Privacy policy

Last updated October 4, 2026.

No accounts, no tracking

There are no accounts, no cookies and no analytics, and nothing is saved in your browser. The terms appear each time the page loads, so anyone else using this computer sees them too. Accepting gives the page a random code that lasts until you leave or reload the page, or 15 minutes without a question; it is not linked to you and is held only in the server's memory.

Questions that contain identifying numbers are refused

Before a question leaves your browser, and again on the server, it is checked for Social Security numbers, ITINs, EINs, bank account and routing numbers, and payment card numbers. A question that contains one is not sent to any model, not stored and not logged; you are asked to remove the number.

Who processes your question

• OpenAI receives the question text through its API, to interpret it, search for matching IRM text, grade that text for relevance and write the answer. For a follow-up question it also receives the earlier questions in the conversation, only to turn the follow-up into a complete question.
• Supabase hosts the database that holds the IRM text and the answer cache described below.
• Render runs the server that answers questions; Vercel serves this web page. Each keeps its own operational request logs under its own policies.

What is stored, and for how long

Answers are cached so that the same question gets the same, already-checked answer. The answer cache is kept indefinitely. What it holds depends on the question:

• If the question contains no digits other than IRM section numbers, form numbers, notice or letter numbers and Internal Revenue Code sections (for example “IRM 21.5.1.5.6” or “Form 1040-X”), the cache stores the question text, a rewritten version of it used for searching, the relevance grades given to the IRM passages considered, and the answer. A follow-up question is stored the same way, in its complete form, together with a record of how it was completed.
• If it contains any other digit (a year, an amount, a date), the cache stores only a one-way hash of the question and the relevance grades. The question text, its rewrite and the answer are not stored.

For questions in the first group, the server also keeps a numeric representation of the question (an embedding) in a file keyed by a hash, so repeated questions don't need it computed again. The cost of each model call is recorded with the time and model, without any question text.

Every finished answer, whichever group its question is in, is also held in the server's memory for 10 minutes, so that if your connection drops before the answer arrives the page can still collect it. Only the same page can collect it, and it is not written anywhere.

Your IP address

Your IP address is held in the server's memory for up to an hour to enforce the rate limit, and is not written to the database. The server's access log records the IP address, time, request path and status code of each request, but never the question. Access logs are deleted after 30 days by an automatic job on the server.

Contact

Questions about this policy or this site: dave@patrioticinvestments.com.