Cipher NYC is a civic research tool that makes New York City's laws, rules, and government structure searchable and navigable. This policy explains what we collect, why, and how we handle it.
When you sign in, we collect your email address. This is the only personal information we ask for. We use it solely to identify your account and communicate with you about the service.
We also collect session data: when you signed in and when you last used the site.
The email requirement exists to keep access to verified humans rather than scrapers, and to understand how the tool is being used so we can improve it. Session data helps us see which parts of the law people are actually researching — that's useful for deciding what to build next.
We do not use your data for advertising. We do not sell it. We do not share it with third parties except the infrastructure services listed below.
Authentication and user data is stored on Supabase, a hosted database service. Their privacy policy governs how they handle infrastructure-level data. Session and interaction records are stored in the same database.
To ask questions about your data or request its removal, email [email protected].
We use browser localStorage to maintain your session between visits so you don't have to sign in every time. We do not use third-party tracking cookies. We use GoatCounter for basic anonymous traffic analytics — it does not set cookies or collect personal information.
If we make material changes we'll update the date at the top of this page. For significant changes we'll notify signed-in users by email.
Questions about this policy: [email protected]