Effective Date: June 2026 | Last Updated: June 2026
Shield Guide, LLC ("Shield Guide," "we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your information when you use the Shield Guide Homeowner App (available at shieldguide.org and on mobile platforms).
BY USING SHIELD GUIDE, YOU CONSENT TO THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY.
We collect only the information necessary to provide our services:
What we do not directly request: Shield Guide does not directly request Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card information, or biometric data, and we do not provide a way to enter them into any form in the app. Documents you choose to upload (such as mortgage statements, servicer letters, pay stubs, bank statements, property tax or utility bills, or photos of paperwork) may contain personal financial details such as account numbers. Uploaded documents and your chat history are stored on our servers, encrypted at rest using AES-256-GCM, with TLS protecting data in transit, synced across the devices where you sign in, visible only to you and any counselor you explicitly share them with, never used for advertising or marketing, never sold to any third party, and permanently deleted upon account deletion.
We use your information solely to:
We do not sell your personal information, share it with lenders or advertisers, or use it for marketing purposes without your explicit consent.
We retain your data for as long as your account is active. You can delete individual documents at any time, or delete your account to remove everything.
If you delete your account, all server-stored data — including your synced profile, uploaded documents, and chat history — is permanently removed from our servers, and your authentication credentials are cleared from your device's keychain.
We take data security seriously:
In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, Shield Guide will notify affected users in accordance with applicable law and as soon as reasonably practicable after confirming the breach. We follow California Civil Code §1798.82 and applicable federal notification requirements.
Important: No system is 100% secure. Do not store information in the app you cannot afford to lose or have exposed.
Shield Guide does not sell, rent, trade, or share your personal information with third parties for marketing or advertising purposes. Ever.
If you choose to connect with a housing counselor through Shield Guide, you will generate a share code. Sharing this code with a counselor gives them read access to the information you have entered. Share codes are active for up to 30 days and are permanently deleted immediately upon redemption by your counselor, or automatically upon expiry — whichever comes first. You control this process entirely — we do not automatically share your information with anyone.
If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act:
To exercise these rights, email privacy@shieldguide.org with "California Privacy Request" in the subject line. We will respond within 45 days as required by law.
We use the following trusted third-party services to operate the app:
These services are used solely to operate Shield Guide and are contractually prohibited from using your data for any other purpose.
Your data is retained only as long as necessary. Upon account deletion:
You may request deletion of your account and all associated data at any time by emailing privacy@shieldguide.org.
Shield Guide is not intended for use by individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 in accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If we learn we have collected data from a minor, we will delete it immediately and terminate the account. If you believe a minor has used the app, contact privacy@shieldguide.org.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For material changes, we will provide at least 30 days' advance notice via in-app notification and/or email before changes take effect. We will also update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of the app after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Shield Guide uses OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini model) to help generate personalized preparation suggestions, including action plan items and contextual guidance based on your situation, to help you organize your information.
When you grant consent to use AI-assisted features, the following sanitized summary of your situation may be transmitted to OpenAI:
Before any data is transmitted, our system automatically removes:
Per OpenAI's API data usage policy:
Shield Guide will not send any data to OpenAI unless you have granted explicit consent within the app. The in-app consent screen describes what is sent in plain language and gives you the option to allow or decline.
You can revoke this consent at any time in Settings → Privacy. If consent is revoked:
OpenAI's privacy policy is available at https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us: