Who we are
GovTube (govtube.us) is run by [To confirm: Atlas Precision LLC, legal name and address]. It is independent and not affiliated with the U.S. government. Questions about this notice go to privacy@govtube.us.
Effective date: [To confirm: date].
When you search, watch or share
- You don’t need an account. Searching, watching and citing are free for everyone.
- Public pages set no cookies. Your light or dark theme choice is saved in your own browser and never sent to us.
- We count visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. Search words are removed from every page address before it is counted. We also count which features are used (for example, that a filter was changed, a quote was continued or a link was copied); those counts never include what you typed, a quote or a person’s name.
- Like any website, our hosts keep short-term technical logs of requests. These can include the page address (which for a search includes the search words) and the network address it came from. We use them to keep the service running and to stop abuse.
- Our API keeps a usage record, so we can see which parts of GovTube help people and what they look for. Each entry holds: the time; which part was used (this website, the API or an AI assistant, and which feature); the search words of a new search, in lower case; which filters were on, but not what they were set to; roughly how many results there were; how long it took and whether it worked; the kind of app that asked (for example a web browser, Claude or a script, or the name an AI assistant’s app gives itself); and a scrambled code made from your network address and that kind of app. When a request comes from the shared network of an AI service that acts for many people (such as Claude’s), the code is made from the service instead, so all of its users count as one. The code is made with a secret that changes every day. During that day the secret is kept only on our server, where someone with access to the server could match a code to an address by trying addresses one by one. When the day ends the secret is deleted, and from then on nobody, us included, can turn a code back into an address or link one day’s entries to another’s. We never keep your network address, your browser details, an API key, your account or your email address in it. Searches our website makes by itself, such as the suggestions on a page with no results, are not recorded as yours.
- Each entry is deleted after 30 days, and overwritten in the file rather than just marked as free space. After that we keep only daily totals, and a search’s words only when at least three different visitors searched them on the same day. Visitors are counted by the code above, so that means three different network addresses or apps, which is usually but not always three different people. Rarer searches never appear in our reports or dashboard, for anyone, our staff included. Until they are deleted at 30 days, the entries can be read only by the few people with access to the production server. [To confirm: Preston/counsel: approve this wording before the usage record is turned on in production]
When you use the API or an AI assistant
- To keep the service fair, we count requests per network address (or per API key). The counters live in memory only and are never written to disk.
- API and AI-assistant requests go into the same usage record as the website’s (see above): the feature or tool used, the search words of a new search, and the name the assistant’s app gives itself (for example “claude-ai”). Requests made with our own team key, and our own monitoring, are left out.
- When an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT uses GovTube, we receive only the request it sends us, for example the words to search for. We don’t receive your conversation. The assistant’s provider handles your conversation under its own privacy policy, and the network address we see is usually the provider’s, not yours.
- If you have an API key, we store only a one-way code made from it, never the key itself.
Accounts and alerts (when they open)
Accounts are optional and only needed for alerts, saved lists and API keys. When they open, sign-in is handled by Clerk. You can sign in with: [To confirm: Preston: the sign-in methods switched on in Clerk production]
- Google: shares your name, your email address and a link to your profile picture.
- Apple: shares your name and your email address, or a private relay address if you choose to hide yours. Apple sends your name only the first time you sign in, and no picture.
- Facebook: shares your name, your email address and a link to your profile picture.
- A code sent to your email: only your email address.
Clerk keeps what the provider shares, and the provider’s number for your account there, so it can sign you in next time. We never get your password or anything else in that account. Our own database keeps your Clerk account number, your email address, the words, phrases and people you ask to be alerted about, a record of the alerts we sent, your saved lists (their names, the quotes you saved with their citation links, and any notes you add), your API keys (as one-way codes) and a record of what you agreed to. We would ask for a phone number only if you turn on text alerts, which are not offered yet.
What you choose to follow can show political interest, so we treat it as sensitive: it never goes into visit counts, logs or page addresses; we never share or sell it; and only staff with access to the production database can see it.
We don’t keep your browser details or your full network address with your account. The record of what you agreed to keeps a scrambled form of your network address that changes every day. [To confirm: Preston: the record of what someone agreed to doesn’t store this yet; build it before launch or remove this sentence]
The email list
You can join the GovTube email list without an account. We keep only your email address, whether you have confirmed it, where on the site you signed up, which version of the sign-up wording you agreed to, when you signed up and confirmed, and when and how many times we sent you a confirmation link. If you sign up from your account, we also keep which account it was. We don’t keep your network address or browser details with it.
After you sign up, we send one email with a link to confirm. Nothing else is sent until you confirm, and a sign-up that is never confirmed is deleted after 30 days. Every list email, the confirmation included, has a link to unsubscribe in one click. When you unsubscribe, we delete your address and keep only a one-way code made from it, so we can make sure we don’t email you again. For 30 days after that, a sign-up for your address from the form on the site sends nothing; you can join again from your account at any time.
If you close the sign-up box at the bottom of the page, your browser remembers that in its own storage. It is never sent to us.
Who handles data for us
We don’t sell or rent personal information, and we show no ads. These companies process data on our behalf:
| Company | What it does for us | What it handles |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Hosts the website and counts visits (Vercel Web Analytics, no cookies). | Request logs for the website; visit counts |
| Railway | Hosts the API and the database behind it. | Request logs for the API; account data once accounts open |
| Cloudflare | Runs our domain names, forwards email sent to govtube.us, and stores database backups. | Email you send us; backups |
| Clerk | Handles sign-in, once accounts open. In the United States, under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. | Your sign-in identity: email, name and picture from your sign-in provider, and session details |
| Resend | Sends email alerts, email-list mail and confirmation emails, once they start. | Your email address and the messages we send you |
We may also disclose information if the law requires it. [To confirm: counsel: legal-process wording]
How long we keep it
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Rate-limit counters (your network address) | In memory only, never written to disk. Cleared every time the service restarts or is updated, and sooner when it is busy. |
| Request logs kept by our hosts | Up to 30 days. [To confirm: Railway and Vercel log retention on our plans] |
| Visit counts | Kept as totals by Vercel. [To confirm: Vercel Web Analytics retention on our plan] |
| Usage record (searches, API and assistant use) | Each entry 30 days, then deleted. Daily totals, with search words only when at least three different visitors searched them that day, for up to 2 years. Not in our database backups. [To confirm: Preston/counsel: the 2-year limit for daily totals] |
| Your account, alerts, keys and saved lists | Until you delete your account (or delete a list or item yourself). |
| Record of emails we sent you | 90 days. |
| Email-list sign-ups never confirmed | Deleted 30 days after the last sign-up request. Confirmation links stop working after 7 days. |
| Email-list subscriptions | Until you unsubscribe or delete your account. Unsubscribing deletes the address. |
| Addresses that asked never to be emailed again | Kept only as a one-way code, so we can honor the request without keeping the address. |
| Database backups | Hourly copies for 48 hours, then one a day for 30 days. [To confirm: whether account data is in these backups] |
Deleting your data
You can delete your account from the account page. That removes your account, alerts, inbox, saved lists, keys and records from our database and deletes your sign-in at Clerk. Saved lists are private: nobody else can see them, and you can delete a list or an item on its own at any time. You can also email privacy@govtube.us to ask what we hold about you, to correct it or to delete it. How to delete your account and data has the steps and what stays. [To confirm: counsel: state privacy-law rights and response times to list]
Every list email and every alert email has a one-click unsubscribe link.
Children
GovTube is for a general audience. Accounts are not meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information.
Changes to this notice
If we change this notice, we’ll post the new version here with a new date. If a change affects account holders in a significant way, we’ll email them first.
See also the terms of use and support.