Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Valor Investigations is an independent investigative journalism and public-interest research project operated by Levi M. Bakke in La Grande, Oregon. Donations are made to Valor Investigates, the registered nonprofit entity behind the work. Throughout this policy, “Valor,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Valor Investigations.

Contact: Info@ValorInvestigates.com · (541) 655-3157

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Advocate Toolkit

When you use our free Advocate Toolkit document preparation tool, you may enter the following information into the form:

• Your name, address, phone number, and email address
• Your relationship to the protected person
• Case number, county court, and judge name
• Protected person’s name and guardian’s name
• A written narrative describing your factual account

This data is stored locally on your device only. It is saved in your browser’s localStorage and is never transmitted to or stored on Valor Investigations servers. You can clear this data at any time by clearing your browser’s local storage or site data.

2.2 AI Narrative Processing

When you use the “Polish” feature in the Advocate Toolkit, your written narrative is transmitted to xAI’s Grok API for processing. This third-party AI service restructures, formats, and improves the grammar of your narrative. The AI does not add facts, legal arguments, or citations you did not provide.

Your narrative is sent via encrypted HTTPS connection directly to xAI’s servers for processing. Valor Investigations does not store, log, or retain your narrative on our servers.

Per xAI’s enterprise terms of service: “xAI shall not use any Inputs or Outputs for any of its internal AI or other training purposes (such as training its machine learning models), including developing new products or services based on Inputs and Outputs.” For xAI’s full privacy policy, see x.ai/legal/privacy-policy.

2.3 Tips, Contact, and Records Requests

If you submit a tip, request missing public records, contact us, or share a Union County finding, we may collect the information you voluntarily provide, including:

• Name or alias
• Email address or phone number, if you choose to provide it
• The message, tip, records request, documents, links, or factual context you submit

Tips and requests are routed for human review. Do not submit privileged material or medical records unless you are authorized to share them and understand the risk.

2.4 Donations and Receipt Requests

Donations are processed through Donorbox or another external payment provider. When you request a receipt on this Site, we collect the name, email, amount, donation date, payment method, and optional transaction ID you provide so the donation can be reviewed and matched before any tax receipt is issued.

2.5 Newsletter Subscriptions

If you subscribe to receive investigation updates, we collect the email address you provide and store it in a Resend audience list so we can send newsletter and investigation-update emails. You can unsubscribe from those emails or ask us to remove your address from the list.

2.6 Automatically Collected Information

Our hosting provider (Vercel, Inc.) may automatically collect standard server log data including IP addresses, browser type, referring URLs, pages visited, and timestamps. This data is used for site performance and security purposes. See Vercel’s Privacy Policy for details.

If you consent to analytics, Google Analytics and Vercel Analytics collect usage and performance data such as page views, referrers, device/browser information, approximate geography, and conversion events. Google Analytics is configured only after consent and uses IP anonymization where supported. See Google’s Privacy Policy and Vercel’s Privacy Policy for details. Site fonts are delivered through Next.js font optimization, not a runtime Google Fonts CDN request.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use collected information to:

• Provide requested tools, pages, and document generation features
• Review tips, records requests, corrections, and donation receipt requests
• Respond to inquiries and communicate about submissions
• Send newsletter and investigation-update emails if you subscribe
• Improve site functionality and user experience
• Measure traffic and conversion events if you consent to analytics
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. Period.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may process your data:

5. Data Storage & Security

Advocate Toolkit data is stored exclusively in your browser’s localStorage on your device. It is not transmitted to or stored on our servers (except for the narrative polishing feature described in Section 2.2).

Tips, contact requests, newsletter subscriptions, donation receipt requests, and internal review notifications may be retained in email systems, Resend audience lists, and Vercel logs as needed to respond, audit, send requested updates, and maintain the site. We employ reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect submitted information.

No method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially reasonable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

6. Data Retention

• Advocate Toolkit: Data persists in your browser until you clear it. We do not retain copies.
• Donation receipt requests: retained as needed to verify contributions, issue receipts, and maintain nonprofit accounting records.
• Communications: tips, emails, corrections, records requests, and correspondence are retained as necessary to respond, verify facts, maintain records, and protect source integrity.
• Newsletter subscriptions: email addresses are retained in Resend until you unsubscribe or request removal.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Request access to personal information we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate information
• Request deletion of your personal information
• Clear Advocate Toolkit data by clearing your browser’s localStorage
• Opt out of any future marketing communications

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at Info@ValorInvestigates.com.

8. Children’s Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. Your continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

10. Contact

For questions or concerns about this privacy policy or our data practices, contact: