Privacy Policy

This policy explains what the Coastal Diligence website and web app at coastaldiligence.com collect about you, why, who else handles it, how long it is kept, and how to ask for deletion. We call the website and app "the service".

The service is run by Coastal Diligence LLC, a California limited liability company. We call that company "we" and "us". Contact: hello@coastaldiligence.com.

If your organization has a signed agreement with us, that agreement also covers how we handle its content. Where it differs from this policy, the agreement controls for that content.

1. What we collect

Your account

• Your email address.
• Your name, if you or Google gave it to us.
• Your account type (practice, agency or brokerage) and role (member or admin). These come from your invitation.
• The date you accepted the notice shown at first sign-in, and which version of it.

Sign-in and cookies

• You sign in with a link we email to you, or with your Google account. A sign-in link works once and expires in 15 minutes. An invitation link works once and lasts 7 days. We store only a scrambled form (a "hash") of each link, so a copy of our database holds no usable link.
• When you sign in, we set one cookie in your browser. A cookie is a small file a website stores in your browser. Ours holds a session token, which keeps you signed in for up to 30 days and is renewed while you keep using the service.
• For each session we record your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection), your browser type, and the time.
• We use no advertising cookies, no analytics tools and no third-party trackers. Because we do not track you across other websites, the service works the same way whether or not your browser sends a "Do Not Track" signal.

Sign-in with Google

If you choose to sign in with Google, we ask Google for your basic profile only. We receive your name, your email address, whether Google has verified that address, the web address of your profile picture, and your Google account ID. We also store the sign-in tokens Google issues for that request.

We use this only to sign you in. We do not ask for access to your Gmail, Calendar or contacts. The Google address must be one that has been invited.

Google Drive

Beside a report's Download button there is a button that saves the file to your Google Drive, and on a property's page you can add documents from your Drive. The first time you use either, Google asks you to give Coastal Diligence access to the files you use with it. The Google account must have the same email address as your Coastal Diligence account.

That permission covers only the files and folders Coastal Diligence itself puts there, and the files you pick in Google's own window when you add documents to a property, which we copy into the property. We cannot see, open or change anything else in your Drive. We store the tokens Google issues for the permission, and the Drive identifiers of the folders and files we created, so that saving a file again replaces the earlier copy. We use them for nothing else.

A copy saved to your Drive is yours. It stays there when the conversation is deleted here, and Google's terms apply to it. You can withdraw the permission at any time in your Google account, under third-party access.

Our use of information received from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

Access requests

If you fill in the request-access form, we keep your email address and whatever else you enter: your name, your firm or agency, the description you pick, and any note. The request is also emailed to our administrators.

Invitations

For each invitation we keep the invited email address, the account type and role, who sent it, and the dates it was sent, first used and, if so, withdrawn.

Conversations

We store each conversation so that you can come back to it. That includes:

• the messages you type and your answers to questions the service asks you;
• the title of the conversation, which starts as the first words of your first message;
• the replies the AI writes;
• a record of each research step: which tool ran, what was sent to it, and the first part of what came back.

The AI software also keeps its own working history of each conversation on our server, so that it can pick up where it left off. That history can include the text of files and records it read.

Automated review of conversations

AI software reviews conversations to find faults in the service and ways to improve it. It records findings without names, addresses, parcel numbers or the contents of your documents. No person reads your conversations for the review; we use the findings to improve the service for everyone. A copy made for the review is deleted within 30 days, or sooner if you delete the conversation. If your organization has a signed agreement with us, that agreement can turn the review off.

Files and reports

Files you attach, and the working files and reports the service writes, are kept in a workspace for that conversation on our research server.

Saved properties

If you save a property, we keep its name, address and parcel numbers, and your answers to the questions on the property's page. Documents you add to the property are kept in a workspace of its own on our research server, apart from any one conversation. Every conversation you have about that property can read them.

Payments

If you subscribe or buy additional usage, Stripe takes the payment. You enter your card details on Stripe's page, not ours, and we never see or store your card number. We keep Stripe's identifiers for you as a customer and for your subscription, along with your plan, how often you are billed, the subscription's status and renewal date, and the usage packs you bought. Stripe tells us the amounts paid and refunded. If you pay by invoice, Stripe emails the invoices to you.

Usage and cost

For each message you send that starts a research run, we record your account, the AI model used, the start and end time, how the run ended, how much text the model processed, and what the run cost us. We use this to apply the usage limits on each account. You see your usage as a share of your allowance. Our administrators see the cost per account.

Emails we send you

We email you sign-in links, invitations, and a note when a long-running report is ready or a long run stops before it finishes. We send the note only if no open page could show you the conversation or notify you at the time. In the account menu you can choose to get it every time, or never; we keep that choice with your account. The report note gives the report's file name and a link to the conversation. It contains no part of the report.

If you ask it to, your browser shows a notification when a long run ends while the page is open in the background. The page shows it itself: nothing is sent to us or to anyone else to do so. Whether a browser does this is kept in that browser, and you can turn it off in the account menu.

Logs

Our web servers keep no log of the pages you visit. Our software logs errors. It also logs that a report-ready or run-stopped email was sent, with the conversation ID only.

Our research server also records how it performs, such as errors and timing, without the content of your requests, and the AI software can note problems it runs into. Both are used for the review.

What we do not collect

We do not see or store your card number. We do not buy information about you from anyone.

2. Why we use it

• To sign you in and keep your account secure.
• To run the research you ask for and show you the results.
• To let you return to your conversations, files and reports.
• To apply usage limits and track what the service costs to run.
• To take payment and keep billing records.
• To send you the emails listed above.
• To find faults in the service and improve it.
• To investigate security problems or misuse.

We do not sell your personal information. We show no advertising. We do not use your content to train AI models, and the AI model providers we send it to do not use it to train theirs (see section 3).

3. Who else handles it

We use these companies to run the service. Each receives only what it needs for its job.

• OpenAI provides the AI model. To run your research, we send it your messages, the content of files and public records the AI reads, and the research instructions. We use OpenAI's paid API service. OpenAI does not use content sent to that service to train its models unless the customer opts in, and we have not opted in. OpenAI keeps that content for up to 30 days, to monitor for misuse and to hold the state of each conversation, and then deletes it. It may keep content longer where the law requires.
• Anthropic provides a second AI model, and receives the same things in the conversations it runs. Those are conversations started before OpenAI became our usual model, and conversations that one of our own administrators starts and switches to it. We use Anthropic's paid API service, and its commercial terms do not permit it to train its models on that content. Anthropic deletes that content within 30 days. It may keep content longer where the law requires, or where its automated safety checks flag the content as a possible breach of its usage policy; flagged content can be kept for up to 2 years. Anthropic also provides the AI that runs the automated review, and does not train its models on that content.
• Resend delivers our emails. It receives your email address and the subject and text of each email.
• Stripe, if you pay. It receives your email address and the payment details you enter on its page, and handles them under its own privacy policy.
• Google, if you sign in with Google or use Google Drive here. Google learns that you signed in to Coastal Diligence, receives each file you save to your Drive, and sends us each file you pick to add.
• Amazon Web Services hosts our servers, database, files and backups in the United States (currently in its US West (Oregon) region).

Public record sources. When the AI looks up a property, our server sends the lookup, such as an address or parcel number, to the government map and records services that hold the answer. The request comes from our server. It does not carry your name or email address.

Our own people. The administrator screens in the app show account email addresses, invitations, access requests, plans and usage totals. They do not show conversations or files. We read the findings of the automated review, which hold none of your content. The people who run our servers are technically able to reach stored content. They will open your conversations, files or reports only at your request to fix a fault you reported, to investigate a security incident or suspected misuse, or where the law requires.

Legal demands. If we receive a subpoena or other legal demand for your content, we will tell you promptly so that you can object, unless the law forbids it.

We share your information with nobody else.

4. How long we keep it

• Sign-in sessions: up to 30 days after you last used the service. Signing out ends the session at once.
• Conversations, with their files and reports: until you delete them, or until 12 months have passed since the conversation was last used, whichever comes first. A conversation is used when you open it or when a research run in it finishes. The whole conversation is then deleted together. Download any report you want to keep for longer.
• Saved properties, with their documents: until you delete them, or until 12 months have passed since the property was last used, whichever comes first. A property is used whenever a conversation about it is.
• Usage and cost records, and billing records: 7 years, for tax and accounting. They are kept even after you delete the conversation they came from.
• Your account and your invitation: for as long as your account is open. Access requests that do not lead to an account: 12 months.
• Backups: we keep nightly copies of the database for 14 days and daily copies of the server's disk for 7 days. Something you delete drops out of the backups within about 14 days.
• Error logs: 90 days.
• Performance records and the AI software's notes: 90 days.
• Findings of the automated review: as long as they are useful. They hold no content.

5. Deleting a conversation: what goes and what stays

You can delete any conversation from the conversation list. You have a few seconds to undo it. A conversation that is still working must be stopped first.

Deleting a conversation removes:

• its messages, replies and research steps;
• its title;
• its workspace on our research server: the files you attached, the working files and the reports;
• the AI software's working history for that conversation;
• the copy made for the automated review, if it is still held.

Deleting a conversation does not remove:

• the usage and cost record of each run in it. That record holds your account, the AI model, the times, the amount of text processed and the cost. It holds no content and no longer points to the conversation.
• emails we already sent you about it, which name the report's file. They stay in your mailbox, and with Resend for 30 days.
• log lines for those emails.
• findings of the automated review, and performance records (see section 4).
• backup copies, until they age out as described above.
• copies held by the AI model provider, until the provider deletes them, usually within 30 days (see section 3).
• documents you added to a saved property. They stay with the property until you delete it, or until it expires as described above.
• public records our research server looked up and saved for reuse, such as a parcel record. These are saved without your name or account.

6. Deleting your account and your other choices

To have your account deleted, email hello@coastaldiligence.com. We will delete your account, your sign-in records, your invitation, your conversations, your saved properties, your files and your reports within 30 days, and end any subscription. The usage, cost and billing records stay for the period in section 4, but they no longer point to a name or an email address.

You can also ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, or to correct it. Email the same address. We offer these choices to everyone, wherever you live, and we will not treat you differently for using them.

7. Security

• Traffic between your browser and the service is encrypted in transit.
• Sign-in and invitation links are stored only as hashes.
• Each conversation's files sit in their own workspace. A link to open a file expires after one minute.
• Withdrawing an invitation ends that account's sessions at once.

No system is perfectly secure. We will tell you within 72 hours of learning of unauthorized access to your content.

8. Children

The service is for professionals and is offered by invitation. It is not directed to anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has given us information, email us and we will delete it.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the latest version. Before a material change takes effect, we email the address on each account. If we ever want to use information already collected in a materially different way, we will ask first.

10. Contact

hello@coastaldiligence.com