Privacy Policy

1. What We Collect

When you use PermitBot, we may collect:

• Property address — to look up zoning and boundary information from Auckland Council GIS.
• Project specifications — dimensions, setbacks, and location of your proposed building project (deck, fence, shed, or carport).
• Your name — if provided, to include on the AEE document.
• Email address — if you purchase an AEE document, to deliver the PDF.
• Payment information — processed entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.
• IP address — used for rate limiting only. Not stored long-term.

2. How We Use Your Data

• Look up property zoning and overlays via Auckland Council's public GIS services.
• Check your project against Auckland Unitary Plan rules.
• Generate Assessment of Environmental Effects (AEE) documents.
• Process payments via Stripe.
• Email your completed AEE document.
• Enforce rate limits to prevent abuse.

We do not use your data for marketing, advertising, or profiling.

3. Third-Party Services

We share data with these services only as needed to provide PermitBot:

• Auckland Council GIS — receives your property address to return zoning and boundary data. Public service, no account required.
• Stripe — processes payments. Subject to Stripe's Privacy Policy.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosts our database and document storage in the Sydney (ap-southeast-2) region.
• Vercel — hosts our website.
• Upstash — provides rate limiting infrastructure.
• OpenAI — if you use the PermitBot Custom GPT, your conversation is subject to OpenAI's Privacy Policy.

4. Data Retention

• Transaction records (address, specs, applicant name) are retained for 12 months for support and dispute resolution, then deleted.
• Generated PDFs are stored for 90 days to allow re-download, then deleted.
• Rate limit data (IP-based counters) expires automatically within minutes.
• Payment records are retained by Stripe per their policies.

5. Your Rights

Under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to:

• Request access to any personal information we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate information.
• Request deletion of your data.

To exercise these rights, email help@support.permitbot.co.nz.

6. API Usage

PermitBot provides a public API documented at /for-agents. API requests are subject to the same data practices described above. No authentication is required, and no user accounts are created.

7. Cookies

PermitBot does not use tracking cookies or analytics. We use Crisp for live chat support, which may set its own cookies — see Crisp's Privacy Policy.

8. Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be noted on this page with an updated date.

9. Contact

Telepathy Ltd
Email: help@support.permitbot.co.nz
Website: permitbot.co.nz