Privacy Notice
Who we are · What we collect · How we use it · Who we share it with · Cookies · Retention and deletion · Security · Your choices · Contact
1. Who we are
AppraTrace is a product of SparkIntell Inc., a Texas corporation ("SparkIntell," "we," "us"). This notice covers the appratrace.com website, applications to the Founding Appraiser Council, and the AppraTrace closed beta evaluation program (together with the Council, the "Program").
2. What we collect
When you apply
- Your name, email address, state(s) licensed, license level, years of experience, the property types and markets you work in, and how you heard about us.
- Optional details you give us: your license number, the appraisal software you use, and whether you supervise a trainee.
- Your agreement to be contacted, and the date and time you applied.
- Technical information needed to prevent spam and abuse, such as your IP address and the result of an automated security check.
If you're invited to the Program
- Account information: name, email address, sign-in and multi-factor authentication records, and which version of the Participation Terms you accepted and when. We never see or store your password in readable form.
- Program work: the practice assignments, decisions, reasoning and exports you create in your sandbox workspace. During the closed beta you work with demonstration data; uploading your own data is turned off.
- Activity records: how the software is used, including sign-in and sign-out events, session duration, steps and features visited, actions taken (such as creating an assignment or generating an export), error codes and safe diagnostic messages, performance timings, and browser and operating-system type. Activity records may include account, firm and assignment identifiers. They do not intentionally include sale values, your written analytical conclusions, passwords, authentication codes or session tokens.
- Screen-interaction recording: where enabled, activity records may include recordings of screen interactions (such as clicks, navigation and page layout) with typed text and data fields masked.
- Problem reports and feedback you choose to send us. Please don't include client information, credentials or real appraisal data.
When you email us
Your email address and the contents of your message.
3. How we use it
- To review applications, verify professional eligibility and decide whom to invite.
- To create and secure your account, and to send service emails: your invitation, sign-in and verification messages, password resets, and messages about your application or participation.
- To operate, secure, troubleshoot, support and improve AppraTrace, including understanding where participants run into difficulty.
- To keep records of the terms you accepted and to meet legal obligations.
Activity records are used to improve the product. They are not used to assess your professional competence, licensing status or appraisal judgment. We do not sell personal information, use it for targeted advertising, or add you to marketing lists. We don't make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.
4. Who we share it with
We share personal information only with service providers that help us run the Program, under their contractual obligations, and only as needed for the services they provide:
| Provider | What they do for us |
|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Hosting the AppraTrace application and its data in the United States, sign-in and multi-factor authentication, and sending service emails. |
| Cloudflare | Hosting this website, domain name services, and the automated security check on the application form (Cloudflare Turnstile). |
We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect the rights, safety or security of our users or SparkIntell, or as part of a merger or acquisition, in which case this notice will continue to apply to your information. We never share one participant's sandbox work with other participants.
5. Cookies and similar technologies
This website does not use advertising or analytics cookies. The application form uses Cloudflare Turnstile, which may process device and browser signals to tell people from bots. Inside the AppraTrace application we use only cookies and similar storage that are necessary for sign-in, security and keeping your session working.
6. Retention and deletion
- Applications that don't lead to an invitation are deleted within 12 months of submission, or sooner if you ask. Applications that lead to an invitation become part of your account record.
- Program work (assignments, exports and any files you provide) is deleted from active systems within 30 days after you withdraw or the Program ends. You can ask for a copy first.
- Activity records are kept for the duration of the Program and up to 12 months afterward. After that they are anonymized where effective anonymization is possible; records that can't be adequately anonymized are deleted, unless the law requires us to keep them.
- Account and acceptance records (such as which terms you accepted and when) may be kept for as long as reasonably necessary for legal compliance, security, dispute resolution or showing what was agreed.
- Backups and security logs: residual copies in backups, security records or disaster-recovery storage are kept for a limited period, are not restored to active use except to recover from an incident, and are deleted as they expire on a rolling schedule.
7. Security
We protect information with encryption in transit and at rest, required multi-factor authentication, separation of each firm's data with access checked on every request, restricted staff access, and logging of administrative actions. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a security incident affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by law.
8. Your choices and rights
You can ask us to access, correct, export or delete your personal information, withdraw your application, or leave the Program at any time. Email support@appratrace.com. We'll respond within 30 days and may need to verify your identity. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under state law; we will honor them as applicable, and we won't treat you differently for exercising them.
9. Eligibility
The Program is for appraisal professionals in the United States who are at least 18 years old. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
10. Changes to this notice
We'll post any changes on this page and update the effective date. If a change materially affects how we use information we already hold, we'll tell participants before it takes effect.
11. Contact
SparkIntell Inc. — AppraTrace
Texas, USA
support@appratrace.com