Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this covers

The Itty Bitty Mosquito Portal is a neighborhood mosquito-control coordination tool: neighbors register their home, log traps and standing-water sources, and get maintenance reminders. We are not a professional pest-control or public-health service. This policy explains what we collect, why, who sees it, and your choices. It covers our website and app at ittybittymosquitocommittee.org. By using the Portal you agree to this policy and the Terms in Part B.

2. Information we collect

We collect only what is needed to connect neighbors with each other, provide mosquito trap and treatment maintenance reminders, and evaluate the impact of neighborhood participation in mosquito control activities.

Account and contact:your name; email (one-click sign-in links, no passwords); a profile contact address (optional, separate from your home record); and, if you’re a Block Captain, your contact-visibility preferences.

Your home and its location: the street address of any home you register and the precise map location we derive from it; the property type; and who co-manages the home. Your precise location is central to the service. Section 5 explains who can see it.

Mosquito sites you log: the type, location, dates, and notes for each trap or standing-water source, and any photos you attach. Today, photos are private to your home.

Messages and requests you send: notes to your Block Captain, home-join requests, Block Captain or coordinator interest, and out-of-coverage sign-up notes you send us (name, address, email, message).

Technical: basic error and diagnostic data, and anti-abuse signals at sign-up.

3. Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and tokens to run the service. A session cookie keeps you signed in after you use a one-click sign-in link, so you do not have to sign in every time. We also use a short-lived token from our anti-bot provider at sign-up.

We may also use a privacy-respecting analytics tool to understand how the service is used so we can improve it. Where possible we use a cookieless tool; we do not use advertising cookies and do not track you across other websites.

4. How we use your information

• Map your home and sites, and assign your home to the right block
• Connect you with your Block Captain and coordinator
• Send email account notices and trap-maintenance reminders
• Let volunteer Block Captains and coordinators coordinate mosquito control
• Help you report standing water to DC Health, and record when a report is resolved (Section 10)
• Evaluate what reduces mosquitoes by analyzing trap and block data, including, under written agreements, with researchers and public-health agencies (Section 9)
• Understand how the service is used so we can improve it, through privacy-respecting analytics
• Keep the service secure and investigate abuse

5. How we protect your exact location

We treat your precise home location as sensitive. The map shows exact pins only to those entitled:

• You see your own home and your own block exactly.
• Everything else shows as a scattered, approximate point, never the precise address.
• Block Captains see their block exactly; coordinators and administrators see their neighborhood, because they manage it.

This is enforced on our servers, not merely hidden in your browser. (Reports you send to DC Health are a separate case; see Section 10.)

6. Who can see your information

• You and your home's co-managers can see and edit your home and its sites.
• Your Block Captain can see the homes and sites on their block.
• Your coordinator and platform administrators can see information in their neighborhood or the platform, to support you.
• Other neighbors see only approximate locations and limited public info.
• Block Captains can choose whether block neighbors see their email; coordinators and administrators always can, to provide support. Photos are currently private to your home.

7. Volunteer Block Captain and administrator access

Volunteer Block Captains and coordinators receive access only to the information necessary to perform their community-coordination responsibilities, and are required to comply with confidentiality and acceptable-use obligations. Access automatically terminates when volunteer responsibilities end.

8. Email and (soon) text messages

Today we contact you by email for account notices and reminders. We do not currently collect phone numbers or send text messages. If we add optional SMS reminders later, they would be opt-in only (message and data rates may apply; reply STOP to opt out), and we would not share your number for marketing.

9. Research, efficacy, and data sharing

A core goal is learning what reduces mosquitoes. We analyze trap data (type, location, maintenance) and block data (whether a block is captained, number of homes, density), and we share data in different ways depending on the purpose. In every case, we never share your name, address, email, or phone. We share through three channels:

Public. Block-level participation (whether a block is captained, the number of homes, and trap density) is shown publicly. Exact trap locations are never public.

Research, under a written agreement. Vetted research partners and public-health researchers (for example, at universities or DC Health) may receive more detailed geospatial data, including precise trap locations, when the approved research purpose requires it, such as evaluating efficacy by overlaying trap points on environmental data. This is shared only to named researchers, without your name or contact details, and only under a Data Use Agreement that limits use to the approved research purpose, requires the minimum necessary data, prohibits re-identification or any attempt to identify or contact participants, requires IRB or equivalent ethics approval, and requires the data to be deleted at the end of the project. Precise locations shared this way are never made public. Some partners may be outside the United States, in which case the agreement governs the transfer.

Government, operational, and licensing use. Public-health agencies using the tool operationally, and government licensees of the software, receive aggregate, de-identified data only (such as hotspot maps and surveillance trends). Your individual-level information (your name, contact details, home location, and your specific sites) is never part of these arrangements. The operator (Itty Bitty Mosquito Committee) keeps the individual-level data and remains its steward.

As a matter of law. We may disclose information if we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law, court order, subpoena, or other legal process, or when necessary to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of Itty Bitty, our users, or others.

10. Reporting standing water to DC Health

By submitting a standing-water report through the Portal, you authorize Itty Bitty Mosquito Committee to display the reported location within the application as described in this policy for neighborhood mosquito-control purposes.

When you report standing water or a catch basin, you can use an in-app link to email the report to DC Health. The email opens in your own email app and sends from your own email address, so we are not the sender. The link also copies hello@ittybittymosquitocommittee.org so we keep a record and can track whether the issue is resolved; you can remove that copy before sending if you prefer not to share it with us.

The location you report is the location of the standing water or catch basin, which can be anywhere and is not necessarily your home. We show it as an exact pin, visible to everyone in the neighborhood, so neighbors can see where problems have been reported. This pin does not identify who made the report.

Anything you send to a government agency may become a public record, which we do not control.

If DC Health replies and we are copied, we record in the app whether and when the report was resolved, so your neighborhood can see the issue was handled. We record the status and date, not the full reply.

The copy that reaches hello@ittybittymosquitocommittee.orgis stored in our shared inbox. We keep that email only until the report’s resolution is recorded in the app, then delete it.

11. Service providers (sub-processors)

We share data with a few vendors strictly to operate the service, each bound to handle it only on our behalf.

We use no advertising services and do not sell your personal information. We may use a first-party, privacy-respecting analytics provider to understand how the site is used; we will name it here once selected. Sentry (error monitoring) is configured not to attach personal data by default and applies a scrubbing step to error data, with session recording disabled.

Some providers keep limited data on their own schedules. Our email provider auto-deletes the logs and previews of sent emails after a set period; we set this to 1 month. Separately, the email provider keeps contact records until they are deleted, so we remove a contact when an account is deleted.

12. Data security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. These measures include encryption in transit, access controls, authentication procedures, role-based permissions, and vendor security reviews.

No system can be guaranteed perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to improve these safeguards over time.

13. Security incidents

If Itty Bitty Mosquito becomes aware of a security incident involving personal information, we will investigate and provide any notifications required by applicable law.

14. How long we keep your information

We keep information only as long as we need it for the purposes above, then delete it. Our standard periods:

• Account and contact information: kept while your account is active; deleted within 30 days after you delete your account, except limited records we must keep longer to meet a legal obligation or investigate abuse.
• Home and mosquito-site records: kept until you delete them or your account is closed; removed within 30 days of account closure.
• Messages and requests: kept until resolved, then deleted within 12 months; you can ask us to delete them sooner.
• Emailed DC Health report copies (in our shared inbox): kept until the report's resolution is recorded in the app, then deleted.
• Sent-email logs at our email provider: auto-deleted after 1 month.
• Unfinished sign-ups: automatically deleted after 1 hour.
• Deleted neighborhoods, blocks, and accounts: when one is deleted, we remove the rows from our active tables and keep a stored archive of the data so we can investigate abuse. This archive retains identifying details (such as name and email) so we can investigate abuse; access is limited to platform administrators, and we keep it only as long as it is useful for that purpose.
• Audit and assignment logs: kept for up to 24 months.
• Error and diagnostic logs: kept for up to 90 days.
• Research datasets shared externally: governed by the written research agreement; recipients delete the data at the end of the project. Our internal analysis copies are kept for the duration of the efficacy program.

15. Your choices and rights

You can export your data and delete your account at any time from My Profile. Block Captains can change their contact-visibility settings there too. To request correction of information you cannot edit yourself, or for any other privacy request, email hello@ittybittymosquitocommittee.org and we will respond within a reasonable time.

Our service is intended for the United States. We will honor privacy rights available under applicable law.

We strive to make the Portal accessible and welcome requests for reasonable accommodations.

16. Children

The Itty Bitty Mosquito Portal is intended for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18; if we learn that we have, we will delete it. Parents or guardians who believe a minor has created an account should contact us.

17. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy; for material changes we will notify you in the app and update the effective date.

18. Business transfers and successor entities

We do not transfer information collected through the Portal to a successor entity, researcher, or other third party except as described in this policy, and not without prior notice to you. If ownership or operation of the Portal moves to another entity (for example, the new legal entity being established), your information will continue to be governed by this policy or a policy at least as protective, and we will notify you in advance.

19. Contact

Privacy questions? hello@ittybittymosquitocommittee.org.