Clear rules for using the Albany Records Project.

Albany Records Project is an independent public-records and accountability project based in Albany, Oregon. The project publishes source-backed civic reporting, maintains records trackers, accepts public tips and records, and offers draft-only civic tools.

Albany Records Project is not a law firm, legal-services provider, government agency, charity, or public body. Using the site, sending a submission, buying credits, or making a contribution does not create an attorney-client relationship, fiduciary relationship, or client relationship.

Accounts, payments, donations, and paid AI-credit features are for people who are 18 or older. If you are under 18, do not create an account, buy credits, make a payment, or submit sensitive records without a parent or legal guardian handling the interaction.

You are responsible for keeping your account access secure and for making sure the information you submit is accurate to the best of your knowledge.

The project uses public-records requests, public data, contributor submissions, and source review to explain civic issues. Published work should separate what a person reported, what a record shows, and what remains unknown.

We may edit, decline, delay, correct, retract, or remove material when needed for accuracy, safety, privacy, legal risk, source review, or editorial judgment. The project is not a tool for harassment, doxxing, retaliation, or unsupported accusations.

Correction, privacy, and takedown requests should be sent through the contact page.

You keep ownership of records, text, images, media, and other materials you submit, as far as you own those rights. By submitting material, you give Albany Records Project a broad, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to receive, review, store, copy, preserve, redact, summarize, analyze, publish, distribute, and otherwise use the material for records work, reporting, public education, case review, safety review, and project administration.

That license lets us share material, when needed, with reviewers, counsel, service providers, payment processors, hosting/storage providers, and other people helping the project operate. It also lets us publish excerpts, summaries, timelines, images, documents, or analysis after review.

The broad license does not cancel our privacy guardrails. Private resident details, contributor contact information, addresses, unit numbers, family information, raw evidence, and sensitive identifiers should not be published casually. We may redact, summarize, delay, or decline publication when safety or privacy concerns are present.

Do not upload Social Security numbers, bank or card numbers, medical records, sealed records, privileged material, copyrighted material you have no right to share, or private third-party information unless it is essential to the public-record issue and you are legally allowed to share it.

Stripe handles card and wallet details for donations and credit purchases. Albany Records Project does not store full card numbers on this site.

Contributions support records fees, hosting, indexing, redaction, public education, reporting, and related project costs. A contribution is not payment for legal services and does not give a donor control over public-records strategy, reporting choices, legal decisions, or publication decisions.

Unless Albany Records Project separately verifies a qualified charity or fiscal-sponsor status in writing, contributions are not represented as tax-deductible charitable donations.

Paid AI credits are separate from donations. Credits are tied to the account that bought them and may be used for draft-only tools while those tools are available.

One-time contributions and used credits are generally final. We may review refund requests for duplicate payments, processing mistakes, suspected fraud, or unused paid credits.

Monthly support may be cancelled before the next charge. Cancellation stops future charges; it does not automatically refund earlier cleared payments. Refund questions should be sent through the contact page.

AI tools are draft-only organizing tools. They may help draft public-records requests, public comments, civic emails, summaries, or search ideas. They do not send messages for you, represent you, give legal advice, create legal rights, or guarantee any result.

You must review and edit every draft before using it. Verify facts, remove private information, add missing context, and decide for yourself whether to send anything.

You agree not to use the site to submit, upload, request, publish, or promote material that is:

• false in a way you know or should know is misleading;
• defamatory, threatening, harassing, exploitative, or retaliatory;
• private, confidential, privileged, sealed, or restricted without permission;
• copyrighted or owned by someone else unless you have the right to share it;
• malware, spam, credential harvesting, or security abuse; or
• otherwise unlawful or unsafe to process.

Our privacy rules are posted on the Privacy & Use page. That page explains contributor privacy, internal review, redaction, publication, and what normally stays internal.

We may send transactional messages about submissions, payments, accounts, security, corrections, records work, or project operations. If we send optional newsletters or marketing messages, they should include a way to opt out.

Albany Records Project owns or licenses the original writing, summaries, design, graphics, databases, code, and editorial organization on the site, except for public records, third-party material, and contributor material where other rights apply.

Public records may be public, but project summaries, selections, annotations, layouts, and analysis may still be protected. If you believe something on the site infringes your copyright, use the contact page and identify the material, your ownership claim, and how to reach you. These terms do not claim DMCA safe-harbor status unless a designated agent is separately registered.

The site may rely on third-party services for payments, authentication, hosting, storage, analytics, email, and other operations. Those services may have their own terms and privacy rules. We are not responsible for third-party service outages, policy changes, or independent handling of information.

The site and tools are provided as available. We do not guarantee that records requests will succeed, that agencies will respond, that AI drafts will be complete or correct, that published material will remain available, or that the site will be uninterrupted or error-free.

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Albany Records Project is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or lost-profit damages from use of the site, submissions, payments, credits, publications, or tools.

These terms are governed by Oregon law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be handled in the state or federal courts located in Oregon. These terms do not include an arbitration clause.

We may update these terms as the project changes. Updates are effective when posted, unless the page says otherwise. If a change is material, we may add a notice on the site or in an account surface.

Questions about these terms, privacy, corrections, refunds, copyright, or publication concerns should be sent through the contact page.