Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 1, 2026

The short version: PaperTrail does not save your documents, photos, or answers. Nothing you enter is stored on our servers or in any database. When you close or refresh the page, it is gone.

What PaperTrail is

PaperTrail is a free tool that explains government and school paperwork in plain language. It is a student project and is not affiliated with any government agency, school, or school district. It does not give legal advice and does not decide whether you qualify for anything.

What we collect

Almost nothing. Specifically:

We do not store your documents. When you photograph a document for the checker or form explainer, the image is read on your device, sent to be analyzed, and the result is shown to you. The image is never saved to our servers or any database, and it is deleted from memory when you close or refresh the page.
We do not store your answers. The tasks you pick and the questions you answer are used only to build your checklist in that moment. They are not saved after you leave.
We do not ask for your name, address, Social Security number, or date of birth, and the tool is designed never to request personal identifying information.
We do not require an account. There is no sign-up and no login.

How your document is analyzed

To read a document or form, PaperTrail sends the image to an artificial-intelligence service (the Anthropic Claude API) to analyze it and return an explanation. This means the image is processed by that service in order to work. It is not used to identify you, and PaperTrail does not keep a copy.

You should only photograph documents you are comfortable having analyzed this way. If a document is extremely sensitive, you can choose not to use the photo features and still use the rest of the tool.

Analytics

We use privacy-friendly analytics to count how many people visit, so we can understand whether the tool is helping. This records general visit information (such as how many visitors and which pages were opened). It does not identify you personally and does not track you across other websites.

Cookies and tracking

PaperTrail does not use advertising cookies and does not sell or share any data. There are no third-party advertisers.

Children

PaperTrail is intended to be used by parents and adults handling paperwork. It does not knowingly collect information from children.

Your choices

You can use the checklists and explanations without ever uploading a photo.
Because nothing is stored, there is no account to delete and no data to request — closing the page ends your session.

Contact

PaperTrail is a student project. Questions about privacy can be sent to tobias.velez@icloud.com.

PaperTrail explains public paperwork in plain language. It is not legal advice, is not affiliated with any government agency or school, and does not determine eligibility. Always confirm details with the official agency before you submit.