Privacy policies are usually written by lawyers, for lawyers. Ours is written for you. If anything below is unclear, email us and we'll explain it in plain terms. Transparency is our product. It starts here.
The Oversight Brief collects the minimum information needed to show you your representatives' voting records and, if you sign up, send you a weekly digest. We use your data to run the product. We don't sell it, share it with political organizations, or use it for advertising targeting.
Our business model is newsletter sponsorships — organizations pay to reach our audience as a whole. Sponsors do not receive individual subscriber data. They buy presence in the digest, not access to who's reading it.
We collect only what we need. Here's every category of data we collect, what we use it for, and whether it's required or optional.
| Data type | Why we collect it | Required? | Stored? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home address | To identify your congressional district and three representatives | YES | Only if you create an account |
| Email address | To send the weekly digest and account notifications | OPTIONAL | Yes, if you sign up |
| Issue preferences | To filter your digest and calculate your alignment score | OPTIONAL | Yes, linked to your account |
| Voting alignment history | To show your alignment score over time | OPTIONAL | Yes, linked to your account |
| IP address | Security, fraud prevention, and rate limiting | Automatic | Temporarily, in server logs |
| Usage analytics | To understand how the product is used and improve it | Automatic | Aggregate only — not tied to you |
If you browse without an account, your address is processed by our geocoding service to identify your district and is not retained on our servers after your session ends.
Your address is passed to Geocodio — a third-party geocoding service — to identify your congressional district and return your current representatives. Geocodio's privacy policy governs their handling of address data. We do not store your raw address on our servers unless you have an account.
Your email address is used to send the weekly digest and transactional emails (account confirmation, unsubscribe confirmation). We use Supabase to manage authentication and user data. We do not use your email address for advertising, and we do not share it with sponsors or third parties.
Your issue preferences are stored to personalize your digest and calculate your alignment score. They are not shared, sold, or used for any purpose outside your personal experience on the platform.
These aren't aspirational guidelines. They are absolute limits baked into how the product works and how we make money.
We never sell personal data. Our revenue comes from newsletter sponsorships. Sponsors pay for presence in the digest — their name and message appear in your weekly email. They do not receive your name, email address, home address, issue preferences, or any other personal data. They buy reach to our audience, not access to it.
We never share data with political organizations. Your issue preferences and alignment scores represent your political views. Sharing that data with campaigns, PACs, advocacy groups, or political data brokers would directly contradict our mission of non-partisan civic transparency. We will never do this.
We never use your data for off-platform advertising. We don't participate in ad targeting networks, retargeting systems, or data exchanges. Your data stays in our product, used only for your experience in our product.
We keep your data for as long as your account is active and for a reasonable period afterward to comply with legal obligations. Specifically:
Active accounts: Your data is retained as long as your account exists and you haven't requested deletion.
After unsubscribing from email: Your account and data remain intact — you're just removed from the mailing list. Email [email protected] to delete your full account.
After account deletion: We permanently delete your email address, home address, issue preferences, alignment history, and all associated personal data within 30 days of receiving your deletion request. Server logs containing IP addresses are purged on a rolling 90-day basis.
Email [email protected] with the subject line Delete my account from the email address associated with your account. We'll confirm deletion within 48 hours and complete it within 30 days.
You can also unsubscribe from the weekly digest at any time using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email we send.
Regardless of where you live, we honor these rights for all users:
Access: You can request a copy of all personal data we hold about you. Email [email protected] and we'll provide it within 30 days.
Correction: If any data we hold about you is inaccurate, you can update it directly in your account settings or contact us to correct it.
Deletion: You can request complete deletion of your account and all associated data at any time. See the deletion instructions above.
Portability: You can request your data in a machine-readable format (JSON or CSV). Email us and we'll provide it within 30 days.
Opt-out of email: Every digest we send includes a one-click unsubscribe link. You can also email us directly to be removed from all communications.
We use cookies for two purposes only: keeping you signed in to your account (authentication cookies, set by Supabase) and basic product analytics to understand how the platform is used in aggregate.
We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking pixels, or cross-site tracking of any kind. We do not participate in any ad network or data exchange that would place tracking cookies on your device.
You can disable cookies in your browser settings. Doing so will prevent you from staying signed in to your account, but you can still browse representative voting records without an account.
For any privacy-related questions, data requests, or concerns, contact us at:
Email: [email protected]
Subject line for deletion requests: Delete my account
We respond to all privacy inquiries within 48 hours and fulfill data requests within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with our response, you have the right to contact your local data protection authority.
This policy was last updated January 1, 2026. We will notify registered users by email if we make material changes to this policy.