Privacy Policy
Last updated May 2026 · Build Your City, San Bernardino & Riverside Counties
Build Your City is a civic transparency tool that tracks warehouse and development projects filed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in the Inland Empire. This policy explains what information we collect and how we use it.
The short version
There are no accounts. You never create a login, and nothing we store is tied to your name, phone number, or payment details — we do not collect any of those. Two features collect anything at all: email alerts, and app notifications.
Email alerts
If you sign up for city alerts, we store your email address and the city you chose. That record exists so we can send you a digest when CEQA projects in that city change. We do not sell, rent, or share it for marketing.
App notifications
If you turn on notifications in the iOS app, we store three things: a device identifier, a push token from Apple, and an approximate location. The device identifier is a random value generated on your phone. It is not your Apple ID, not an advertising identifier, and not linked to any account — it exists so that repeat launches update one record instead of creating a new one each time. The push token is issued by Apple and is what lets a notification reach your device. It is removed when the token stops working or you turn notifications off.
Location
Location is used to answer one question: which projects are near you. The coordinate we store is deliberately imprecise — roughly a tenth of a mile. That is not a promise about how we handle it; the database column physically cannot hold anything more precise, so a street-level position cannot be stored even by accident. It is also not necessarily where you are. If you decline location access, or you are outside the Inland Empire, the app asks you to pick a city and stores that city's centre instead. We never store a history of where you have been. There is one approximate point per device, and it does not follow you — travelling does not change it.
Onboarding answers
The app asks two optional questions when you first open it: what brings you here, and what you care about. Both can be skipped, and the answers are stored alongside your device record. They are used to understand who the app is reaching. They are not used to target advertising, because there is no advertising.
Notification history
We record which notifications were sent to which device, and when. This exists so you are not told about the same project twice, and so a mistake on our end cannot send you a flood of alerts. It is a log of what we sent you, not of anything you did.
Analytics
We use PostHog to understand how the app and website are used — which screens are opened, which filters are used, whether notifications were allowed. Where an event includes a location, the coordinate is rounded before it is sent, in the same way as above. On the website, PostHog also records anonymised session replays of the projects map, so we can see where the interface confuses people. Replays are not recorded in the iOS app. PostHog's privacy policy is at posthog.com/privacy.
Where the data lives
Project and subscription data is stored with Supabase. Emails are delivered by Resend (resend.com/legal/privacy-policy). Addresses shown on project pages are produced by Geoapify from public map data. None of these providers receive your email address except Resend, which needs it to deliver the message.
Turning things off
Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link that works immediately, with no account required. Notifications can be switched off in iOS Settings at any time; we stop sending, and the push token is discarded once Apple tells us it is no longer valid.
Retention and deletion
Email subscriptions are kept while active. Unsubscribing deactivates the record rather than erasing it immediately, so that we do not lose the fact that you opted out. Device records are kept while notifications are enabled. You can ask us to delete everything associated with you, and we will. Email privacy@buildycity.com. Because there are no accounts, it helps to include the email address you subscribed with — for app data alone, say so and we will remove the device record.
What we do not do
We do not sell or rent your data. We do not use advertising identifiers or tracking pixels. We do not track you across other apps or websites. We do not ask for your name, and there is no login to create.
Contact
Privacy questions and deletion requests: privacy@buildycity.com. We serve the San Bernardino and Riverside County communities of the Inland Empire.