Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 22, 2025

The privacy of your data—and it is your data, not ours!—is a big deal to us. In this policy, we lay out: what data we collect and why; how your data is handled; and your rights with respect to your data.

This policy is split into sections. For your convenience, links to each of those sections is as follows:

This policy applies to our handling of information about site visitors, prospective customers, and customers and authorized users (in relation to their procurement of the services and management of their relationship with Certcate). We refer collectively to these categories of individuals as “you” throughout this policy.

What we collect and why

Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practice:

Identity and access

When you sign up for Certcate, we ask for identifying information such as your name and email address. That’s so you can personalize your new account, and we can send you product updates and other essential information. We may also send you optional surveys from time to time to help us understand how you use our products and to make improvements. With your consent, we will send you our newsletter and other updates.

We won’t use your name or company in marketing statements without your permission.

Billing information

If you sign up for a paid Certcate subscription, you will be asked to provide your payment information and billing address. Credit card information is submitted directly to our payment processor and doesn’t hit Certcate servers. We store a record of the payment transaction, including the last 4 digits of the credit card number, for purposes of account history, invoicing, and billing support. We store your billing address so we can charge you for service, calculate any sales tax due, send you invoices, and detect fraudulent credit card transactions. We occasionally use aggregate billing information to guide our marketing efforts.

Product interactions

We store on our servers the content that you upload or receive or maintain in your Certcate account. This is so you can use our products as intended, for example, to create watchlists in Certcate.

General Geolocation data

We log the full IP address used to sign up Certcate and retain that for use in mitigating future spammy signups. We also log all account access by full IP address for security and fraud prevention purposes.

Website interactions

We collect information about your browsing activity for analytics and statistical purposes such as conversion rate testing and experimenting with new product designs. This includes, for example, your browser and operating system versions, your IP address, which web pages you visited and how long they took to load, and which website referred you to us. If you have an account and are signed in, these web analytics data are tied to your IP address and user account. The web analytics we use are described further in the Advertising and Cookies section.

Anti-bot assessments

We use CAPTCHA across our applications to mitigate brute force logins and as a means of spam protection. We have a legitimate interest in protecting our apps and the broader Internet community from credential stuffing attacks and spam. When you log into your Certcate account, the CAPTCHA service evaluates various information (e.g., IP address, how long the visitor has been on the app, mouse movements) to try to detect if the activity is from an automated program instead of a human. The CAPTCHA service then provides Certcate with the spam score results; we do not have access to the evaluated information.

Advertising and Cookies

We also use persistent first-party cookies and some third-party cookies to store certain preferences, make it easier for you to use our applications, and perform A/B testing as well as support some analytics.

A cookie is a piece of text stored by your browser. It may help remember login information and site preferences. It might also collect information such as your browser type, operating system, web pages visited, duration of visit, content viewed, and other click-stream data. You can adjust cookie retention settings and accept or block individual cookies in your browser settings, although our apps won’t work and other aspects of our service may not function properly if you turn cookies off.

Voluntary correspondence

When you email Certcate with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including your email address, so that we have a history of past correspondence to reference if you reach out in the future.

We also store information you may volunteer, for example, written responses to surveys. If you agree to a customer interview, we may ask for your permission to record the conversation for future reference or use. We will only do so with your express consent.

How we approach mobile app permissions

We may offer optional desktop and mobile apps for Certcate. Because of how the platforms are designed, our apps typically must request your consent before accessing contacts, calendar, camera, and other privacy-sensitive features of your device. Consent is always optional and our apps will function without it, though some features may be unavailable. There are a few exceptions, for example:

When we access or disclose your information

To provide products or services you’ve requested. We use some third-party subprocessors to help run our applications and provide the Services to you. The following is a list of personal data subprocessors we use. These subprocessors are all located in the United States:

We may also access your data if required in order to respond to legal process (see “When required under applicable law” below).

To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding abuse as laid out in our Terms. If we discover you are using our product for a restricted purpose, we will take action as necessary, including notifying appropriate authorities where warranted.

Aggregated and de-identified data. We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected through the services. We may use de-identified or aggregated data for any purpose, including marketing or analytics.

When required under applicable law. Certcate is a U.S. company and our data infrastructure are located in the U.S.

Finally, if Certcate is acquired by or merges with another company — we don’t plan on that, but if it happens — we’ll notify you well before any of your personal information is transferred or becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Your rights with respect to your information

At Certcate, we strive to apply the same data rights to all customers, regardless of their location. Some of these rights include:

Many of these rights can be exercised by signing in and updating your account information. Please note that certain information may be exempt from such requests under applicable law. For example, we need to retain certain information in order to provide our services to you.

In some cases, we also need to take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to a request, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name and email address. If we are unable to verify you, we may be unable to respond to your requests. If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us at privacy…at…certcate.com. If an authorized agent is corresponding on your behalf, we will need written consent with a signature from the account holder before proceeding.

Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to appeal our decision to deny your request, if applicable. We will provide information about how to exercise that right in our response denying the request. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. If you are in the EU or UK, you can contact your data protection authority to file a complaint or learn more about local privacy laws.

How we secure your data

All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser.

Most data are not encrypted while they live in our database (since they need to be ready to send to you when you need them).

Data retention

We keep your information for the time necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and your choices, after which time we may delete and/or aggregate it. We may also retain and use this information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Through this policy, we have provided specific retention periods for certain types of information.

Location of site and data

Our products and other web properties are operated in the United States. If you are located in the European Union, UK, or elsewhere outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored in the United States. By using our websites or Services and/or providing us with your personal information, you consent to this transfer.

Changes and questions

We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practices. Whenever we make a significant change to our policies, we will refresh the date at the top of this page.

Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information? Please get in touch by emailing us at privacy…at…certcate.com.


Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0