Privacy
We ask one thing about you: a phone number or an email, so we can reach you. The questions ask about the detained person, including their status, because the way out depends on it. This page says exactly what is recorded, and what is not.
What happens to your answers
The questions tool asks about one detained person. Your answers — where they are held, what has been filed, an A-number, anything you type into the free-text box — stay in your own browser while you are answering. Nothing about the case is sent to us until you make an account and save it. The one thing sent sooner is how to reach you, below, and it goes on its own.
When you save, the case leaves your browser. Your answers, and the documents the tool builds from them, are stored in the cloud — on our database provider's servers in the United States — behind your account, reachable by you when you sign in. They are no longer only on your phone, and clearing your browser no longer removes them. Deleting the case does.
The documents are meant to be handled by a person. Someone working on Vadens opens your saved case, prints what it produced, and does the part that has to happen on paper — at a counter, in the mail, or on a fax line that only accepts paper. So a named human being can read what you saved. There is no version of this where the paperwork gets filed and nobody looks at it, and we would rather say that plainly than leave you to work it out.
If you write in your own words — the free-text box, and the questions about a sponsor — that text is sent to a language-model provider, which reads it back as answers to the question on screen. Only the text you typed and the question being asked go out. Your email address does not, and neither does anything you picked from a list: those are handled by us alone, with no model involved.
One exception on the other side. We record a replay of how the tool is used, described below, and a replay shows which answer you picked at each question. It never shows anything you type: the free-text box, an email address and an A-number are hidden in your browser before the replay is sent.
That is enforced in the code, not just promised here. The analytics layer has a fixed list of things it is allowed to send to either analytics service, and no answer value is on it.
How we reach you
Before the questions start, the tool asks for a phone number or an email. It is sent to us when you press continue, on its own: none of your answers go with it. It is stored on our database provider’s servers in the United States. The form can add a number but cannot read one back; only people working on Vadens can.
We use it to text, call or email you about this case, and for nothing else. It is not sold or shared. The replay described below hides what you type into it. To have it deleted, text or call 801-901-0394 and ask.
What we do record
We use two product-analytics services, PostHog and HeyCatch, to see whether this site works. PostHog’s servers are in the United States. HeyCatch’s are too, though it says it can also process data in other countries. What reaches them:
- Which page you opened, and in which language.
- Which links and buttons were pressed — for example whether people press a release-options button, or which guide category they filter by.
- In the questions tool: which question number was shown, and whether it was answered or left. These counts carry the number only, not the answer.
- Whether the step that asks how to reach you was shown, and whether a phone number, an email or both was left. Never the number or the address.
- Whether someone answered their first or third question, reached the end, viewed the completed results, or opened release-path details. These events do not include the answers or which path was opened.
- The public page and language they came from, whether the link was about bond or general release options, and which version and placement of the button they used.
- Whether someone continued to the second set of questions, and whether they pressed the button to make an account.
- Ordinary technical information a browser sends: rough device type, browser, and the page address.
- A replay of your visit, sent to PostHog only: what was on the screen, where you scrolled, and what you pressed — in the questions tool, that includes which answer you picked. Anything you type is hidden before it leaves your browser. Replays are deleted after 30 days.
HeyCatch gets everything on that list except the replay; it does not record replays. It keeps what it gets while we use it, and deletes it two months after we stop. To summarise these events for us, HeyCatch can pass them to AI models run by other companies, which are not allowed to train on them. From the questions tool, those events are the counts above: question numbers and milestones, never an answer.
PostHog discards your IP address rather than storing it. HeyCatch does not say that it does: your IP address reaches it with each event, and its server logs, which can include IP addresses, are kept for up to 13 months. Analytics never records what you type, and we do not use advertising trackers. Nothing is sold or shared with advertisers.
Location
On these guide pages, an approximate location — roughly city-level, worked out from your internet connection — is recorded, so we can see which parts of the country this is reaching. It is not your exact position and it is not linked to your name.
In the questions tool, no location is recorded at all. That is deliberate. Answering questions about a detained person should not also file away where you were sitting when you did it.
We also keep a count, in our own database, of how far people get through the questions — the question number and whether it was answered or left. It carries no case identifier and nothing that could point back to a person.
Earlier versions of this site said “no trackers or ads”. The ads part is still true and always will be. The trackers part stopped being true when we added the analytics described above, so we removed the claim rather than leave it standing.
This page also used to say “we do not record your screen”, and that your answers were never recorded. Both stopped being true when we started recording replays, so both came out in the same change.
Cookies and browser storage
PostHog and HeyCatch each set one cookie and keep a small amount of data in your browser’s own storage. Each holds the same thing: a random identifier, so that a visit to this site and a visit to the questions tool count as one visit rather than two. It is not linked to your name and it is not used for advertising.
The questions tool keeps the original public entry context and completed measurement milestones on your device. It also keeps your answers in your browser’s storage, so you can close the page and come back. That copy never leaves the device. It also notes that you left a way to reach you, but not the number or address itself. Clearing your browsing data removes all of it.
What the Exit button does, and does not do
Pressing Exit, or the Esc key, leaves this site immediately and replaces it with Google, so this page is not the previous page if someone presses back.
It does not clear your browser history, and it does not clear what your address bar suggests when someone starts typing. If you are using a device other people can open, that is worth knowing. Private or incognito browsing handles that; the Exit button does not.
If you make an account
Accounts are optional and are only offered at the end, once the tool has something worth keeping. If you make one, we store your email address, how you know the person, and their A-number if you gave one, along with your answers and the documents built from them.
A saved case is kept until you delete it. Nothing expires on a timer and nothing is removed on a schedule, so a case you saved a year ago is still there. Deleting it is how it goes away, and once it is gone we cannot bring it back.
Use an inbox only you can open. Whoever can read that mailbox can reset the password on the account, and the account is what the case sits behind.
The O-1A roadmap pilot
The page at /o1a/ is for international students, and it is the one place on Vadens that asks who you are. If you send its form, we store what you entered: your email address, degree, major, graduation month, visa status and when it ends, field, goal, which of the listed kinds of evidence you ticked, anything you wrote in the notes box, how you heard about the page, and your CV if you attached one.
It is stored on our database provider’s servers in the United States. Nobody outside Vadens can read it back, including through the form: the form can add a request but not see one. A person working on Vadens reads it to write your roadmap, sometimes with help from AI tools, and emails the roadmap to you. It is not sold or shared.
Reply to your roadmap email and we delete everything you sent. When the pilot ends, we delete all of it. Nothing is deleted on a timer before then; deletion is done by a person.
That page counts visits, the first time someone touches the form, the submit, and whether the request arrived, in PostHog, marked as the O-1A pilot so it never mixes with the detention intake’s numbers. As on the guide pages, an approximate city-level location is recorded. It records no replay and nothing you type.
Turning analytics off
Any browser setting or extension that blocks analytics will block ours, and everything on this site keeps working. If your browser sends a “do not track” signal, both services honour it and record nothing.
This page changes when the code changes
If we start collecting something else, this page is updated in the same change, not afterwards.