give you the opportunity to delete your data before any transfer.

E. Friends

Friends on Civic are mutual: a connection exists only after one person sends an invite and the other accepts it. There is no way to search for or browse other users, and we do not show anyone how many friends you have.

What every friend sees. Your display name, your profile photo, and the badge you wear. Anyone you send an invite to can see the same things when they open it.

What friends see only if you turn it on. The badges you have earned, if you turn on "Show my badges to friends." Your approvals and disapprovals of bills and votes, and the fact that you said you voted in an election, if you turn on "Share my reactions with friends." Sharing is off until you turn it on and stops the moment you turn it off. It covers the reactions you make after you turn it on, and the elections you have said you voted in. "I voted" tells friends only that you said you voted. It never says how you voted, and your ballot choices are never shared with friends.

Notifications. When a friend who shares reacts to a bill or says they voted, we may send you a notification. You can turn friend notifications off in your settings.

Your friends list is not for sale or targeting. We use your friends list and connections only to run the friends features you use. We never use them to advertise to you or anyone else, to target you or your friends with political or commercial messages, or to build profiles for others, and we never sell or give them to any official, candidate, campaign, political party, political action committee, data broker, or advertiser.

Removing a friend. You can remove a friend at any time. They are not notified, and they stop seeing anything you share from that moment.

5. How We Share Your Information

Beyond Section 4, we share personal information only in these circumstances.

A. Service Providers

We use third-party providers to operate Civic. They may process your information only to provide services to us and are contractually required to protect it. They currently include:

Google Firebase and Google Cloud for sign-in, data storage, server functions, and push notification delivery.
PostHog for product analytics and error reporting, as described in Section 2B.
Mapping and address lookup providers, which receive the address you enter or your device location so we can find your districts.
Apple and Google for payment processing.
Email and text message delivery providers for messages to our website subscriber list.
Website hosting and security providers for civicpolitics.com.

B. Aggregate Statistics

We may share or publish the aggregate statistics described in Section 4C. We do not share individual-level records, even with names or contact details removed, and we do not attempt to identify anyone from aggregate data.

C. Legal Requirements and Safety

We may disclose your information if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Civic, our users, or the public, including to investigate fraud or abuse. Where lawful, we will attempt to notify you of a request for your data before complying.

D. Phone Numbers and Text Messages

We do not sell or share your phone number, or your opt-in and consent to receive text messages, with any third party for its own marketing or promotional purposes. We share your phone number and opt-in status only with the providers that deliver our text messages for us.

E. Business Transfers

If Civic is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the commitments in Section 4D.

6. Your Choices and Rights

A. Access, Correction, and Deletion

You can view and update your profile, address, and preferences in the app at any time. You can delete your account from your profile settings or at civicpolitics.com/deletemyaccount. Deleting your account removes your profile, address, follows, bill positions, and other account data within 30 days. Bill positions already counted in published aggregates remain in aggregate form because they cannot identify you. Payment records and usage analytics are kept as described in Section 9.

B. Website Subscriber List

You can leave our subscriber list at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any email, replying STOP to any text message from us, or emailing us.

C. Location

You can grant or revoke location permission in your device settings. You can also enter an address manually instead of sharing your device location.

D. Notifications and Email

You can turn push notifications on or off in your device settings or in the app. You will still receive essential service messages, such as security notices, while you have an account.

E. Sale, Sharing, and Targeted Advertising

We do not sell your personal information or share it for targeted advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We honor Global Privacy Control signals, which is already our practice for everyone.

F. Rights Under State Privacy Laws

Depending on where you live (including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and other states with consumer privacy laws), you may have the right to:

Know what personal information we collect, use, and share, and access a copy of it.
Correct inaccurate personal information.
Delete your personal information.
Receive your data in a portable format.
Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and of profiling for decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. Civic does not do these things.
Not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at support@civicpolitics.com from the email address on your account, or use the deletion form linked above. We will verify your identity by confirming control of that email address and respond within 45 days. You may appeal a decision by replying to our response. You may designate an authorized agent to make a request for you; we will ask the agent for proof of your authorization.

California residents. In the preceding 12 months we have collected the categories of personal information described in Section 2 and used and disclosed them as described in Sections 3 through 5. We have not sold or shared personal information as those terms are defined under California law. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes beyond what is necessary to provide the Service.

7. Political Data Protection

Political views and civic activity are sensitive, and this category of app has a history of abusing them. Our commitments:

We use your follows and bill positions only to run Civic's features and to produce the aggregate counts described in Section 4C.
Your ballot choices stay on your device unless you choose to send them, as described in Section 4B, and the anonymous tally is built so that we cannot connect an entry to you.
We never share your individual follows or bill positions with any third party for commercial or political purposes. Friends see your bill positions only if you turn on sharing with them.
We never use your friends list or connections for advertising, targeting, or political outreach, by us or anyone else.
You can always see what you have followed and how you responded, change it, or delete it.
If we ever plan to use political data in a way this policy does not describe, we will ask for your consent first rather than change the policy quietly.

8. Data Security

We protect your data using encryption in transit and at rest, access controls that limit who at Civic can see personal information, and the security practices of our infrastructure providers, which hold recognized security certifications. No system is completely secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us right away at support@civicpolitics.com.

9. Data Retention

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account, we delete the data linked to it within 30 days, except:

Aggregate statistics, which we keep indefinitely because they cannot identify you.
Payment and transaction records, which we keep as required for accounting, tax, and legal compliance.
Usage analytics, which are not linked to your account, so they are not deleted along with it. We delete them on a rolling basis within three years.
Log data, which is deleted or de-identified on a rolling basis and is not kept in identifiable form for more than three years.
Information we must retain to comply with law, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

Friends. When you delete your account, your public profile is removed immediately, so you disappear from your friends' lists at once. Your connections are kept for 30 days in case the deletion was a mistake, and then deleted along with the rest of your account data.

Your ballot. Your marked choices are held on your device rather than with us, so they are not part of the account data we delete. Your device clears an election's marks about two months after election day; a ballot you saved to your voting history stays until you remove it, which you can do on the history page. Deleting your account deletes your encrypted ballot history, which we store but cannot read. It does not delete entries you added to the anonymous tally, because those were never linked to your account and we have no way to find yours. Withdraw them from your device first if you want them gone.

We keep website subscriber list information until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it.

10. Children's Privacy

Civic is intended for users 13 years and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us and we will delete it. Users between 13 and 17 should use Civic with parental consent.

11. Information About Public Officials

Civic displays information about elected officials and public bodies drawn from public sources, such as names, offices, party, contact information published by their office, voting records, and sponsored legislation. This is information about people in their public roles. If you are an official and believe information about you is inaccurate, contact us and we will review it.

12. International Users

Civic is operated from the United States and intended for people in the United States. If you use Civic from elsewhere, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this policy as Civic changes, and we will update the dates at the top when we do. If a change reduces your privacy protections or expands how we share your personal information, we will notify you by email or in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect. For changes that would use your political data in a new way, see Section 7.

14. Contact Us

For privacy requests, account issues, or questions about your data, contact us at support@civicpolitics.com. For general questions about Civic, contact us at civic@civicpolitics.com.

This Privacy Policy will remain in effect until modified in accordance with its terms.