Privacy Policy

Information we collect

Account. Your email address and password. The password is stored by our sign-in provider in a hashed form we cannot read back. We also keep when the account was created, when you last signed in, and whether the email was confirmed.

Phone number. Optional. If you add one, it is kept with your sign-in account and used to text sign-in codes.

Settings. The notify email address and the email-results choice you set in Settings are saved to your account so they follow you between devices.

Searches. What you type or pick to run a search: a person’s name or a company name, a case number, a ticket or citation number, a driver’s license or vehicle plate number and state, a case type, case statuses, party types, cities, a date range, and the courts to search.

Results. The case lists, case details, and case files the court portal returns for your search.

Usage counts. How many searches the account has used, how many it ran each day, and site-wide totals such as the number of searches, case-record downloads, and human checks. These counts do not include the names or numbers you searched.

Payments. If you pay, our payment processor collects your card. We keep the processor’s customer and subscription identifiers, your plan and status, whether a card is on file, your credits and billing period, and a record of each charge and its amount. We do not receive or store the full card number.

Feedback. The subject, details, attachments, and comments you send through Feedback, with your account ID and email.

Email opt-out. If you unsubscribe from notification email, we keep your email address on an opt-out list.

Technical data. When the robot check on sign-in or sign-up is turned on, your IP address is sent to Google with the check. Our hosting and database providers also record requests, which normally include IP address, browser type, the page requested, and the time.

Not yet confirmed: How long the hosting provider (Vercel) and the database and sign-in provider (Supabase) keep request logs and IP addresses depends on the plan in use and has not been confirmed.

We do not use advertising or analytics trackers, and the site does not include an analytics or error-monitoring service.

Why we collect it

To create and secure your account and sign you in, including sign-in codes. To run the searches you ask for and show, export, or email the results. To count free and paid searches and to bill for them. To send the account and notification email you asked for. To answer feedback and fix problems. To keep the service running within the court portal’s limits. To follow the law and protect the service from abuse.

Searches sent to the court website

To run a search, your search terms are typed into the public portal at masscourts.org, which the Massachusetts Trial Court operates. The Trial Court receives those terms and handles them under its own policies, not ours.

On the website, the search runs in a remote browser hosted by our browser provider, Kernel. Your terms and the pages the portal returns pass through that browser. The portal sees the remote browser’s network address, not yours. The browser is labeled with your account ID so only your account uses it, and it closes after up to four hours without activity. While it runs, you can watch it through a live view in your page.

The court portal uses a Google reCAPTCHA human check. When that check appears, Google receives information from the remote browser. Traffic to sites other than masscourts.org, such as the reCAPTCHA check, can go through a proxy network our browser provider supplies.

In the desktop app, the search runs in Google Chrome on your own computer, so the portal and Google see your computer’s network address. The app starts Chrome with a fresh profile each time and does not keep that browser profile.

Not yet confirmed: Whether Kernel records, logs, or keeps the remote browser sessions, pages, or live view after a session ends has not been confirmed. This service does not turn on session recording.

Who receives information

We share information only with the service providers that run this service for us, and with the court portal as described above:

Supabase. Sign-in, the account database, and feedback attachment storage.

Vercel. Hosting for the website and its servers.

Kernel. Remote browsers that run website searches, the live view, and the proxy network.

Stripe. Payments. Stripe receives your email, your account ID, and your card.

Resend. Account and notification email. A results email includes your search description and the case results.

ClickSend. Text messages with sign-in codes. ClickSend receives your phone number and the code.

Google. The reCAPTCHA robot check on our sign-in and on the court portal.

Massachusetts Trial Court. Receives your search terms through masscourts.org.

Our administrators can see account details, billing records, usage counts, and feedback, and can open the site as a specific account to help with a problem. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

We do not sell personal information. We do not use it for advertising. We do not build a marketing profile.

Storage and retention

Account, settings, and billing records. Kept while the account exists. Deleting the account removes them, as described below.

Shared search cache. Our administrators can turn on a shared cache so a repeated search can be answered without asking the portal again. While it is on, a completed search’s terms and its results, including case details, are stored without your account ID and can be shown to anyone who runs the same search. Entries have no time limit. They stay until the cache passes 100,000 searches and the oldest are removed, or until an administrator clears the cache. Turning the cache off stops new entries but does not remove existing ones, and deleting your account does not remove them.

Not yet confirmed: Whether the shared cache is on in production, and how much it currently holds, has not been confirmed.

Downloaded case files. Held on the server that downloaded them, limited to your account, so you can open them. Files older than two days are removed the next time you download a file; on the website, a server’s temporary storage is also cleared when that server restarts.

This browser. The page keeps your last search form, an unfinished search with its results so you can resume it, your notify settings, and display choices in this browser’s storage, on your device. The unfinished search is removed when it finishes; the rest stays until you clear this site’s data.

Desktop app. The app writes a diagnostic log on your computer (on a Mac, ~/Library/Application Support/Mass Courts Search/logs/server.log). When it is larger than 5 MB at launch, the app keeps it as one older copy and starts a new one, replacing any earlier copy. It can include court names, date ranges, and case numbers. Downloaded case files are kept in your computer’s temporary folder. These stay on your computer until you remove them; the log is not sent to us.

Usage counts. Per-account daily counts are kept until the account is deleted. Site-wide totals are kept indefinitely.

Feedback. Kept so we can follow up. Feedback is archived, not deleted.

Not yet confirmed: Retention for server logs held by our hosting provider, for email and text records held by Resend and ClickSend, for payment records held by Stripe, and for site backups that administrators export has not been confirmed.

Access and deletion

You can delete your account in Settings. That cancels any subscription, asks Stripe to delete your customer record, removes your sign-in account, billing records, charge history, and daily counts, and sends a confirmation email.

We keep a record that the account was deleted: your email address, account ID, sign-up and last sign-in dates, the final billing details, and the account settings. That record has no automatic expiry. Your email also stays on the opt-out list so we do not email you again. Feedback you sent and entries in the shared search cache are not removed. Stripe may keep payment records it is required to keep.

To ask for a copy of your information, a correction, or deletion of something account deletion does not cover, write to support@courtsearch.app from the account’s email address.

Not yet confirmed: How long we take to answer these requests, how we verify the requester, and how long the deleted-account record is kept have not been set.

Security and data handling

Traffic to the site is encrypted with HTTPS. Account and search data is read and written only by our servers; the database tables are locked against direct access from browsers. Passwords are hashed by our sign-in provider, and you can add a text-message sign-in code. Downloaded case files can be opened only by the account that downloaded them. Feedback attachments are kept in private storage. Administrator tools are limited to named administrator accounts.

No system is perfectly secure. Account information is used to run this service, and access to it is limited to that purpose. If personal information is acquired without authorization in a way Massachusetts General Laws chapter 93H requires us to disclose, we will give that notice.

Accounts for adults

This site is for adults. Do not create an account if you are under 18.

Privacy questions

Write to support@courtsearch.app. If we change this policy, the new version and effective date will appear on this page.