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Privacy Policy

How Sunshine Data collects, uses, and protects your information.

Effective Date: March 6, 2026  ·  Last Updated: March 6, 2026

Table of Contents

  1. Who We Are
  2. Data We Collect
  3. How We Use Your Data
  4. Public Records Data
  5. FCRA Disclaimer
  6. How We Share Data
  7. Cookies & Tracking
  8. Email Communications
  9. Data Retention
  10. Security
  11. Your Rights
  12. Minors
  13. Third-Party Services
  14. Florida Law & Sunshine Law
  15. Future Features
  16. Changes to This Policy
  17. Contact Us

1 Who We Are

Sunshine Data ("we," "us," or "our") is a civic data platform operated by Justin Justice, based in Ocala, Florida. We aggregate and organize publicly available government records — including property data, building permits, business filings, and government financial records — and make them searchable and accessible to the public.

Our platform is available at sunshinedata.io. You can reach us at justin@sunshinedata.io.

2 Data We Collect

Information You Provide Directly

  • Email address — when you subscribe to our newsletter or create an account
  • Name — when provided during signup or account creation
  • Invite codes — used to access gated features during our early access period
  • Contact form submissions — if you reach out to us directly
  • Payment information — if you purchase a paid product or subscription (processed by a third-party payment processor; we do not store raw card data)
  • Professional information — such as your role or industry, if voluntarily provided

Information Collected Automatically

  • IP address — logged for security, rate limiting, and fraud prevention
  • Browser type and version
  • Operating system
  • Referring URL — what site or link brought you here
  • Pages visited and time spent
  • Search queries entered on the platform
  • Export activity — records of CSV and data export requests
  • Session tokens — stored as cookies to maintain your login session

Information We Do Not Collect

  • We do not collect Social Security Numbers
  • We do not collect government ID numbers
  • We do not collect financial account information beyond what is necessary for payment processing
  • We do not build behavioral profiles for advertising purposes

3 How We Use Your Data

We use the information we collect to:

  • Provide, operate, and improve the Sunshine Data platform
  • Authenticate your identity and maintain your session
  • Send you the newsletter and product updates you've subscribed to
  • Respond to your questions and support requests
  • Enforce our Terms of Service and prevent abuse
  • Monitor platform performance, uptime, and security
  • Comply with applicable laws and respond to legal requests
  • Process payments and manage subscriptions
  • Understand how the platform is being used to guide product development

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use your data to target you with advertisements on other platforms.

4 Public Records Data

The core content of Sunshine Data consists of public records obtained from government sources under the Florida Sunshine Law (Florida Statutes § 119). This includes:

  • Marion County property records and parcel data (Marion County Property Appraiser)
  • Building permits (Marion County, City of Ocala)
  • Florida business filings (Florida Division of Corporations / Sunbiz)
  • City of Ocala financial records (purchase orders, invoices, budget)
  • Code enforcement records
  • Court records (when available)

This data is publicly available by law. We organize and present it in a more accessible format. We did not create this data, and individuals whose information appears in public records have no expectation of privacy under Florida law with respect to those records.

If you believe data displayed about you is factually incorrect, please contact us at justin@sunshinedata.io. We will review the source record and, if the underlying government data is in error, provide guidance on how to request a correction from the originating agency.

5 FCRA Disclaimer

Important: Sunshine Data is not a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The information available on this platform may not be used as a factor in establishing a consumer's eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, housing, or any other purpose covered by the FCRA.

Specifically, you may not use Sunshine Data for:

  • Tenant screening or rental application decisions
  • Employment background checks or hiring decisions
  • Credit or loan eligibility determinations
  • Insurance underwriting decisions
  • Any other purpose regulated by the FCRA

Use of this platform for any FCRA-regulated purpose is a violation of our Terms of Service and may expose the user to civil and criminal liability under federal law.

6 How We Share Data

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We may share data in the following limited circumstances:

Service Providers

We work with trusted third-party vendors who help us operate the platform. These providers are contractually required to protect your data and may only use it to perform services for us:

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) — cloud hosting, storage, and email delivery
  • Beehiiv — newsletter delivery and subscriber management
  • Stripe (or other payment processors) — payment processing for paid features
  • UptimeRobot or similar — uptime monitoring

Legal Requirements

We may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, subpoena, or government request, or if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request.

Business Transfer

If Sunshine Data is acquired, merged, or its assets are transferred to another entity, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on the platform before your data becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Aggregate and Anonymized Data

We may share anonymized, aggregated data (e.g., "X searches performed this month" or usage statistics) that cannot reasonably be used to identify any individual.

7 Cookies & Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:

Essential Cookies

  • Session token — an HttpOnly, Secure cookie that keeps you logged in for up to 30 days. This is required for authenticated features and cannot be disabled without logging out.

Analytics (Current / Future)

We may use privacy-respecting analytics tools to understand how the platform is used. If we implement analytics, we will update this section. We do not use Google Analytics or other advertising-based tracking platforms.

No Ad Tracking

We do not use advertising cookies. We do not allow third-party advertising networks to place cookies on this platform.

Managing Cookies

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies will prevent you from accessing authenticated features but will not affect access to public features of the platform.

8 Email Communications

If you subscribe to our newsletter or create an account, we may send you:

  • The Sunshine Data Weekly Digest (civic data insights, every Tuesday)
  • Product announcements and new feature notifications
  • Account-related notices (password resets, billing, access changes)
  • Occasional research reports or data products

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email we send. Transactional emails (account security, billing receipts) cannot be unsubscribed as they are required for account operation.

We use Amazon SES and/or Beehiiv for email delivery. Your email address is shared with these providers solely for the purpose of delivering email on our behalf.

9 Data Retention

  • Account data — retained for the duration of your account and for up to 2 years after account deletion, unless a longer period is required by law
  • Session tokens — expire after 30 days of inactivity
  • Newsletter subscriptions — retained until you unsubscribe
  • Server logs (IP addresses, request logs) — retained for up to 90 days for security and debugging purposes
  • Payment records — retained for 7 years as required by tax law
  • Export records — logs of data export requests retained for up to 1 year

You may request deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting us. We will fulfill deletion requests within 30 days, subject to legal retention obligations.

10 Security

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, including:

  • HTTPS/TLS encryption for all data in transit
  • Encrypted storage for sensitive credentials
  • Rate limiting on all API endpoints to prevent abuse
  • Access controls limiting who can access production systems
  • Restricted SSH access to production infrastructure
  • Automated database backups stored in encrypted cloud storage
  • Security headers (HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options)

No system is perfectly secure. In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected users as required by applicable law.

Note on public records: Data derived from public government records — property ownership, permit history, business filings — is already public by law. A security breach affecting this data does not expose information that was private to begin with.

11 Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

For All Users

  • Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
  • Correction — request correction of inaccurate personal data
  • Deletion — request deletion of your personal data
  • Unsubscribe — opt out of marketing communications at any time

California Residents (CCPA / CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:

  • The right to know what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell
  • The right to delete personal information we have collected from you
  • The right to opt out of the sale of personal information (we do not sell personal information)
  • The right to non-discrimination for exercising your privacy rights

Florida Residents

Florida does not currently have a comprehensive consumer privacy law equivalent to the CCPA. We voluntarily extend the rights listed above to all users regardless of location.

European Residents (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, you have rights under the General Data Protection Regulation including the right to access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection. Our primary audience is in the United States. If you are accessing from the EEA, please contact us and we will handle your request in accordance with GDPR requirements.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at justin@sunshinedata.io. We will respond within 30 days.

12 Minors

Sunshine Data is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at justin@sunshinedata.io and we will delete it promptly.

Users between the ages of 13 and 18 should have parental or guardian consent before using the platform.

13 Third-Party Services

Our platform integrates with or links to third-party services. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies, which we encourage you to review:

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party sites linked to or from our platform.

14 Florida Law & Sunshine Law

The public records displayed on this platform are obtained pursuant to the Florida Public Records Law, Chapter 119, Florida Statutes ("Florida Sunshine Law"). Under Florida law, these records are presumed public and available to any person for inspection and copying.

By aggregating and presenting these records in a searchable format, Sunshine Data does not alter their public nature or create any new privacy interests in the underlying data. Individuals who appear in public government records — as property owners, permit applicants, business officers, or parties to government contracts — have no expectation of privacy in those records under Florida law.

This platform is operated in compliance with applicable Florida law. Nothing in this Privacy Policy restricts or limits the public's right to access public records directly from government agencies.

15 Future Features

Sunshine Data is actively growing. Future features may include:

  • Paid subscriptions and Intelligence Reports — if we introduce paid features, billing data will be collected and processed by a PCI-compliant payment processor
  • API access — developer API keys will be subject to additional terms; usage logs may be retained for billing and abuse prevention
  • Phone number and skip-tracing data — if we add owner contact data, it will be subject to strict FCRA-compliant use restrictions and additional terms
  • Statewide Florida expansion — additional counties will be added over time; this policy will apply to all Florida public records data on the platform
  • Court records — civil and criminal case data obtained from Florida courts under public records law
  • User-generated content — if users can submit notes, flags, or reports, additional terms will govern that content
  • Team or organization accounts — multi-user accounts will be subject to additional terms governing data access and user management

This policy will be updated when material new features are launched. We will notify you by email if changes materially affect how we handle your personal data.

16 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do:

  • We will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page
  • For material changes, we will notify subscribers by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect
  • Continued use of the platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy

We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Previous versions are available upon request.

17 Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

We will respond to all inquiries within 30 days.

The public records work at Sunshine Data is made possible in part by the Florida First Amendment Foundation — Florida’s leading advocate for government transparency. Consider supporting their work.