Privacy Policy
Effective: 22 May 2026 · Last updated: 22 May 2026
POTHOLE LA is an independent civic tool. It is not affiliated with, authorized by, or operated by the City of Los Angeles, LA311, or LA Bureau of Street Services. We help you send a pothole report to the city — we are not the city.
What We Collect
When you submit a pothole report, we collect the following from your device:
- A photograph of the pothole you take using your phone's camera.
- GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) at the moment of submission.
- A timestamp of the submission.
- Your IP address, automatically logged by our hosting provider (Cloudflare) for security and abuse-prevention.
- The interpolated street address derived from your GPS coordinates using the public OpenStreetMap Nominatim service.
We do not collect your name, email address, phone number, or any account information. You do not create an account to use POTHOLE LA.
How We Use It
- To pre-fill an email to LA Bureau of Street Services (BSS.CustomerService@lacity.org) and LA311 (311@lacity.org). You choose whether to send that email. We do not send the email on your behalf.
- To temporarily host the photo so the city can view it via the link in the email.
- To prevent abuse of the service (rate-limiting, spam detection).
How Long We Keep It
Pothole reports — photo, GPS, address, and timestamp — are automatically deleted 60 days after submission. This is enforced at the storage layer (Cloudflare KV time-to-live), not a manual job. After 60 days the data is irrecoverable.
Server access logs containing IP addresses are retained by Cloudflare under their standard policy (typically less than 30 days).
Who Else Sees Your Data
- Cloudflare — our hosting provider. Their privacy policy applies to log data. cloudflare.com/privacypolicy
- OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) — your GPS coordinates are sent to OpenStreetMap to convert them into a street address. OSM privacy policy
- LA Bureau of Street Services and LA311 — when, and only when, you choose to send the email from your own email app, your photo and report data are transmitted to the city. The city's own records-retention and public-records rules then apply.
We do not sell or rent your personal information to anyone, period.
Your Rights (California Residents — CCPA / CPRA)
You have the right to:
- Know what personal information we have about you (covered by this policy).
- Request deletion of your report before the 60-day auto-purge — email privacy@potholela.com with your report ID (e.g., LA-XXXX-XXXX) or your approximate submission time and location.
- Opt out of "sale" or "sharing" of personal information — there is nothing to opt out of, because we do not sell or share.
- Be free from discrimination for exercising any of these rights.
Children
POTHOLE LA is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has submitted a report, email privacy@potholela.com and we will delete the entry immediately.
Photographs of People
Please photograph the pothole, not people. If a bystander appears incidentally in a photo, that's acceptable for civic-reporting use. If you believe a photo of you was submitted in a way that violates your privacy, email privacy@potholela.com with the approximate time and location and we will remove the relevant report.
Security
Data in transit is encrypted (HTTPS / TLS). Data at rest in Cloudflare KV is encrypted. No system is unbreachable; you submit at your own risk, but we treat your data the way we'd want our own treated.
Changes
If we update this policy materially we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where reasonable, post a notice on the home page. Continued use after an update means you accept the updated policy.
Contact
Privacy questions, deletion requests, complaints: privacy@potholela.com.