How We Operate

1. What UnGovr does

UnGovr is an independent nonprofit that helps residents interact with government more easily. Our service request platform sits on top of existing systems — portals, web forms, email workflows, vendor platforms — rather than replacing them. When a resident submits an issue through UnGovr, we route it into the correct agency's existing intake mechanism based on the location and issue type.

This means no procurement, no data migration, and no retraining of staff tools. Agencies continue using their current systems. UnGovr acts as an additional front door that handles the complexity of jurisdiction detection and routing so residents don't have to.

What we handle

• Address-based jurisdiction detection — determining whether a location falls within a city, unincorporated county area, or special district
• Issue category mapping — translating a resident's description into the correct category for the receiving system
• Routing — formatting and delivering the request to the agency's intake mechanism (portal submission, web form, email, or vendor API)
• Resident communication — providing a receipt, setting expectations, and linking to official status pages where available

What we do not handle

• We do not dispatch field crews, schedule inspections, or fulfill service requests
• We do not set or guarantee response times — those remain controlled by each agency
• We do not replace any agency's system of record

2. Operational reliability

UnGovr monitors its own services and the third-party endpoints we route into. When something breaks, we want to know before anyone else does.

What we monitor

• Service availability — automated health checks run every five minutes across all UnGovr services, with automatic restart and alerting on failure
• Endpoint health — we monitor the agency forms, portals, and vendor endpoints we route into, and detect when they change or become unavailable
• Routing accuracy — we track whether submissions are reaching their intended destination and flag misroutes for correction

How we communicate changes

• A public status page for core services (uptime, incidents, planned maintenance)
• A change log for significant routing or product behavior changes
• Advance notice before user-facing changes that affect how requests are routed

3. Support and escalation

We maintain separate support channels for agencies and for residents, so government staff have a direct line for operational issues without being mixed into general support traffic.

For agencies

• Dedicated contact for routing corrections, endpoint updates, and urgent breakage reports
• Response targets: acknowledgment within 1 business day; urgent routing outages within 4 business hours
• Temporary suppression: if an agency needs a route disabled quickly (for example, during a system migration), we can do that on request

For residents

• Self-service help content explaining what UnGovr does and does not do
• Clear messaging that service delivery is controlled by the receiving agency, not by UnGovr
• Contact information for reaching the agency directly if needed

4. Privacy and data handling

We collect only what's needed to route a request and follow up with the resident. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share SMS opt-in data with third parties.

What we collect for service request submissions

• Required: issue location (address or pin), issue category, description
• Optional: name, phone number, email (for follow-up), photos or attachments
• We do not require account creation to submit a request

How we use it

• To route the request to the correct agency
• To send the resident a receipt and any status updates
• To detect and prevent abuse (spam, duplicate submissions, malicious content)

Retention

• Submission metadata and content are retained for a defined period to support follow-up and audit
• Photo attachments follow the same retention schedule
• Residents can request deletion of their submissions by contacting us

5. Security practices

We take a practical, defense-in-depth approach to security. Here's what that means in practice:

• Encryption in transit — all data is transmitted over HTTPS/TLS
• Access controls — least-privilege access to production systems; no shared credentials
• Audit logging — all administrative actions and data access are logged
• Vulnerability management — regular dependency updates and security patching
• Secrets management — credentials are stored in a dedicated secrets manager, never in code or configuration files

Incident notification

If we confirm a security incident that affects personal information, we will notify affected residents and participating agencies within a defined timeframe. We do not wait to understand the full scope before beginning notification — we communicate early and update as we learn more.

6. Records and legal process

Agencies sometimes ask how UnGovr handles public records obligations and legal process. Here's how we approach it:

What we store

• Submission content (description, category, location)
• Resident contact information (if provided)
• Photo attachments
• Routing metadata (which agency received the request, timestamps)

Legal process

• We respond to valid subpoenas and court orders in accordance with applicable law
• We will notify the affected agency if a legal request relates to submissions routed to them, unless prohibited by the order itself

Resident access

• Residents can request a copy of their own submissions
• We provide an export mechanism (download or email) for a resident's submission history

7. Accessibility and language access

UnGovr is designed to be usable by everyone, regardless of ability or primary language.

Accessibility

• WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. We build and test to this standard as a baseline
• The interface is mobile-first and works without a native app
• We maintain a contact method for accessibility feedback so we can fix issues quickly

Language access

• Spanish is the primary additional language for Ventura County, and the interface, issue categories, and guidance text are available in Spanish
• Free-text descriptions submitted by residents are passed through as-is to the receiving agency
• Additional languages can be added based on community need

8. Abuse prevention and safety

Any public intake system can attract misuse. We build in protections from the start:

• Rate limiting — per-device and per-session limits to prevent automated spam
• Bot detection — automated checks to filter out non-human submissions
• Content safeguards — submissions containing threats, harassment, or illegal content are flagged and withheld from routing
• Emergency referrals — when a submission describes an immediate safety threat, we display clear guidance to contact 911 or the appropriate emergency hotline

9. Continuity

A reasonable question for any agency evaluating a new tool: what happens if it goes away?

How we think about continuity

• UnGovr is a US based 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to make government more accessible. This isn't a venture-backed startup that might pivot or shut down after a funding round.
• Official channels always work. UnGovr is an additional path, not the only path. Every submission includes a link to the agency's official intake system. If UnGovr were unavailable, residents would use the same channels they use today.
• No lock-in. Agencies do not install anything, migrate data into UnGovr, or change their internal systems. If UnGovr stopped operating tomorrow, there would be no data to migrate back and no systems to reconfigure.

If UnGovr sunsets a service

• We will provide advance notice to participating agencies
• We will publish routing maps and documentation so the work can continue independently if desired
• We will ensure residents are clearly directed to official channels during any transition

10. Controlling policies

The following published policies govern UnGovr's operations. This page is a plain-language summary; the policies below are the controlling documents.