Privacy Policy

1. Purpose

This policy explains how CaseLink handles information used for missing-person research, unidentified-person research, source preservation, public records, documents, locations, entities, timelines, relationships, correlations, leads, tickets, maps, search, and news-context lookup.

CaseLink is not law enforcement, an emergency service, a medical examiner, a coroner, a court, or an official identification system.

2. Information CaseLink may collect

CaseLink may collect account details, login/session data, contact ticket data, lead submissions, case submissions, public source URLs, documents, attachments, research notes, entity records, locations, map coordinates, timelines, relationship data, review decisions, audit records, IP addresses, user-agent strings, timestamps, and abuse-prevention data.

3. Public source and news information

CaseLink may store or reference public information from agency pages, missing-person databases, unidentified-person databases, sheriff departments, police departments, state agencies, federal agencies, court records, public PDFs, FOIA documents, historical archives, research archives, family submissions, public submissions, and news articles.

News data may be used to improve search context and help users find relevant public mentions. A news mention is not proof of a case connection.

4. Contact, tickets, and logged-in support

Contact forms may require login and may create support or review tickets. CaseLink may retain the logged-in user account, email, role, timestamp, IP address, browser data, message content, related page, and other available context needed to review the request and prevent abuse.

5. Cookies and local storage

CaseLink uses cookies and local storage for authentication, sessions, account security, rate limiting, preferences such as Night/Day mode, cookie-notice dismissal, saved settings, and core functionality. Disabling cookies may prevent login or site features from working correctly.

6. How information is used

Information may be used to operate the site, protect accounts, review submissions, preserve sources, search records, link related information, identify duplicates, support maps, compare cases, display public pages, maintain audit trails, moderate abuse, improve workflows, and surface research candidates for human review.

7. Public and restricted visibility

Some records may be public. Other records, including private leads, tickets, user data, restricted documents, review queues, correlation notes, admin tools, and sensitive submissions, should be visible only to authorized users.

8. Accuracy and human review

CaseLink may contain incomplete, outdated, duplicated, disputed, or incorrect information. Search results, news mentions, match scores, entity links, map clusters, timelines, and correlations must be verified against primary sources and proper authorities before reliance.

9. Retention, correction, and removal

CaseLink may retain public records, source history, review decisions, audit logs, and rejected matches to preserve context and prevent repeated errors. Correction or removal requests may be reviewed based on accuracy, safety, legal obligations, public interest, and privacy impact.

10. Disclosure

CaseLink may disclose information when required by law, necessary to protect safety, needed to investigate abuse, or appropriate for review by proper authorities. Private account data and non-public submissions should not be exposed publicly unless legally required or properly authorized.

11. Security

CaseLink uses authentication, authorization, role checks, audit records, and operational controls to protect restricted areas. No system is guaranteed secure, and users should not submit information that would create unnecessary danger if exposed.

12. Contact

Use the official logged-in contact or ticket process for privacy questions, correction requests, access concerns, or safety issues.