Privacy Policy

Overview

PermitMint is a free building permit lookup tool. This policy explains what data we collect when you use the site, how we use it, and who else sees it. I wrote it myself, in plain English, and I’ll keep it updated whenever something material changes.

The short version: we collect the minimum needed to answer your permit question and improve the site. We don’t sell your data. We do earn affiliate commissions from some outbound links, and we use a privacy-friendly analytics provider and an affiliate link network, both of which are disclosed in full below.

Information We Collect

Lookup data

When you use the permit lookup tool or the permit history search, we record:

• The ZIP code, city, state, project type, and follow-up answers you provide
• The address you enter for permit history searches
• A timestamp of the request
• The result we returned

We use this data to generate your result, to improve rule accuracy, and to show aggregated search patterns on our admin dashboard (“Top searched cities,” “Missed ZIPs”). Permit history search results are cached for 24 hours so subsequent lookups are faster and put less load on city APIs.

IP addresses

We hash incoming IP addresses with SHA-256 for rate limiting (to prevent abuse and bot traffic). We don’t store your actual IP address in our database, and the hash can’t be reversed to recover it.

Email addresses

If you provide your email to save a lookup result or subscribe to update notifications, we store it only for that purpose. We don’t sell, rent, or share it with anyone. You can request deletion at any time by emailing privacy@permitmint.com.

Session cookies

We use a standard PHP session cookie (PHPSESSID) to maintain CSRF protection and remember your theme preference across pages. It’s first-party, secure, HttpOnly, and expires when you close your browser. It contains no personal information.

How We Use Your Data

• To answer your permit lookup and permit history questions
• To improve the accuracy and coverage of our permit rules
• To prevent abuse via rate limiting
• To show aggregated, anonymous usage statistics on our admin dashboard (for example, “the top 10 most-searched cities this week”)
• To fix bugs and improve performance
• To send you newsletters or saved-result emails, but only if you explicitly asked for them

Analytics

We use Umami (hosted on our own server at analytics.servicealert.ai) for website analytics. Umami is a privacy-friendly, open-source analytics tool that:

• Does not use cookies
• Does not track users across sites
• Does not collect personal information
• Does not send data to Google, Facebook, or any advertising network

It records page views, referrers, browser/OS/country (derived from the IP address before discarding it), and similar aggregate statistics. We use this to understand which pages are popular and fix things that break.

Affiliate Links & Commissions

FTC Affiliate Disclosure: Some outbound links on PermitMint are affiliate links. If you click one of those links and subsequently make a purchase on the retailer’s website, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. These commissions help keep PermitMint free for homeowners and fund the ongoing research behind our permit rules.

Affiliate relationships never influence which permit rules we publish, which cities we cover, or which answers we give you. The research is the same whether you click an affiliate link or not.

Skimlinks

We use Skimlinks, an affiliate link network, to automatically convert product and retailer links to affiliate versions. Skimlinks loads a small JavaScript snippet on every page that:

• Scans outbound links for known retailer domains
• Rewrites those links to route through Skimlinks for tracking and attribution
• Sets first-party cookies (__Skim*) to remember your click for commission attribution
• Sends data to Skimlinks’ servers when you click an affiliate link, including the page you clicked from, the retailer you clicked to, and the anonymized click details

Skimlinks has its own privacy policy which applies when you click a tracked link, see skimlinks.com/privacy-policy. You can opt out of Skimlinks tracking via their preferences page at audiencemanager.de/en/privacy.

We may also work with other affiliate networks in the future (for example, Networx for contractor leads, or direct retailer programs like Home Depot or Lowe’s). Any new affiliate relationships will be disclosed here and subject to the same principles: no influence on editorial content, full transparency, and your ability to opt out of the tracking.

What We Don’t Do

• We do not sell your personal data to anyone
• We do not share your email address with affiliate partners, advertisers, or data brokers
• We do not use retargeting or ad-network tracking cookies (e.g., Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, Criteo)
• We do not store credit card information, we don’t process payments at all
• We do not serve display advertising on the site
• We do not track you across other websites

Cookies and Local Storage

Here’s exactly what’s set on your browser when you visit PermitMint:

• PHPSESSID, first-party session cookie, used for CSRF protection. HttpOnly, secure, expires on browser close.
• Theme preference, stored in your browser’s localStorage (not a cookie), remembers whether you chose light or dark mode. Never leaves your device.
• Skimlinks cookies (__Skim*), set by the Skimlinks affiliate network when you load any page. Used for commission attribution when you click an affiliate link. See the Affiliate Links section above.

That’s it. No Google Analytics, no Facebook Pixel, no third-party retargeting cookies.

Data Retention

We retain lookup data indefinitely in aggregated form (for example, “ZIP 94103 has been searched 142 times”). Individual lookup records are not tied to personal identifiers after the session ends.

Email addresses from newsletter signups or saved-result requests are retained until you ask us to delete them, or until you unsubscribe. Permit history query records (the cache) are retained so future visitors get fast lookups; you can request removal of any specific address cache by emailing us.

Your Rights

Regardless of where you live, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you
• Correct anything that’s wrong
• Delete your data (right to be forgotten)
• Opt out of analytics or affiliate tracking (use your browser’s privacy controls or the Skimlinks opt-out linked above)
• Unsubscribe from any email we send

If you’re a California resident covered by the CCPA, or an EU/UK resident covered by the GDPR, you have additional specific rights under those laws. Email privacy@permitmint.com with your request and we’ll respond within 30 days.

Children

PermitMint is intended for adult homeowners, contractors, and realtors. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe we’ve inadvertently collected data from a child, email privacy@permitmint.com and we’ll delete it immediately.

Changes to This Policy

We’ll update this policy any time something material changes, a new affiliate network, a new analytics provider, a new category of data, anything. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page is the authoritative timestamp. We won’t email you about minor editorial changes, but we will surface major changes via a site-wide notice.

Contact

For any privacy-related question, request, or concern, email privacy@permitmint.com. I read every message personally.

, Joey, Founder
PermitMint / CIA Development