Privacy Policy
Effective Date: July 10, 2026 · Last Updated: July 10, 2026
Application: What the Hill
Operating Entity: Rencher LLC
This Privacy Policy explains how Rencher LLC ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, and safeguards your information when you use the What the Hill mobile application and its associated features (the "App").
By downloading, accessing, or using the App on iOS, Android, the Web, or any other platform, you explicitly agree to all the terms, conditions, and data practices outlined in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not access or use the application.
1. Information We Collect
The information we collect depends on how you interact with the App, the choices you make, and the features you use.
A. Personal & Demographic Data
Information you voluntarily provide during account creation, profile customization, or age verification may include:
- First Name and Last Name
- Email Address
- Phone Number
- Age or Age Range (collected via our mandatory age verification prompt at sign-up)
- Gender
- Geographic Identifiers (City, State, and Zip Code) — Note: These specific fields are entirely optional and are used strictly to autocomplete communication templates when you contact your representatives, or to contextualize anonymous, aggregated statistical data.
B. Real-Time Location Data & Representative Matching
To automatically map you to your correct legislative districts and find your designated public officials, the App offers a location-matching feature:
- Precise Location Access: You may grant one-time permission for the App to access your device's precise geolocation services (GPS).
- Manual Input Alternative: If you choose not to grant device location permissions, you can manually input any physical address to locate your legislators.
- No Retention Policy: We do not store your precise location coordinates or physical address inputs anywhere on our app or active databases. This data is strictly ephemeral. It is securely passed via API to the Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC), an official State of Utah government entity, to fetch your district mapping data and is immediately deleted from our system memory once the request resolves.
- Third-Party Liability Disclaimer: The only information visible to the state entity during this request is the queried address, What the Hill developer credentials, and the timestamp. Rencher LLC does not control and is not liable for how government organizations handle API request data. You can review their independent policies directly at gis.utah.gov.
C. Sensitive Personal Data
Due to the civic nature of political tracking, you may choose to provide information regarding your political preferences. Under various privacy frameworks, this is classified as Sensitive Personal Data. We collect:
- Registered Political Party: Options include the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Constitution Party, Forward Party, Green Party, Independent American, Libertarian Party, and Peoples' Freedom Party.
- Political Ideology Alignment: A five-point scale/slider ranging across Left, Center Left, Center, Center Right, and Right.
Our Sensitive Data Guarantee: This political information is used strictly to customize your localized, contextually relevant in-app legislative feeds. We do not use your sensitive personal info for third-party ad targeting, and we will never sell, lease, or distribute your political orientations to campaigns, political action committees (PACs), or third-party data brokers.
D. Mobile Application Usage & Behavioral Data
We automatically log analytical and behavioral metrics regarding how you navigate the platform to evaluate system performance and app usage. This includes tracking:
- Specific legislative bills, posts, and topics viewed or monitored per user.
- In-App Communication Initiation Metrics: We track when a user taps an interaction button within the App to begin an external communication action (such as initiating an email, phone call, share to social media). Please note: We only log the single, isolated tap event that initializes the action from within our interface. We do not record, intercept, or monitor whether the call or email was successfully completed, the duration of any phone calls, or the actual textual content, audio, or metadata of your communications. All subsequent interactions take place entirely outside of the App via your device's native telephone or third-party email clients. Search history and in-app feature usage rates.
- Communication and Template Usage Frequency: Metrics regarding how frequently specific communication methods (calls, emails, shares) and pre-built text templates are selected and utilized within the App.
E. Profile Imagery and Device Media Access
You may choose to upload or capture a profile picture to customize your user account.
- Device Permissions: To use this feature, the App will request permission to access your device's camera or photo library.
- Storage & Operational Future-Proofing: Currently, your selected profile image is stored entirely locally on your physical device and is not transmitted to or hosted on our backend databases. However, we reserve the right to transition profile imagery to secure cloud storage providers (such as our database subprocessors) in future updates to facilitate cross-device syncing and standard operational app functions (such as rendering your profile across different screens). By granting media permissions and uploading an image, you consent to our processing of this imagery strictly for internal operational use and visual personalization within the App.
F. Future Adjustments to Data Collection
As What the Hill evolves, we reserve the right to expand our data metrics to accommodate new features. Any material adjustments or expansions to the data we collect will be accompanied by a prompt notice distributed via email, an in-app notification modal, and an update to our main privacy index at whatthehill.app/privacy.
2. How We Use Your Information
We utilize the information we collect to maintain a smooth, personalized experience. Specifically, we use your data to:
- Create, verify, and secure your user account.
- Populate and autocomplete text fields within pre-built email and phone script templates for convenient constituent-to-legislator communications.
- Personalize your content stream, watchlists, and dashboard layouts based on your preferences.
- Compile generalized, aggregated statistical data to improve app functionality and expand system infrastructure.
- Deliver support updates, technical notices, and account administration alerts.
3. Sharing & Disclosure of Your Information
Rencher LLC and internal What the Hill staff/authorized personnel have access to user data strictly for app development, feature maintenance, and corporate operations. All staff and contractors operate under strict confidentiality agreements.
Beyond internal operations, your data is only handled in the following scenarios:
- Aggregated, Non-Identifiable Statistics: We generate broad, generalized statistical reports from user activity metrics (e.g., total interaction counts on a specific bill, tracking the most/least contacted legislators, trending political topics). We frequently share this high-level statistical data with our partner organizations or display it publicly. This data is entirely aggregated and contains no personal identifiers; your individual habits, names, or contact histories remain completely anonymous.
- Dynamic Partner Disclosures: A list of our partner organizations with whom we share generalized metrics can be found and reviewed dynamically at whatthehill.app/privacypartners. Because our partners change frequently, users are encouraged to check this link for up-to-date lists.
- Infrastructure Subprocessors: We securely share backend data with third-party vendors who perform critical operational tasks on our behalf—such as cloud hosting, user authentication systems, database architecture, and performance analytics (e.g., Supabase, Firebase, AWS). These subprocessors are contractually banned from using your information for any secondary marketing or external distribution.
- Publicly Displayed Organization Content and Materials: If you operate an administrator or organization account on the App, any public profiles, organizational details, legislative posts, uploaded imagery, external website or social media links, or any other informational updates and materials you publish or provide to us for publishing are intended for public distribution. By posting or providing this content, you acknowledge that it is viewable by all users of the App and the general public, and falls outside the scope of individual consumer data privacy protections. The intellectual property rights and distribution terms of organizational content and submitted materials are governed separately by our Terms of Service and individual commercial agreements.
- Legal & Safety Mandates: We may disclose data if required by valid legal processes (subpoenas, warrants, regulations) or to actively protect the safety, security, and structural rights of our users, the public, or Rencher LLC.
- Jurisdictional Compliance: We comply with all state and federal laws applicable to the secure storage and processing of digital information within the jurisdictions where we operate.
4. Data Security & Retention
We employ administrative, technical, and industry-standard physical safeguards to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, loss, or alteration. However, please be aware that no security architecture or cloud data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as 100% impenetrable against advanced malicious intercept.
Data Retention and Account Deletion Standards:
- Your personally identifiable information (Name, Email, Phone Number, and explicit template autofill markers) is retained only for as long as your account is active.
- Post-Deletion Anonymization: If you choose to close your account, your personal identifying records are purged permanently from our active production systems. However, your historical usage counts (e.g., a tick mark showing a bill was viewed or shared) remain bundled into our master system-wide statistics. This usage data is entirely unlinked from any user account and can never be re-identified or traced back to you.
5. User Autonomy & Account Deletion
You retain complete control over your personal records. You can review, update, or alter your registration fields inside your user dashboard at any time.
To comply fully with mobile storefront distribution rules, you can permanently execute a full account purge at any time via the following manual path directly inside the application:
Home Page → Profile → Settings → Account → Permanently Delete Account
Alternatively, you can file a formal data removal request by emailing our dedicated data team directly at privacy@whatthehill.app.
6. Children's Privacy
We do not knowingly solicit data from or market platform access to individuals under the age of 13. We enforce age checkpoints at registration. If we discover that an individual under 13 has bypassed checkpoints and submitted personal details, we will immediately take structural actions to wipe that data profile from our production servers. If you believe we possess records regarding a minor under 13, please reach out to us at our privacy inbox.
7. Contact Information
For questions, clarifications, or requests concerning this Privacy Policy, please contact our data compliance office:
Rencher LLC
Legal & Compliance Department
Email: privacy@whatthehill.app
Website: whatthehill.app or whatthehill.app/privacy