Privacy Policy

Information We Collect

When you use the app, you may choose to enter your name, email address, vehicle year/make/model/trim, mileage, repair symptoms, estimate text, quote details, upgrade goals, photos, and garage notes.

If you create or restore account access, Gearhead Guide may use your email address to connect your saved garage, Founder Access, saved reports, or support follow-up.

How We Use Information

• To provide guided repair, estimate-review, and upgrade planning output.
• To save or restore garage profile information when account sync is used.
• To process Founder Access, support requests, and account restore requests.
• To improve product quality and understand which tools users need most.

Payment Data

Gearhead Guide does not directly store full card numbers. Stripe handles checkout and may collect payment information under Stripe's own privacy and security practices. Gearhead Guide may store checkout email, payment status, plan name, and Stripe identifiers needed to restore Founder Access.

User-Submitted Vehicle Information

Vehicle details, estimate text, repair notes, photos, and upgrade plans are used to provide app guidance, saved garage features, and support when you ask for help. Do not submit information you do not want used for those purposes.

Visual Diagnostics Photos

When you choose Visual Check, normalized copies of the selected vehicle photos and a minimized diagnostic text context may be securely transmitted to an AI processing service to propose visible observations. Before transmission, Gearhead Guide recursively redacts common VIN, plate/tag/registration, email, domestic, local, or international phone, street/postal/P.O.-box/state-route/county-road address, SSN or labeled national ID, labeled Driver/Owner/Customer/Name, person-identity, document, and account identifiers from the user question, vehicle/job text, and confirmed-result notes. This deterministic filtering reduces risk but cannot recognize every possible private detail, so avoid including people, faces, plates, VINs, documents, location details, or other private information.

Gearhead Guide does not permanently save the original photo to your Garage in V17. The browser removes embedded metadata during normalization, and Gearhead-controlled runtime state discards the photo after the request. External AI processing is governed by the service provider and the data controls configured for Gearhead Guide's account; Gearhead Guide does not promise that an external provider retains nothing.

Gearhead Guide may retain structured visual findings, image dimensions and file type, a nonreversible content hash, the visual-session ID, diagnostic relevance, your Confirmed, Incorrect, Unsure, or Not Applicable decisions, session-scoped critical-safety dismissal notes, physical-confirmation dispositions and immutable correction notes/history, bounded diagnostic concerns and supersession history, safety history, and conflict history as part of the local active job. The current record is identified by visual-session ID plus observation ID; note and decision changes create revisions instead of duplicate active proof. These records do not contain the original image. Every session referenced by active evidence, unresolved safety, unresolved physical confirmation, active conflict, unresolved diagnostic concern, or pending critical review remains retained; only resolved, unreferenced history is capped.

In V17.5, the complete active-job JSON and its structured visual-session records are local browser data. Saving a report may retain derived report text and summary fields, but it does not copy the complete visual session, physical-confirmation records, or original image into the saved-report payload. Founder Garage sync sends the saved Garage/profile payload; it does not automatically synchronize the local active-job JSON. A future cloud-active-job feature would require an updated disclosure and deletion test before enablement.

The visual provider is instructed not to repeat exact technical measurements, even when a user-confirmed value exists. The provider may state only that a user-confirmed measurement exists; exact values remain in the canonical Structured Test Results UI. Input minimization removes exact values from provider context, and server-side validation recursively rejects output that claims a hidden failure, authorizes replacement, repeats an exact technical measurement, omits required evidence/limitations/physical confirmation, uses an incompatible safety subtype, or exposes common private identifiers. Private identifiers and bounded exact measurements are redacted from controlled error logging and are never copied into the schema-repair prompt. These guards reduce risk but do not make image analysis or deterministic redaction infallible.

Clearing the active job or clearing this site's browser storage removes the local active-job copy. A separately saved report or account-linked Garage record must be deleted through its applicable saved-data or support process; clearing local site data does not delete a cloud record. Contact Gearhead Guide support and identify the applicable vehicle or report when requesting account-linked deletion.

Photo analysis can be wrong or incomplete. Informational findings have zero routing weight, supporting findings cannot independently lock or unlock repair, and only potentially causal or safety findings create a physical-confirmation gate. A physically confirmed visual condition can create only a bounded diagnostic concern and never a supported replacement candidate. A later correction requires a note, preserves the earlier disposition, and supersedes only the visual concern created by that source. An Unsure Caution finding keeps at least Limit Use; an Unsure Stop finding keeps Stop Driving. Visual safety is linked to immutable V16 safety history and resolves only through a valid hazard-specific structured resolution; if that resolution becomes invalid or stale, the safety restriction reopens. Not Present or Not Applicable requires a physical-check note for Caution or Stop findings and cannot by itself clear the linked canonical hazard. A photo cannot declare the vehicle safe or independently authorize repair.

No Sale Of Personal Information

Gearhead Guide does not sell personal information. If this changes, this policy will be updated.

Contact

For privacy questions or support, contact support@GearHeadGuide.net.