Privacy policy

It depends on how you use ATL Care, and it's always the minimum:

• Browsing and searching: nothing about you. No account needed.
• An account (email or Google): your name, email address, and password (stored hashed — we can't read it). Optionally a role title, a preferred language, and your neighborhood.
• Phone verification: your mobile number, if you choose to post in the neighbor exchange. We verify it with a one-time code and never display it.
• Things you contribute: verifications (“called — it works”), reviews, exchange posts, and messages you send through the platform.
• Operational records: sign-in sessions (device and IP address, so you can spot and sign out devices you don't recognize) and audit logs of admin and steward actions.

• We never sell or rent your information. To anyone. Ever.
• We show no ads and use no advertising trackers.
• We never collect your precise location. Geography is coarse — neighborhood, NPU, or zip — everywhere on the platform.
• We never attach your identity to analytics events.
• We never show your phone number, email, or address to other users. Sharing contact details is always your own choice, in your own words.

The “I need help now” path is anonymous by design. It requires no account, no name, no sign-in, and it stores nothing about you. If you ask us to text a resource to your phone, we send the text and keep only a record that a message was sent — not who needed it or why.

If you speak instead of typing: your voice is transcribed to text so we can find you the right help, and the audio is then discarded. We do not keep recordings of crisis conversations.

To know whether ATL Care is working — and to show funders and neighborhood planning units honest numbers — we count events in aggregate: searches, calls tapped, directions opened. These events carry no user IDs and at most a coarse geography like an NPU or zip code. They cannot be traced back to you, and we don't try.

The exchange runs on neighborhood-level location only — yours and everyone else's. Exact addresses are never collected for posts and never shown.

Your exchange profile shows your first name, neighborhood, badges, and how many exchanges you've completed. Messages between neighbors go through the platform, so your phone number and email stay private until you decide to share them yourself. First messages are automatically screened for scams and abuse; you can report or block anyone at any time.

Everything the community contributes — verifications, reviews, exchange posts, messages flagged for safety — passes a moderation gate: an automated AI check first, with humans reviewing anything uncertain or escalated. Moderators see the content and the account that posted it; that's what moderation needs, and no more.

The directory describes organizations, not individuals. Listings are gathered from public sources — with credit — including 211 of Greater Atlanta and findhelp.org, plus the organizations themselves, partner imports, and community verifications. Every listing shows where its information came from and when it was last verified.

Directory data — organizations, services, hours, freshness — is published as open data under the Open Database License (ODbL). Community content and personal data are excluded: no accounts, no exchange posts, no messages, no reviews ever appear in open-data exports.

We send what your account needs (confirmation links, password resets, one-time codes) and what you opt into (notifications, the exchange digest). Every optional message has an off switch in your account settings, and texted resources go only where you ask us to send them.

Sessions use secure, httpOnly cookies. Passwords are hashed, never stored readable. Access inside the platform is per-person and least-privilege — staff and stewards can touch only what their role allows, and admin actions are logged. Databases are backed up automatically. No system is perfect; if a breach ever affects your data, we will tell you plainly and quickly.

• See and fix: your profile is editable in account settings.
• Quiet: turn off any optional email or text there too.
• Leave: email privacy@atlcare.org and we'll erase your account and personal data within 30 days. Verifications you contributed stay in the directory's history with your name removed.

ATL Care is built for adults and isn't directed to children under 13. We don't knowingly collect children's information; if you believe a child has made an account, write to us and we'll remove it.

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we'll say so on this page and, for significant changes, by email. The date at the top is always current. Questions, worries, requests: privacy@atlcare.org.

• Pedir ayuda en una crisis no guarda nada sobre ti. No necesitas cuenta, ni nombre, ni registro.
• Si creas una cuenta, guardamos lo básico: tu nombre, tu correo y — solo si tú quieres — tu teléfono y tu vecindario.
• Contamos usos, no personas. Nuestras estadísticas no tienen nombres ni ubicaciones exactas.
• Los vecinos nunca ven tu teléfono ni tu correo. Solo tu primer nombre y tu vecindario.
• Si hablas en voz alta, convertimos tu voz en texto y borramos el audio.
• Nunca vendemos tus datos. No hay anuncios. Gratis significa gratis.
• ¿Preguntas? Escríbenos a privacy@atlcare.org. Una persona lee cada mensaje.