This Privacy Policy explains how Chert, operated by Synctree (“we,” “us”), collects, uses, and shares information when you use chert.io, app.chert.io, and related services (the “Service”). It should be read with our Terms of Service.
1. What we collect
Things you give us
- Uploads. The drawings and other documents you upload, including their file names, sizes, and a fingerprint (hash) of each file.
- Your role, if you tell us (for example homeowner, architect or designer, or expediter).
- Account details when you sign in: your email address and, if you use Google, your name as Google provides it.
- Messages you send us, and corrections or feedback you report on a project.
Things we derive from your uploads
- Extracted data: sheet numbers, titles, scales and kinds; the site address, parcel number, and project name if they appear; the jurisdiction we match; completeness notes from the quick scan; and the findings of any full analysis.
Things collected automatically
- Session identifiers. An anonymous account identifier is created for your browser when you first visit, so your uploads stay tied to you before you sign in.
- Consent records. When you agree to the Terms and this Policy, we record which versions you accepted, when, and your browser’s user agent string.
- Technical logs, such as IP address, request times, and errors, kept by our hosting providers for security and reliability.
Payment information
Payments are handled by Stripe. Your full card number and security code go to Stripe, not to us. We receive and keep only a Stripe customer reference, the status of each payment, and your card’s brand and last four digits, so we can show you which card quick pay will use.
2. How we use it
- to run the quick scan and any analysis you request, and to show you the results;
- to keep your projects available to you, and to move them to your account when you sign in;
- to take payment for analyses, issue refunds, and keep records the law requires;
- to send sign-in links and messages about your projects and account;
- to word results for the kind of reader you told us you are;
- to keep the Service secure, prevent abuse, and fix problems; and
- to improve the Service, as described in section 4.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your uploads for advertising.
3. Who processes it for us
We share information only with service providers that process it on our behalf to run the Service, under contracts that limit their use of it to providing services to us:
- Google Cloud and Firebase (Google LLC): hosting, storage of your uploads and project data, sign-in, and task processing.
- Stripe (Stripe, Inc.): payment processing and saved cards.
- TypeSafe (TypeSafe AI): the free quick scan and the full analysis send the text of your sheets, and sometimes images of them, to TypeSafe's decision model. It classifies each sheet and checks values we read. TypeSafe does not train on this data.
- OpenAI (OpenAI, L.L.C.): a full analysis sends images of your sheets to OpenAI models, which read them into the values we check (lot area, setbacks, height). This happens only after you sign in and pay.
We also share information with people you choose to share a project with, when the law requires it, to protect the rights, safety, or property of anyone, or as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case this Policy continues to apply to your information.
4. Learning from corrections, without identifying you
Cities interpret their codes, and those interpretations change. When a correction or answer from a city shows that one of our rules is incomplete or out of date, we may update the shared rule that every user is checked against. Those rule updates state the requirement only. They never include your drawings, your address, your name, your parcel number, or any other detail that identifies you or your project. We may also use aggregated, de-identified statistics (for example, how often a sheet lacks a scale) to improve the Service.
5. How long we keep it
- Unclaimed uploads: 14 days. If you upload anonymously and never sign in, we delete the project, its files, and its extracted data 14 days after upload.
- Account data: kept while you have an account, until you ask us to delete it.
- Payment and consent records: kept as long as needed for tax, accounting, and legal purposes, even after an account is deleted.
- Backups and logs are deleted on their normal rotation.
6. Your choices and rights
You can ask us to give you a copy of your information, to correct it, or to delete your account and your projects, by writing to hello@chert.io. We will confirm the request comes from you before acting on it, and respond within the time the law requires.
California residents
If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act) gives you the right to:
- know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose, and to get a copy of it;
- request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal exceptions;
- request correction of inaccurate personal information;
- opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information (we do not sell or share it for advertising);
- limit the use of sensitive personal information (we do not use it beyond providing the Service); and
- not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.
The categories we collect are identifiers (email, account identifiers, IP address), commercial information (analyses purchased), internet activity (technical logs), and the content of the documents you upload, which can include property addresses. We collect them from you, from your browser, and from Stripe, for the purposes in section 2, and disclose them only to the processors in section 3. You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf.
7. Security
Uploads are stored privately and are never published at a public address. Access is limited to you, the people you share a project with, and the systems and staff that need it to run the Service. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our hosting provider. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects your information, we will notify you as the law requires.
8. Children
The Service is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
9. Changes to this Policy
Each version of this Policy carries a version date at the top of this page. When we publish a new version, you will be asked to accept it before you upload anything further.
10. Contact
Privacy questions and requests: hello@chert.io.