The English version of this policy is the authoritative version; the Spanish translation is provided for accessibility.
This Privacy Policy describes how Acta Civic Engagement, LLC ("Acta," "we," "us," or "our"), collects, uses, and protects your information when you use actacivic.com (the "Service"). Acta is a nonpartisan civic-engagement platform that helps people understand public issues and take civic action. By using Acta, you agree to the practices described here.
Acta is built on data minimization: we collect only what is needed to make the Service work, and we never sell your individual identity. You can read briefs, look up your representatives, and explore the Service without creating an account or providing personal information.
We collect the following only when you choose to provide it or when it is necessary to operate the Service:
• Email address, only if you voluntarily provide it (e.g., to receive updates or contact us). You are never required to create an account.
• Geographic location (ZIP code), to identify the elected officials who represent you. We use ZIP-level location, not precise GPS.
• Issue interests, the topics, bills, or measures you search for or act on.
• Content you create, letters, campaign materials, or messages you generate.
• Issue descriptions you type. When you describe an issue in your own words, we store what you typed along with the topic classification our system assigned it. We use this to measure and improve how accurately Acta identifies which level of government handles your issue.
• Usage information. We use privacy-protective analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Google Analytics, to understand how the Service is used and to improve it. Microsoft Clarity records how visitors interact with pages, including clicks, scrolling, and session replays and heatmaps; Google Analytics measures traffic and usage patterns. This information is not used to build advertising profiles or to identify you individually. See our Cookie Policy for details.
• Technical and security information, such as your IP address and browser/device information (user agent). We collect this in two different situations, and the two are handled differently, so we describe them separately. For abuse prevention, it is collected automatically as you use the Service, to prevent abuse, enforce rate limits, and keep the Service secure. Those records are not linked to your email address or to any account, so a data-deletion request cannot locate them and they are not covered by it. For Acta Pro automatic-renewal consent, if you subscribe to Acta Pro we store your IP address and browser information as part of the record of your agreement to automatic renewal. That record is linked to your account, and deleting your data deletes it along with everything else; it is described in the Acta Pro section below.
For the free citizen product, we do not collect payment information, biometric data, or precise device location. We also do not ask you for, and no feature requires, sensitive personal information such as racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, health or medical information, immigration status, or sexual orientation. We do not use information of that kind to build a profile of you, to infer characteristics about you, or to target you. What we cannot do is control what you write. Acta invites you to describe your issue in your own words and stores what you typed, so if you choose to write about your diagnosis, your faith, your immigration status, or anything else sensitive, that text is part of what we hold and is kept the way the rest of your issue descriptions are kept, described under "Data security & retention" below. If you would rather it not be, leave it out of the free-text box, and you can delete your data at any time from our data deletion page. Acta Pro, our optional paid tier, is the one place we deliberately collect information of these kinds: payment is processed by Stripe (we store your subscription status, never card numbers), and the optional political-position profile is sensitive information you choose to provide. Both are described in the Acta Pro section below.
Acta is a general-audience civic platform. We comply with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and applicable state laws regarding minors. We handle age in three bands, based on self-reported age:
• Under 13: We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Users under 13 are blocked from submitting personal information through the Service. If we learn we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it.
• Ages 13-15: Users in this range may use the Service's informational and action features, but we do not collect personal information or share data from these users.
• Ages 16-17: Users in this range may use the Service with limited data collection, consistent with applicable law.
Classroom use: When Acta is used in a classroom through a class link provided by an educator ("Classroom Mode"), no personal information is collected from any student, regardless of age, no accounts, no email capture, no tracking. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact hello@actacivic.com and we will delete it.
We use the information we collect to provide the Service (generate briefs, identify your representatives, draft letters, enable civic action), send you updates you have requested, understand and improve the Service through aggregated analytics, maintain security, and comply with legal obligations. We do not use your information to build advertising profiles, and Acta does not display third-party advertising.
We do not sell your individual identity or personal records. We may share information only as follows:
• Aggregated, anonymized insights. We may produce, share, license, or sell aggregated, anonymized information about what issues communities care about. This information is statistical and is not personal information. Every aggregate describes at least 10 distinct people. Where fewer than 10 distinct people fall within a group, we produce no aggregate for that group at all, and report it as having too little signal rather than reporting it with a smaller number; that floor is enforced in our systems, not only stated here. We may provide these insights to third parties for a range of purposes, including research, analytics, polling, public affairs, journalism, academic, and commercial market-research uses, subject to the limits described in our Terms of Service. We never license or sell individual-level or re-identifiable data, we never permit its use to target, profile, harass, or intimidate any person based on their views, and we never share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.
• Service providers. We use trusted providers for hosting and database infrastructure, AI, representative lookup, transactional email delivery, error monitoring, and privacy-protective analytics, who process data on our behalf under confidentiality obligations.
• Legal requirements. We may disclose information if required by law or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Acta or others.
Some organizations (such as unions or advocacy groups) run their own campaigns on Acta. If you choose to take action through an organization’s campaign, the information you submit through it (such as your name, contact details, and the message you send) is shared with that organization so it can act on your participation, and that organization handles your information under its own privacy practices. Acta’s own internal reporting and any insights we publish use only aggregated, anonymized signals that do not identify individuals.
Acta uses AI (provided by Anthropic) to generate briefs, letters, and other civic materials. Your inputs are processed by this provider to deliver those features. AI-generated content is for informational purposes; you are responsible for reviewing it before use.
Acta Pro is an optional paid subscription for individuals, available only to users 18 and over. The free citizen product stays free and requires no account. If you subscribe to Acta Pro, we collect and store the following, in addition to the information described above:
• Account (email magic link). Acta Pro signs you in with an email magic link: you enter your email address and we send you a one-time link or code. There is no password. We store your email address to operate your account and your subscription.
• Payment information. Payments are processed by Stripe, our payment processor. Your card number goes directly to Stripe and is handled under Stripe's own privacy policy; Acta never receives or stores card numbers. Acta stores only your subscription status (for example, active or canceled) and the minimal records needed to manage your subscription. We also record the consent you give to automatic renewal before you reach the payment page: the date and time, the language you were shown, which version of the renewal disclosure was on screen, and the IP address and browser information you gave it from. We keep that record so we can show what you were told, and because it is tied to your account it is deleted along with the rest of your data.
• Political-position profile (sensitive information). If you choose to complete the optional Acta Pro political profile, we store your responses to its 24 policy-position items, along with your optional self-description and the emphasis weights you set. We treat this profile as sensitive personal information because it reveals political opinions. It is stored securely, used only to power your own Pro features (such as showing how officials' voting records align with your stated positions), never used to target you, never shared with any organization or other third party, and never sold. Completing it is entirely optional, and you can delete it at any time.
• Alignment history. Each time you run an alignment analysis on a bill, a ballot measure, or an elected official, we store a record of it: which bill, measure, or official you analyzed, the analysis Acta produced, which version of the profile questions it was based on, and when it was generated. Kept together, these records amount to a history of what you have looked into and what Acta told you about each item, tied to your account, and because the subject matter is political we treat that history as sensitive too. It exists so that reopening something you already analyzed is instant and does not spend another of your daily analyses. This history has no retention limit: we do not delete it on a schedule or after any fixed period, and it is kept for as long as your account exists. It is never shared with any organization or other third party and never sold. You can clear it yourself at any time, without closing your account or losing your subscription: the "Clear this history" control on your profile screen permanently deletes every saved analysis belonging to you, and only yours. Clearing it does not change your answers to the profile questions, does not affect your subscription, and does not give back any daily analyses you have already used. You can analyze any item again afterwards. Deleting your data also removes all of it.
Deleting your Acta Pro data. The same self-serve data deletion page covers Acta Pro. Deleting your data first cancels any active subscription, then permanently removes your Acta Pro records, including your political-position profile, your full alignment history, your renewal-consent record, your profile and subscription records, and the rest of your personal data, from our active systems right away.
• Use without an account. You can use the core Service without providing personal information.
• Access and deletion. You can delete your data at any time using our data deletion page, which removes your personal data from our active systems right away. You may also request access or deletion by emailing hello@actacivic.com, and we will respond within 30 days where required. We keep a minimal suppression record of your email address, stored in a locked table that no public key can read, kept only so that address is never contacted again, and we may retain information we are legally required to keep. Residual copies in routine backups are purged on our normal backup cycle. This includes issue descriptions linked to your email. Issue descriptions submitted without an email are not associated with you and are retained in de-identified form.
• State privacy rights. Depending on where you live (e.g., California), you may have additional rights to know, access, correct, and delete your information, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. Acta does not sell personal information and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. To exercise any right, use the data deletion page or email hello@actacivic.com.
We use functional cookies and analytics cookies from Microsoft Clarity and Google Analytics, no advertising or targeting cookies. See our Cookie Policy for the details of what each provider collects.
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We keep personal information for as long as it is needed to provide the Service. Rather than set a fixed expiry date, we put deletion in your hands and keep it always available: you can delete your data yourself at any time from our data deletion page at actacivic.com/optout.html, without creating an account, and once you confirm the emailed link the removal runs immediately rather than waiting for a later batch. Afterwards we keep one minimal record, your email address on a suppression list, kept only so that address is not contacted again. Aggregated, anonymized information may be retained indefinitely because it does not identify you.
Issue descriptions and their classifications are retained indefinitely so we can measure and improve accuracy over time, and so we can produce aggregated, anonymized insights about which issues matter to communities. These records are not stored with your name. Where you have provided an email address, the record is linked to a one-way hash of it, and deleting your data removes those records along with the rest. Where no email was provided, the record is not linked to you at all and cannot be individually identified or retrieved. We may use aggregated, anonymized insights derived from this information, each of which describes at least 10 distinct people and never fewer, for research, product development, and commercial purposes, including sharing or licensing them to organizations. We do not sell personal information.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time and will post the updated version with a new "Last updated" date. Questions about this policy or your data? Email hello@actacivic.com.