Privacy Policy

Information We Collect

No account required. GovLense does not ask you to create an account, sign in, or provide a name, email address, or phone number to use the app or browse this website. We do not run our own analytics, and we do not set advertising cookies.

The optional account (only if you create one)

You can create a free account to receive a weekly email digest of the bills and members you follow and to sync your follows across your devices. This is entirely optional. Every other feature works without it. If you choose to create one, we collect and store on our servers your email address and the bills, members, and committees you follow. We do not ask for your name. Your email is used only to send the digest, the verification code that confirms the address belongs to you, and essential account messages. It is never used for advertising, and we never sell or rent it. You can turn the digest off in the app, unsubscribe from any digest email, or delete your account entirely, which permanently removes this data from our servers.

Notifications, and when your follows leave your device

Two optional features send the list of what you follow to our servers: turning on push notifications andcreating an account. Either one on its own is enough, and you can use notifications without ever making an account. We need that list on our side because we can't tell you a bill has moved without knowing you follow it.

If you turn notifications on, we also store a random installation identifier created on your device, the Apple push token that lets us deliver an alert to it, your app and iOS version, and your time zone (so alerts respect quiet hours and arrive at a reasonable local hour). We record when a notification we sent was opened, so we can tell whether these alerts are worth sending at all. The installation identifier is a random value we generate; it is not your device's serial number and not an advertising identifier, and it isn't connected to your identity unless you also create an account. On a device with no account, turning notifications off deletes this record entirely.

Your representatives

If you are signed in to an account, we store which members of Congress represent you, so the weekly digest can tell you how they voted. This is district-level information, not your address or your coordinates. We store it only for devices signed in to an account, and signing out removes it.

Preferences stored on your device

Everything else stays local: the topics you choose, the state or ZIP you set for the "find my representatives" feature, and your display settings. These live in your device's app storage, are never transmitted to our servers, and are deleted when you delete the app or clear its storage. If you have neither turned on notifications nor created an account, the items you follow stay on your device too.

Connection data when the app talks to our API

GovLense displays live data (bills, votes, members, committees, amendments) from our own API service. Like any internet request, fetching that data sends routine technical information to our servers, including your IP address, the date and time, and which item you requested. We use this only to deliver responses and keep the service reliable and secure. It is held briefly in standard server logs, is not used to build a profile of you, is not linked to your identity, and is never sold or shared for advertising.

The "Find My Representatives" Feature

GovLense can show you the senators and House member for your area. This feature is optional and only runs when you use it. You can choose either method:

• Type an address or ZIP code. We send what you type to our API to look up the matching congressional district.
• Use your device location. If you grant the permission, the app reads your GPS coordinates and sends them to our API to find your district. You can decline this and type a ZIP instead.

To turn an address or coordinates into a district, our API forwards them to mapping and geocoding providers: theU.S. Census Bureau Geocoderand Photon (operated by komoot) for address suggestions. Those providers receive what you typed or where you are in order to answer the lookup.

On our side, the address and the coordinates are used to answer that one request and are then gone. They are not written to a database and not held in a cache, we keep no history of your lookups, and nothing about the lookup is attached to your identity. Your chosen state or ZIP is saved only on your device so you don't have to enter it again.

Information We Do Not Collect

Apart from the optional account and notification data described in Section 01, GovLense does not collect, store, or have access to:

• Your name. We never ask for one, not even when you create an account
• A phone number or other contact details. An email address only if you create an optional account
• A password we can read (account passwords are handled by our authentication provider, not stored by us in readable form)
• Your contacts, calendars, photos, microphone, or camera
• Advertising identifiers (IDFA, AAID) or device fingerprints
• A stored history or profile of the bills and members you view, or of what you search for. We keep only the items you explicitly follow, and only once you have turned on notifications or created an account
• Your street address or GPS coordinates. The optional lookup in Section 02 uses them to answer one request and discards them. With an account we keep only which congressional district you are in, and we never track your location in the background
• Payment information (the app and the account are free)

We do not use third-party analytics or advertising SDKs, and we never sell, rent, or trade personal information. The limited technical, account, and location data described above is used only to operate the app, never to profile you.

Third-Party Services We Use

We keep our list of service providers short, and we share only what each one needs to do its job. Unless you create an optional account, none of them receive an email address or an account.

• Fly.io hosts our API. It processes connection data (such as IP addresses) to route requests, as described in Section 01.
• Neon hosts our database and, for accounts, our authentication service. The database holds public congressional data plus, if you create an account, your email address, the items you follow, and which district you are in.
• Resend delivers our email: the weekly digest for accounts that have it enabled, and the verification code sent when you create an account. It processes your email address to send those messages. We have open and click tracking switched off, so we do not know whether you opened a digest or which links you clicked. See the Resend privacy policy.
• Apple Push Notification service delivers alerts to your device if you turn notifications on. Apple receives the push token for your device and the contents of the notification. See the Apple privacy policy.
• U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder and Photon / komoot turn an address or coordinates into a congressional district for the optional feature in Section 02.
• Apple App Store and Google Play distribute the app and may collect standard install, crash, and device telemetry under their own terms; we do not receive identifying data from it. See the Apple and Google privacy policies.
• Google Fonts (this website only) serves typefaces from fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com; your browser's request may let Google log routine connection data such as your IP and user-agent.

The underlying legislative data comes from authoritative public sources (Congress.gov, the unitedstates/congress project, congress-legislators, and Voteview) which we ingest into our database. Your device does not contact those sources directly, and no information about you is sent to them.

Children's Privacy (COPPA)

GovLense is a general-audience civic information app and is not directed to children under the age of 13. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and the optional account is not intended for them. Because an account is optional and we run no analytics, we do not build advertising profiles of users. If we learn that we have collected account information from a child under 13, we will delete it. If you are a parent or guardian and have questions, please contact us using the details in Section 10.

California Privacy Rights (CCPA / CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act give you certain rights regarding your personal information. Because we collect so little, the practical impact is limited, but for completeness:

• Categories collected in the past 12 months: internet/network activity (IP address and request logs); only if you use the representatives feature, geolocation data; only if you turn on notifications, identifiers (a random installation identifier and a push token) and the items you follow; and only if you create an optional account, an identifier (your email address), the items you follow, and your congressional district. All as described in Sections 01 and 02.
• Categories sold or shared: none. We have never sold or "shared" (as the CCPA defines it for cross-context advertising) personal information, and we never will.
• Sources: directly from your device when it connects to our API.
• Business purpose: to deliver, secure, and maintain the app. We do not retain this data to build profiles.

You retain the right to know, delete, correct, limit the use of sensitive information, and opt out of sale or sharing. If you have no account we hold little to act on; if you do, you can delete it and its data from the app at any time, or contact us to exercise any right. We will not discriminate against you for doing so.

European Privacy Rights (GDPR / UK GDPR)

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the General Data Protection Regulation gives you rights over personal data that controllers process about you. The personal data GovLense processes is the limited technical data described in Section 01, the optional location data described in Section 02, and, only where you have opted in, the notification and account data in Section 01. Our lawful basis for the technical data is our legitimate interest in delivering and securing the app. For the representatives feature, notifications, and the account, the basis is your consent: you provide that data voluntarily when you choose to use the feature, and you can withdraw it by turning notifications off or deleting your account. You may exercise your rights (access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, or objection) by contacting us, and you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

Data Security & Retention

The strongest privacy guarantee is to hold as little as possible. Without an account we store no personal profiles, so there is almost nothing on our side to breach; with an account we hold only your email address, the items you follow, and your district. Our website and API are served over HTTPS, and your on-device preferences live in your device's protected app storage.

Retention: on-device preferences remain until you delete the app or clear its storage. Account data (your email address, followed items, and district) is kept while your account exists and is permanently deleted when you delete the account. Addresses and coordinates from the representatives lookup are never retained at all. Server connection logs are kept only briefly for operations and security, and the location parameters of a lookup are stripped from them before they are written. A scheduled job prunes older notification records, expired sign-in sessions, and the records of installs that have gone dormant. We do not maintain long-term records that identify you beyond the optional account you choose to keep.

Changes to This Policy

If we make material changes to this policy, for example if we ever introduce a feature that requires processing personal information, we will update the effective date at the top of this page and clearly highlight the change. We will not change this policy retroactively to authorize new data collection on data we previously promised not to collect.

Contact

GovLense is operated by GovLense LLC, a Virginia limited liability company, which is the data controller for the limited information described in this policy. Questions, concerns, or requests about this policy or your privacy can be sent to:

privacy@govlense.app

We read every message. If your question is about a specific bill, vote, or member rather than privacy, the in-app feedback link is the better place to send it.