Trust + Transparency

Accessibility

Tortoise is designed toward strong accessibility: keyboard navigation, labelled form controls, visible focus states, a proper heading order, readable contrast and responsive text. Public participation has to work on a phone, in the field, without an account.

No accessibility certification is claimed. Accessibility is an ongoing practice here, not a badge.

Privacy

Public participants give a name and contact details only when they choose to submit. Contact details are not published to other participants. Public comments may be visible by design, which is why participants are told before they submit.

Security

Client and internal environments require authentication. Public participation does not. Access is separated into public participation, organization accounts, and internal operations, each with distinct permissions. Service credentials are held in server-side configuration and never shipped to a browser.

No security certification or government authorization is claimed. No system is completely secure.

AI transparency

Automated assistance helps with research, organization, classification, summarization and drafting. It does not invent adopted policy, replace professional judgment, or alter an original submission. Automated output is labelled as AI-assisted, and every summary keeps a path back to the source it came from.

Data ownership

The organization retains its rights in project data and uploaded materials. Participants retain the rights they otherwise hold in their submissions, while granting the permissions necessary to operate and preserve the project. Tortoise retains its rights in the underlying service and proprietary platform materials.

Tortoise does not claim ownership of an agency's public records or a participant's submission.

Export and records

Authorized project administrators can export project records, including comments, survey responses, map submissions, reports and engagement summaries, so the record can leave the platform with the agency that owns it.

Exports cover the records the platform holds. Audit and history data is available where it has been recorded.

Public records

When Tortoise is used for a project administered by a public agency, submissions may be subject to applicable public-records, records-retention, disclosure or archival requirements. Tortoise does not guarantee that information submitted to a public-agency project stays confidential, and does not interpret any particular state's public-records law.

Participating agencies may have additional requirements of their own.

Project roles

Public participation is open by default and needs no account. Organization accounts are staffed by invitation and hold the project's data. Internal operations are separate from both, and no customer route leads into them.

Demonstration data

Demonstration projects, including Creosote Valley 2045, are illustrative. Places, findings, public input and figures shown in a demonstration are fictional or demonstration content and must not be represented as actual government findings or real public input.