Privacy Policy — Mandate

1. Who we are

Mandate is a nonpartisan civic-information service, operated by Jackson's Golden Assets LLC, a Michigan limited liability company. The Mandate app helps you understand what the federal government is doing: it summarizes federal legislation in plain English with equal-weight supporter and opponent arguments, tracks how members of Congress vote, and covers executive orders and Supreme Court decisions. Mandate also offers an AI assistant that answers questions about this material, a structured discussion feature ("The Well") where users can debate and comment on civic questions, and optional civic-learning activities.

This Privacy Policy describes how we handle personal information when you use the Mandate app on iOS or Android, or the mandateapp.org website. It explains what we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have.

2. Information we collect

To provide and improve Mandate, we collect the following categories of personal information.

Account and identity

Email address — when you create an account.
Authentication — you can sign in with an email and password, or with Sign in with Apple or Google. When you use Apple or Google sign-in, we receive a limited identifier from that provider to authenticate you. Passwords are stored in hashed form by our authentication provider; we never see or store your password in plain text.
Display name — an optional name you choose for your account, which may be a name you go by.

Location

ZIP code or street address — used to identify your congressional district and the specific representatives who serve you. This is required for the core function of the app. We resolve your ZIP or address to your state, congressional district, and your three federal representatives, and store that result so we can show you your representatives. Your congressional district is more specific than your state, and we treat it as location information.

Content you create

AI assistant conversations — the full text of the questions you ask the AI assistant and the responses it returns, including any conversations you choose to save. To generate responses, the content of your messages is processed by a third-party AI provider (see Section 5).
The Well — when you participate in The Well, we collect: a self-described political lean that you provide; the written arguments, claims, reasoning, evidence, and discussion posts you submit; any debate-preparation conversations you have with the AI assistant within The Well; and how you vote on arguments, posts, and topic nominations. Your self-described political lean and your written civic opinions are sensitive information, and we handle them as described in Section 6.
Feedback and reports — if you report a concern about a piece of analysis or send feedback, we collect what you submit, which may include free-text explanations, the direction you believe an analysis leans, and a copy of the specific content you are reporting.

Usage and activity

Topics and bills you follow — the policy categories you select and the specific bills you track.
Notification preferences — which alerts you enable, your quiet-hours settings, and your time zone.
Civic-learning activity — if you use the civic-learning features, we record your progress, experience points, streaks, titles, and achievements. Some learning milestones can unlock subscription benefits, so this activity may be linked to your subscription status.
Notification history — a record of the notifications we send you and whether they were opened, so we can manage delivery and frequency.
Product analytics — which screens you visit and which features you use, collected through our analytics provider to understand and improve the product. We strip authentication-related values from analytics data.

Device and technical

Push notification tokens — a token for each device you enable notifications on, so we can deliver the alerts you opt into. Because you may use more than one device, we may store more than one token for you.
Crash and error reports — technical diagnostics that help us find and fix problems.

Payment and subscription

Subscription status and history — your subscription tier, start and end dates, and a record of subscription events, including the amount and currency of transactions. These records are stored by us and are also processed through the app store you purchased through — Apple's App Store on iOS, or Google Play on Android — and our subscription-management provider (see Section 5). We do not receive or store your full payment-card details; those are handled by that store.
Provider identifiers — identifiers that link your account to our subscription-management provider (and, if a future web-based subscription is offered, our payment processor).

Support

Support requests — if you contact support, we collect your email address, your message, and the category you select. To prevent abuse of the support form, we store a one-way, salted hash derived from the sender's IP address; we do not store the raw IP address itself.

3. What we do not collect

To be clear about the limits of what Mandate gathers:

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
We do not track your electoral voting record. Mandate does not know, ask, or infer how you have voted in any election. (Separately, if you participate in The Well, we do record how you vote within that feature — on arguments, posts, and topic nominations — as described in Section 2.)
We do not access your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, or your browsing activity in other apps or on other websites.
We do not collect precise GPS location. The most specific location information we hold is the congressional district derived from the ZIP code or address you provide (see Section 2).
We do not collect biometric data.
We do not use advertising trackers or maintain a persistent identifier that follows you across other companies' apps and websites.

A note on political views: Some Mandate features let you express political views — for example, providing a self-described political lean or writing arguments in The Well. Where you choose to share that information, we collect and store it as part of providing that feature, and we treat it as sensitive information (see Sections 2 and 6). We do not require you to share political views to use Mandate's core features, and we do not use them to profile you for advertising or to target you.

4. How we use information

We use the information we collect to operate, provide, and improve Mandate:

To provide the core service — resolving your congressional district from your ZIP code or address, showing you your representatives, summarizing legislation, and delivering the features you use.
To power the AI assistant and The Well — processing your questions and submissions to generate responses and to operate the discussion features (see Sections 2 and 7 for how AI processing works).
To send notifications you have chosen — alerts about bills, votes, and other activity you have opted into, subject to your preferences and quiet hours.
To manage subscriptions — processing and recording your subscription and applying any benefits you have unlocked.
To maintain and improve the product — using aggregate analytics and diagnostic information to understand usage, fix problems, and improve features. We do not use this to build advertising profiles.
To communicate with you — responding to support requests and notifying you about your account and material changes to the service.
To keep Mandate safe — preventing abuse, fraud, and misuse, including the abuse-prevention measures on our support form.

5. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share information only in these circumstances:

With service providers who operate Mandate on our behalf. These providers process data only to provide their services to us, under contractual obligations consistent with this policy. They include:

Cloud infrastructure and database hosting — the provider that stores Mandate's data and runs its backend.
A third-party AI provider — which processes the content of your AI assistant messages and Well submissions to generate responses. Your messages are sent to this provider for processing at the time you use the feature.
App stores and subscription management — Apple (which processes your purchases through the App Store), Google (which processes your purchases through Google Play), and our subscription-management provider (which records and manages your subscription status).
Product analytics and error monitoring — providers that help us understand usage and diagnose problems. Authentication-related values are stripped before analytics data is sent.
Email delivery — a provider that sends transactional emails, such as the acknowledgment you receive when you contact support. It receives your email address and the message content necessary to send that email.
Push notification delivery — the service that delivers the notifications you opt into to your devices.

When required by law or to protect rights. We may disclose information if required by a subpoena, court order, or other lawful government request, or where we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Mandate, our users, or the public.

In a business transfer. If Mandate is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will require that your information remain subject to protections consistent with this policy, and we will notify you of any change in ownership or in how your information is handled.

6. Sensitive information

Some information you can choose to share with Mandate is considered "sensitive" under privacy laws such as the GDPR and various US state laws. For Mandate, this means:

Your political opinions — a self-described political lean you provide, and the political views expressed in the arguments, discussion posts, and debate-preparation conversations you write in The Well.

We collect this information only when you choose to provide it by using these features. You are not required to share political views to create an account or to use Mandate's core features (reading legislation, tracking votes, viewing your representatives, and using the AI assistant for factual questions).

We use sensitive information solely to operate the features you use it in — for example, to display your arguments in a debate or to organize discussion by perspective. We do not use your political opinions to build advertising profiles, to target you, or to make decisions about you outside of the feature you shared them in. We do not sell this information.

7. AI and automated processing

Mandate uses artificial intelligence to generate bill summaries, to power the AI assistant, and to support features in The Well. This section explains how that works with your information.

What is processed. When you use the AI assistant or write in The Well, the content of your messages and submissions is sent to a third-party AI provider that generates the response or performs the requested analysis. Bill summaries and similar analyses are generated from public government documents, not from your personal information.

Storage and retention. Your AI assistant conversations are stored in your account so you can return to them, and conversations you choose to save are retained until you delete them or delete your account. You can delete conversations, and deleting your account removes your conversation history (see Section 10).

Training. Your conversations and submissions are not used to train or improve AI models. If this ever changes, we will tell you in advance through a material change to this policy, and — for sensitive information such as political opinions — we will not use your content for model training without first obtaining your consent.

Human access. We do not routinely read your conversations. Conversation and submission content may be accessed in limited circumstances: to review and improve the quality of AI responses, and to moderate submissions in The Well. Access is limited to these purposes.

Accuracy and your decisions. AI-generated content can contain errors. Mandate presents information to help you form your own view; it does not make decisions for you and does not tell you how to vote. You should verify important facts against the primary sources Mandate cites before relying on them.

8. Legal basis for processing (EEA and UK users)

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we process your personal information under the following legal bases:

To perform our contract with you — processing necessary to provide the features you sign up for, such as resolving your district, showing your representatives, and delivering the service.
Your consent — for processing that relies on your choice, including sensitive information (your political opinions in The Well) and enabling push notifications. You can withdraw consent at any time, though this may limit features that depend on it.
Our legitimate interests — for operating, securing, and improving Mandate (such as diagnostics, aggregate analytics, and abuse prevention), where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
To comply with legal obligations — where processing is required to meet a legal or regulatory requirement.

9. Automated decision-making

Mandate does not make decisions about you that produce legal or similarly significant effects through solely automated means. Features such as content ranking in The Well or progress scoring in the civic-learning activities involve automated processing, but they do not determine anything of legal consequence about you, and you can request human review of any automated outcome that affects your use of Mandate by contacting us.

10. Data retention

We keep your personal information for as long as your account is active and you are using Mandate.

When you delete your account, we delete the personal information associated with it — including your account details, your location and representative information, your AI assistant conversations, your submissions and political-lean information in The Well, your civic-learning activity, your subscription event history, your notification settings, and your device tokens. Deletion takes effect promptly through automated removal, not on a delayed schedule.

Limited exceptions. A small amount of information is kept in a form that is no longer linked to you:

Feedback and reports you submitted about the service are retained with your account identifier removed, so we can keep a record of reported issues without identifying you.
Topic nominations you made in The Well remain as community content with your identifier removed, since other users may have engaged with them.

You can delete your account at any time from within the app. If you are unable to access your account, you can request deletion by contacting us (see Section 15).

11. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you have rights over your personal information. Mandate honors these rights for all users where we can:

Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Correction — ask us to correct inaccurate information. You can update much of your account information directly in the app.
Deletion — delete your account and associated data at any time from within the app, or request deletion by contacting us.
Withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent (such as for sensitive information or notifications), you can withdraw it, including by turning off the relevant feature.
Opt out of sale or sharing — we do not sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of, but you retain this right.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA): You have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use and disclose it, the right to delete it, the right to correct it, and the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under California law, and we do not use sensitive information for purposes beyond providing the features you use it in. You will not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.

EEA and UK residents (GDPR/UK GDPR): In addition to the above, you have the right to restrict or object to certain processing, the right to data portability, and the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

How to exercise your rights. Use the account controls in the app where available, or contact us (see Section 15). We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

12. Children

Mandate is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you must be at least 16 to use Mandate. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child below the applicable age, we will delete it.

13. Security

We use technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information, including encryption in transit, access controls, and hashing of authentication credentials. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by applicable law.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the app or by email before they take effect. For changes that would materially expand how we use sensitive information — such as using your political-opinion data or your conversations to train AI models — we will obtain your consent before applying the change to your information. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the current version.

15. Contact us

For privacy questions, to exercise your rights, or to report a concern, contact us at privacy@mandateapp.org. You can also reach our support team through the help center at mandateapp.org/support.