Privacy Policy

CivicLens ("the Service") is an independent civic-information platform that organises publicly released Korean election and local-council information so it is easier to find and understand. This Policy applies to the CivicLens website and its associated features.

CivicLens is not operated, authorised or endorsed by the National Election Commission, by any local council, or by any other government body. Information shown in the Service — elected officials, what candidates reported when standing, pledge documents, party policy, and council-published attendance — is drawn from official public sources and is distinct from personal information collected from users.

CivicLens processes only the minimum information needed to operate the Service and does not sell personal information. Personal information is used only for the purposes disclosed here and is destroyed without delay once the purpose is achieved or the retention period expires.

No account is required to read public information. If account-based features are added, the items collected and the purposes of processing will be reflected in this Policy before those features are offered.

CivicLens may process the following categories of personal information.

1. Region preference: the province and municipality you select, stored so the Service can show regional content. This is not GPS location data.
2. Automatically generated technical information: IP address, access time, requested URL, browser, operating system, device type, referrer, response status, and error and security logs, generated automatically by hosting and security systems.
3. Privacy inquiry information: if you use the inquiry form in Article 18, your reply email address (required), your name (optional), and the contents of your inquiry. The form does not ask for a phone number, postal address, date of birth, or account information.
4. Administrator information: for people with operational access, a work email address, authentication identifier, access permissions, and sign-in records.

CivicLens does not ask ordinary users for a resident registration number, payment information, contacts, photos or video, microphone access, SMS, call records, or background location.

1. You provide it directly, by selecting a region or by using the privacy inquiry form.
2. Servers, CDN, database and security systems generate technical logs automatically as you use the website.
3. Administrators authenticate in order to operate the Service.

1. To show, for the region you select, the metropolitan and basic-level executives and local councillors elected in the 9th nationwide local elections of 3 June 2026 and currently in office.
2. To show the occupation, education and career information candidates reported to the National Election Commission when standing, and — for the election types where a pledge document is published — the original pledge text and its summary.
3. To show the policy material each party submitted at that election and the relationship between a party and the officials elected under it.
4. To show plenary attendance figures that local councils have themselves published, together with their source.
5. To let readers see how each sentence shown was produced and inspect the source material behind it.
6. To operate the Service reliably, diagnose errors, improve performance, and prevent security threats and abuse.
7. To answer privacy inquiries and handle requests to exercise your rights.
8. To meet legal obligations, respond to disputes, and protect rights.

Items 1 to 5 are public information released by official bodies, not personal information collected from users. CivicLens does not sell or provide user personal information for AI model training.

1. Region preference: kept until you change the setting or clear your browser storage.
2. Technical, security and error logs: kept for up to 90 days from creation as a rule, and longer only where needed for a security investigation, a legal obligation, or a dispute, until that process ends.
3. Privacy inquiries: CivicLens does not store inquiry contents on its servers or in its database. An inquiry is transmitted by email on receipt and is not retained by the Service afterwards. It does, however, remain in two places. First, Resend, which performs the transmission, retains sending records and message content for up to 30 days under its own policy. Second, the delivered inquiry arrives in the CivicLens operator mailbox used to reply, and is deleted without delay once the inquiry has been handled and there is no further need to keep it.
4. Administrator account information: kept until operational access ends or the account is deleted. Backups are deleted progressively within 30 days of the deletion process starting.

Where law requires a longer retention period, only the minimum information is kept separately for the period that law specifies.

CivicLens does not sell personal information and, as a rule, does not provide it to third parties without your consent. It may do so, to the extent the law permits, in the following cases.

1. You have given prior explicit consent.
2. A court, investigative authority or regulator makes a lawful request.
3. It is urgently necessary to protect life, physical safety, or a significant property interest.

CivicLens uses the following external service providers to operate the Service.

1. Vercel Inc.: web hosting, CDN, deployment, security and error logging. May process IP address, access and device information, request logs and error logs.
2. Supabase, Inc.: PostgreSQL database and storage. May process operational data and administrator authentication information. Privacy inquiry contents are not stored in this database.
3. OpenAI, L.L.C.: generation of summaries from published pledge and party-policy material. Only public-source text is processed; user personal information is not transmitted for summary generation.
4. Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.): delivers inquiries submitted through the Article 18 form to the operator by email. Your reply email address, name and inquiry contents are transmitted and processed in doing so.

CivicLens relies on contracts or service configuration to confirm purpose limitation, access control, security measures, sub-processing management and deletion obligations.

1. Vercel Inc. (United States): hosting, security and incident analysis. Information is transmitted over encrypted connections. Retention follows the applicable contract and log settings.
2. Supabase, Inc. (database region: Tokyo, Japan): database and storage operation. Information is transmitted over encrypted connections when stored or retrieved. Retention follows this Policy and the applicable contract.
3. OpenAI, L.L.C. (United States): summarisation of public source material, transmitted over encrypted connections. Retention is limited to API processing and the provider’s applicable settings.
4. Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) (United States): email transmission of privacy inquiries. The items transferred are your reply email address, name and inquiry contents; the purpose is delivery of the inquiry; retention is up to 30 days under the provider’s policy.

Where an international transfer is subject to applicable data-protection law, CivicLens complies with the requirements of that law. You may request an explanation of international transfers through the Article 18 form.

CivicLens may use cookies or browser local storage for region selection, session continuity, security and basic functionality. It does not track behaviour for advertising personalisation and does not sell personal information.

You can delete or block site data and cookies in your browser settings. Blocking essential storage may stop some features, such as remembering your region, from working correctly.

You may request access to your personal information, correction or deletion, suspension of processing, withdrawal of consent, and an explanation, in accordance with applicable law. The legal representative of a child under 14 may exercise these rights on the child’s behalf.

Requests may be submitted through the privacy inquiry form in Article 18. CivicLens may ask you to verify your identity to the extent necessary to protect your rights and the personal information of others, and will explain any statutory grounds that limit a request.

CivicLens is an information service for the general public and is not designed to actively collect personal information from children under 14. Where a child needs to provide personal information, for example to make an inquiry, we recommend they do so with the help of a legal representative.

If CivicLens learns that personal information of a child under 14 has been collected without a legal representative’s consent, it will be deleted without delay, except where law permits or requires otherwise.

Personal information whose retention period has expired, or whose purpose has been achieved, is destroyed after review. Electronic files are deleted by a method that makes recovery difficult; paper documents, if any, are shredded or incinerated.

Information remaining in backup systems is deleted progressively according to the backup cycle and is not used for any purpose other than recovery until deleted.

1. Encrypted transport such as HTTPS is used, and secrets and credentials are kept out of source code.
2. Least-privilege access is applied to personal and operational data, access rights are separated, and they are reviewed periodically.
3. Authentication and access control are applied to the database and administrator functions, and logs are reviewed.
4. Privacy inquiry contents and reply email addresses are not written to ordinary server operation logs.
5. Dependency updates, vulnerability checks, backups and incident-response procedures are maintained.

If a personal-information breach or security incident is confirmed, CivicLens will block access, investigate the cause, minimise harm and take measures to prevent recurrence. Where the law requires it, affected users and the supervisory authority will be notified of the nature of the incident, its effects, the response taken, and how to make contact.

Names, party affiliations, constituencies, terms of office, the occupation, education and career information reported at the election, pledge material, party policy, and council-published attendance shown in the Service are based on public information released by official bodies. These public records are not personal information collected from users through their use of the Service.

Pledge and party-policy summaries are written by generative AI from published source text and may contain errors or omissions. Every summary screen states how the text was produced, and important details should be confirmed against the original text shown alongside it.

Council-published attendance figures are calculated and published by the council concerned. They are not a performance score calculated by CivicLens.

If this Policy is amended because of a change in law, in the Service, or in an external provider, notice will be given in the Service or separately at least 7 days before the effective date. Changes that materially affect your rights will, where practical, be announced at least 30 days in advance.

Earlier versions may be retained for reference or made available on request.

Questions about how personal information is handled, requests for correction or deletion, requests to suspend processing, and any other privacy matter may be submitted using the form below.

Service: CivicLens · Service URL: https://www.civiclens-app.com

Users in the Republic of Korea may also seek assistance from the Personal Information Infringement Report Center (118) or other competent privacy-dispute and regulatory authorities.

Article 1. This Policy takes effect on 22 August 2026.