Privacy

1. Who we are

CIC HQ is built and operated by 5th Star LLC, 2045 W Grand Ave., Suite B, Chicago, IL 60612. We are the operator of the web app at app.cichq.app, the CIC HQ phone app for iPhone and Android, and this website. Where a client organization brings its own data into CIC HQ, that client decides what the data is for and we process it on the client's instructions.

2. What CIC HQ is

CIC HQ is software for field work run by client organizations: petition drives, door-to-door canvassing and surveys at the door. It is invite only. The people who use it are the client's managers, validators, field leads, circulators and canvassers, each with a role the client assigns. There is no public sign-up and no account for the public.

3. What we collect

Accounts. An email address, the name a manager enters, and the role on each campaign. Sign-in is by a code or a link sent to that email; we store no passwords.

The client's data. A client may supply a voter file it is licensed to hold under the law of its state. We read the file into CIC HQ for that client only, keep the voter's birth year and discard the day and month, store voters a state marks confidential without an address or phone, and place street addresses on a map. We never add to, enrich, sell or share a voter file, and we never combine one client's file with another's.

Records made in the field. For petitions: each signer's first name, last name, address and, where the campaign asks, birth year, as entered by a circulator or typed from a paper book by a validator; photographs of petition pages; and each line's check against the voter file and the mark a validator gives it. For canvassing and surveys: the outcome at each door, the answers a voter gives to the client's script, and typed or spoken notes (a spoken note is turned into text). Field records belong to the client's campaign and never change the voter file.

The working day. When a person starts and ends a day on the phone, the hours between, and a location at each of a few moments (section 4). For petition drives, a campaign may also ask for check-ins at an interval it sets: a count and a location.

Devices and errors. The app's version, and crash reports with names, addresses, notes, answers and page images removed before they are sent.

Correspondence. What you send to team@, support@ and privacy@cichq.app, and what you enter in the demo form, which goes to us by email and is not stored in the app.

4. Location

The CIC HQ phone app reads the phone's location once at each of these moments, and at no other time: when a person starts a day; when they end it; when they save a signer; when they scan a petition page; when they record a door; and at a check-in, where a petition campaign uses them. Each reading is stored with that record, with its accuracy. Nothing is read between those moments, in the background, or when the app is not in use. The moving blue dot on the phone's map is drawn on screen while the map is open and is never stored or sent. The app asks only for permission to use location while the app is in use, and it cannot start a day or save a record without it.

5. Who sees what

Access is set by role and enforced in the database, not only on the screen.

• Circulators and canvassers see what they themselves recorded, and a canvasser sees the name and age of the voters at the doors in front of them for the day. They never see party, vote history, a check result, a score or a decision, and nothing stays on the phone after the day ends.
• Field leads see their crew's day. On the web they see a voter's name, age and support only.
• Validators see the name, birth year, street and ZIP that were entered for a line, its check against the voter file as a score, and the page image. Never the matched voter's record.
• Managers and owners see their campaigns in full, including voter records, results and page images, with their name watermarked on any image.
• 5th Star staff see a client's data only to run the service, fix a problem the client has reported, or fulfil a request the client has made, and that access is logged.

6. Service providers

We use a small number of service providers for hosting, email, address lookup, maps, crash reports and reading page photos. Each handles only what its job needs, under contracts that bar any other use.

7. What we never do

• Sell, rent or share any personal data, voter data or field record.
• Let anyone, ourselves included, download a list of voters or signers from the app. A client can download reports (counts, progress, rates) and, at close-out, a package by secure download. Any other export is a written request that we review, fulfil and log.
• Use a client's data or images to train artificial intelligence, or allow a processor to.
• Read a location in the background or outside a working day.
• Save a petition page to a phone's camera roll, or show it to a circulator or field lead.

8. How long we keep it

A campaign with no activity for 30 days gets a warning; a manager can keep it open. At 45 days it closes. When a campaign closes, its managers receive a package by secure download: petition lines without any voter-file fields, page images by book, and totals. Page images are deleted 60 days after the close unless the client has put the campaign on hold for a legal challenge. A client whose subscription lapses goes read-only, then closes the same way. Account details are kept while the person has a role on any campaign and deleted on request after that. Crash reports are kept for 90 days. Email correspondence is kept for 3 years.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Every read of voter data goes through database functions that check the person's role; the voter tables themselves are never open to any app. Page images live in private storage, are viewed through links that expire in minutes, and carry the viewer's name on screen. No secret key is ever held in a phone or a browser. Every export, support access and campaign-to-office transfer is logged. Real voter data is never used in tests, logs or development copies. If we learn of a breach affecting your data we will tell the affected client without undue delay and as the law requires.

10. Your requests

If you work for a client (as a manager, validator, field lead, circulator or canvasser), ask your organization first; it controls the campaign's data and can remove your role. For your account details, write to privacy@cichq.app.

If you signed a petition or spoke to a canvasser, the record belongs to the client organization that ran the drive or program, and petition signatures are public records under state law in most states. Write to us and we will pass your request to the client and tell you what we did.

If you are a client, your agreement with us sets out how to request, correct or delete your data, and how a close-out works.

Where state law gives you rights to know, correct or delete personal data, you can exercise them at the same address, and we will not treat you differently for doing so.

11. This website

cichq.app sets no advertising cookies and runs no tracking across other sites. This website uses no analytics. The demo form sends what you enter to us by email and nowhere else.

12. Changes and contact

When this page changes, the date at the top changes with it, and clients are told by email of any change that affects how their data is handled. Questions and requests: privacy@cichq.app, or by post to 5th Star LLC, 2045 W Grand Ave., Suite B, Chicago, IL 60612.