Groundcheck Privacy Policy

Who operates Groundcheck

Groundcheck is operated by an independent owner based in Maryland. Groundcheck serves people in the United States who research property in the United States.

Our approach

Groundcheck collects and keeps only the information reasonably needed to create, deliver, save, regenerate, secure, and bill for Groundcheck Reports, respond to support and privacy requests, and meet legal obligations.

Groundcheck does not:

• Sell your personal information
• Share your personal information for targeted advertising
• Use your personal information or property searches to train artificial intelligence models
• Store full payment card numbers
• Use report findings to make decisions about credit, insurance, employment, housing eligibility, or other legally significant matters

Information you provide

Groundcheck collects information that you provide when you use the service, including:

• Your email address and limited account profile information
• A property address or point you select on a map
• Your answers about the type, stage, and focus of your property project
• Messages and information you send when you contact support or make a privacy request

Do not submit Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, health information, or other sensitive personal information to Groundcheck.

Property and report information

Groundcheck stores the information needed to create and provide your report. This includes the property you searched, parcel identifiers, coordinates, parcel boundaries, assessment information, public property information, report findings, report status, and report-generation errors.

Public property sources sometimes include assessed values, ownership information, zoning, or other details maintained by a government agency or public-data publisher.

Purchase information

Groundcheck stores the purchase status, amount paid, currency, report credits, and identifiers associated with a Stripe transaction.

Stripe processes payments. Groundcheck does not receive or store your full payment card number. Stripe processes payment, billing, fraud-prevention, and transaction information under its own privacy policy.

Information collected automatically

When you use Groundcheck, the service receives limited technical information needed to operate and protect the site, including:

• Your IP address
• Browser and device information
• Pages requested and request times
• Security, error, and server log information
• Cookies or similar identifiers needed for sign-in, security, and the property-preview flow

Groundcheck uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to understand basic site traffic and performance. Cloudflare describes this service as privacy-first analytics that does not collect or use visitors' personal data.

How we use information

Groundcheck uses information only as reasonably needed to:

• Locate the property you selected
• Retrieve parcel and public due-diligence data
• Create, display, save, and regenerate your report
• Customize the report based on your project selections
• Create and manage your account and keep reports linked to it
• Process payments, refunds, disputes, and report credits
• Prevent fraud, abuse, excessive anonymous preview generation, and security incidents
• Diagnose errors and maintain the service
• Respond to support and privacy requests
• Comply with applicable law and enforce Groundcheck's terms

Groundcheck does not use your property searches for unrelated advertising or sell them to data brokers.

How information is shared

Groundcheck shares information only when needed to provide and protect the service or comply with law. Recipients include:

• Clerk, which provides account authentication and user management. If you use a connected sign-in provider such as Google, that provider processes the authentication information you choose to provide.
• Stripe, which processes payments and helps prevent payment fraud.
• Mapbox, which provides address search, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and map features. Groundcheck sends a property address, coordinates, and technical request information to Mapbox when you use those features.
• Government agencies and public-data services, which provide parcel, environmental, hazard, land-use, infrastructure, and other report data. Groundcheck sends a property address, coordinates, or parcel geometry to these services to retrieve relevant public records.
• Cloudflare and hosting, database, storage, logging, email, and infrastructure providers that process limited information as needed to operate Groundcheck.
• Authorities or other parties when the law requires disclosure, or when disclosure protects Groundcheck, its users, or the public from fraud, abuse, security threats, or unlawful activity.

Groundcheck requires service providers to handle information for the services they provide. Some third-party services also process information under their own privacy policies.

Public property information

Many Groundcheck findings come from public records and public geographic information systems. Groundcheck does not control the accuracy, availability, retention practices, or privacy practices of those source systems.

A request to delete information from Groundcheck does not delete the original public record from the agency or publisher that maintains it.

Cookies and similar technology

Groundcheck uses cookies or similar browser identifiers to keep you signed in through Clerk, protect account sessions, preserve an anonymous property preview during onboarding, and limit abusive or excessive anonymous preview generation.

Anonymous onboarding cookies and drafts become inaccessible after 24 hours. Groundcheck removes expired, unclaimed drafts during routine cleanup. Disabling required cookies prevents sign-in or the onboarding flow from working.

Groundcheck does not use advertising cookies.

How long we keep information

Groundcheck keeps information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this policy.

• Anonymous onboarding drafts and their associated browser cookies expire after 24 hours.
• Groundcheck keeps account information and saved reports while needed to provide your account, saved-report access, and report regeneration. You can request deletion as described below.
• Groundcheck keeps purchase, refund, dispute, and related transaction records as needed for billing, accounting, fraud prevention, tax, legal, and dispute-resolution obligations.
• Groundcheck keeps server, error, and security information only as long as reasonably needed to diagnose problems, prevent abuse, protect the service, and meet legal obligations.
• Groundcheck keeps support and privacy-request records as needed to respond to the request and document its resolution.

When Groundcheck no longer needs information, it deletes or de-identifies it, subject to reasonable backup cycles and legal obligations.

Your privacy choices and rights

Depending on where you live and the law that applies, you can ask Groundcheck to:

• Confirm whether it processes your personal information
• Provide access to or a copy of your personal information
• Correct inaccurate personal information
• Delete personal information
• Provide portable data where required
• Review an earlier decision about a privacy request

Groundcheck does not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising or legally significant profiling.

To make a request, email support@groundcheckreport.com with the subject line Privacy Request. Describe what you want Groundcheck to do and provide the email address associated with your account. Groundcheck asks for only the additional information needed to verify that the request concerns you.

If Groundcheck denies a request, you can appeal by replying to the decision email with the subject line Privacy Appeal and explaining why Groundcheck should reconsider the decision.

Security

Groundcheck uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect information. No website, database, or transmission method is completely secure, so Groundcheck cannot guarantee absolute security.

You are responsible for protecting access to your email account and any sign-in method connected to your Groundcheck account.

Children

Groundcheck is intended for adults and is not directed to anyone under 18. Groundcheck does not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child provided personal information to Groundcheck, contact support@groundcheckreport.com so Groundcheck can delete it.

United States service

Groundcheck operates in the United States and serves only United States users and United States properties. Groundcheck processes and stores information in the United States.

Changes to this policy

Groundcheck will update this Privacy Policy when the service, its providers, or the law changes. Groundcheck will post the updated policy on this page with a new last-updated date. Groundcheck will provide additional notice when the law requires it.