CourtAPI Privacy Policy

Effective date: 9-25-2026

This Privacy Policy explains how CourtAPI ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects information through our website, accounts, application programming interface, and connector for AI assistants using the Model Context Protocol ("MCP"). These are collectively our Services. It covers information about customers and users and information about people identified in court records we provide.

1. Information we collect and process

Account, payment, and support information. We process contact and business details, account identifiers, subscription and transaction information, and communications you provide when registering, purchasing Services, managing an account, or contacting support. Payment providers process payment details needed to complete transactions.

Credentials and connections. We process CourtAPI application identifiers, keys, permissions, and authorization information needed to provide access. If you configure PACER access in your CourtAPI account, we process the PACER credentials you supply to retrieve records on your behalf.

Searches and service requests. We process search terms, names, court and case identifiers, date ranges, document identifiers or links, filters, and other information needed to complete your requests. We also process requests relating to your organization's tracked cases. Searches can reveal information about your work, interests, and the people or matters you research. Provide only information needed for the request; do not enter passwords, payment-card details, Social Security numbers, or tax identification numbers into search text or tool arguments.

Court records and documents. We obtain records from PACER, courts, and our stored court-record collection. These may include case details; participants' names, roles, and contact information; docket entries; claims and financial information; hearing details; documents; access links; and text extracted using optical character recognition (OCR). Court filings may contain sensitive information about finances, health, family matters, criminal proceedings, or minors. Public availability does not make this information anonymous or non-sensitive.

Usage and technical information. We collect information about requests, devices, and use of the Services, including IP addresses, browser information, timestamps, requested resources, account identifiers, search parameters, errors, and security events. We also record API usage and PACER transaction details, such as charges, page counts, receipts, and client billing codes, for operations and billing. Website technologies are described in Section 7.

2. How we use information

We use information to administer accounts and subscriptions; authenticate and authorize access; search for, retrieve, cache, organize, and deliver court records; extract document text and apply connector filtering; carry out requested PACER searches and purchases; calculate and reconcile charges; provide support; improve the Services; monitor performance; prevent abuse; and meet legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements.

We send service, security, and billing notices. We may also send optional product or marketing communications, which you may unsubscribe from using the instructions provided. Providing court records to requesting customers is part of our Services; these records may contain information about people other than the requesting customer.

We do not sell, trade, or rent customers' private account information. We disclose information for the purposes described in this policy to:

Connected applications and AI platforms. Applications you use with CourtAPI receive the requested results, including court-record information, relevant account activity, and document links. See Section 8.
PACER and courts. Live requests transmit the credentials, search criteria, record identifiers, and transaction details needed to retrieve the requested information.
Service providers. Providers of hosting, account management, payment processing, communications, support, analytics, and security process information needed to operate our Services.
Authorized personnel and account administrators. Personnel may access information for operations, support, security, and billing. Your organization's administrators may access information permitted by their account roles.
Legal and business recipients. We may disclose information to comply with applicable law or legal process, protect rights and security, investigate suspected unlawful activity, or support a merger, acquisition, or transfer of business assets, subject to appropriate protections.

Court records maintained in our collection may also be provided to other customers who independently request them. Your private credentials and search history do not become part of the public court record because you use CourtAPI.

4. Your choices and requests

You can update available account information through your account settings and contact support@courtapi.com to request access, correction, export, deletion, or account closure. We may verify your identity or authority before acting. Requests are subject to applicable requirements and the retention purposes described in Section 5.

You can choose whether to connect an AI platform, use its available controls to disconnect CourtAPI, and manage CourtAPI and PACER credentials through available account settings. Disconnecting an application is separate from deleting account data or disabling every credential previously issued to it.

You can disconnect the CourtAPI MCP connector through your AI platform’s controls. The platform is responsible for stopping further use of the connection and handling its stored tokens when you disconnect. CourtAPI does not receive an automatic disconnect notification, so previously issued tokens may remain valid on our servers. Once the platform stops using them, access tokens expire within one hour and refresh tokens within 30 days. Each successful token refresh starts a new validity period. Disconnecting the connector does not close your CourtAPI account or disable its application credentials.

Disconnecting or disabling access does not erase historical transactions, retained court records, or copies already delivered to an application or customer. Contact us separately to request deletion of account-related information.

If information about you appears in a court record, you may contact support@courtapi.com with the record's identifying details to request review. Account closure does not remove independently maintained court records. Corrections, sealing, or removal at the source may require action by the relevant court. We will consider requests concerning our copies and explain applicable limitations.

You may unsubscribe from optional marketing communications using the instructions provided, and manage cookies through browser controls. Service, security, and billing notices may still be necessary to administer your account.

5. Retention

Retention depends on the type of information and why it is needed. Account closure, deletion requests, and disconnection have different effects; none should be understood as automatically deleting every category below.

Account and service history. We retain account information, support correspondence, API request history, PACER receipts, and billing records as needed to administer the relationship, explain charges and past activity, resolve disputes, and meet accounting and legal obligations. Deletion requests are reviewed in light of these purposes and applicable requirements.

Account deletion requests. To request deletion of your CourtAPI account-related information, contact support@courtapi.com. Within 30 days after we verify your request, we manually remove the account’s stored connections and credentials, application-to-user and firm mappings, and database API request history, including stored search parameters, from CourtAPI-controlled active systems. Any records retained for the purposes described below are excluded from this deletion, and we will explain applicable exceptions when responding to your request.

Operational logs and error-monitoring records remain subject to their stated retention periods. Recovery copies expire under the backup schedule below. Independently maintained court records and documents are handled separately, as described under “Court records and documents.” We may retain billing and transaction records where needed for accounting, legal obligations, or disputes.

Operational logs. Archived application logs support security, troubleshooting, reliability, and support. Their scheduled retention period is 730 days. Error-monitoring records have a scheduled retention period of 90 days.

Temporary results. Stored results of background API requests have a scheduled retention period of 60 days. The MCP connector does not keep a separate long-term archive of tool responses, although underlying court records, request history, and transactions may remain as described here.

Court records and documents. Court records, documents, and extracted text may remain in our court-record collection without a fixed age-based expiration. They are maintained independently of the account that requested them and may continue to be supplied to other customers. Requests concerning these records are reviewed as described in Section 4.

Backups. Information deleted from active systems may remain in restricted-access recovery backups. CourtAPI-controlled recovery copies are scheduled for deletion within seven days of creation. Copies and exports preserve the original retention deadline. Automated deletion may require up to eight additional hours after the scheduled expiration time to complete.

Recovery backups are not used for ordinary service delivery. If a backup is restored, we keep the restored information restricted until previously completed deletion requests have been reapplied and verified. Restored information is not made available through the Services before that process is complete.

Expiration of logs and temporary results can require additional processing time. We may retain specific information longer where needed for a legal obligation, legal hold, security investigation, or dispute, limiting that retention to the relevant need. Information already delivered to another application, AI platform, or customer is subject to that recipient's retention practices.

6. Security

We use technical and organizational safeguards intended to protect information, including encrypted transmission and access restrictions. Access is limited according to responsibilities and service needs. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. Protect your credentials and document-access links, and notify support@courtapi.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

7. Cookies and website technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to support website features, maintain sessions, and understand website use. Analytics services may process page visits, interactions, browser and device information, and browser identifiers to help us improve the website.

We use PostHog for website analytics to understand how visitors use the website and improve its operation. We also use Google reCAPTCHA to help prevent automated abuse. These services may process technical and interaction information, including browser and device information and online identifiers.

You can manage cookies through your browser settings. Blocking cookies or scripts may affect website functionality.

8. AI assistants and MCP

When you connect CourtAPI to an AI assistant, the platform sends the search terms, record identifiers, filters, document links, and other information needed for tool requests. These inputs may come from your conversation. The connector does not request your full conversation history or your AI-platform password. PACER credentials are managed in CourtAPI account settings; the connector reports whether they are configured, not their values.

We return requested court records, document text, and related information, which may include personal or sensitive information in those records. Results may also include your organization's tracked-case activity, document links, availability, fees, page counts, and request progress.

The connector filters returned fields, excludes authentication secrets and internal debug information, and limits PACER receipts to fee and page-count summaries. It redacts recognized government-identifier patterns, but court-record text may still contain personal or sensitive information. Document-text responses contain extracted text rather than original PDF or image bytes. Returned links may provide access to original documents or OCR content that has not undergone the connector's text redaction. Share those links only with intended recipients.

We do not use connector queries or returned court data to train AI models. Your AI platform handles information it receives under its own policies and your settings. Other websites and applications linked to or used with CourtAPI also have their own privacy practices. Review those policies before providing information or sharing results. Disconnection and access termination are explained in Section 4.

9. Where information is processed

CourtAPI is operated from the United States. Information may be processed where we and our service providers operate. Connected AI platforms and other applications may process information in additional locations under their own policies.

10. Children

CourtAPI accounts and Services are intended for adults and professional use, not for children under 18. Contact us if you believe a child has provided account information to us. Court records may independently contain information about minors; those records are handled under the court-record practices described in this policy.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our Services or practices change. We will publish the revised policy with an updated effective date and provide additional notice where required. Please keep your account contact information current.