Privacy Policy
Ben’s Pothole Patrol at potholes.bensasphalt.com is a free service from Ben’s Asphalt, LLC (“Ben’s Asphalt,” “we,” “us”), a paving contractor based at 2200 S Yale St, Santa Ana, CA 92704. It lets you tell us about a pothole on a road or parking lot in a couple of taps, without an account. This policy explains what information we collect through Ben’s Pothole Patrol, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have, including under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA).
It covers the Ben’s Pothole Patrol website and app, and reports you send us by email or phone from it. It does not cover other Ben’s Asphalt websites or services.
Notice at collection
This notice explains what Ben’s Asphalt collects when you use Ben’s Pothole Patrol, why, and how long we keep it. It applies when you send a report, and when you email or call us instead.
- Pothole location (sensitive personal information: precise geolocation). Your device’s GPS reading and its accuracy, or the address you type, and the street address we look up from it. Used to find, review and repair the pothole, to tell the property owner or manager about it, and to spot duplicate reports. Kept 3 years, then anonymized.
- Photo (optional). Used to see the pothole’s size and condition, and screened automatically for harmful images. Kept 365 days; a copy attached to a notification email stays in our mailbox for 13 months.
- Note (optional, up to 500 characters) and surface type (street or parking lot). Used to understand and prioritize the report. Kept: the note for 3 years; the surface type stays with the anonymized record.
- Language and how you found us, such as the TV or QR-code link you used and the website that sent you. Used to handle the report in your language and to learn which announcements work. Kept with the anonymized record; it does not identify you.
- Device and security information: a short summary of your device and browser, a coded (hashed) version of your IP address, and bot-protection signals. Used to block spam, bots and abuse, and to fix problems. Kept: the hashed IP address for 30 days; the device summary for 3 years.
- Your email address or phone number, only if you email or call us instead of using the app. Used to receive and handle your report. Kept: emails for 13 months; calls only as long as needed.
We do not sell or share your personal information, including sensitive personal information, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We use your precise location only to handle your report and keep the service safe, not to infer anything about you.
Who receives it: Ben’s Asphalt staff and the service providers who run Ben’s Pothole Patrol for us: Vercel, Supabase, Resend, Microsoft 365, Geoapify, OpenFreeMap, OpenAI, Sentry, GitHub and Better Stack. See How we share information and How long we keep information for details.
Your rights: to make a request, call us toll-free at (888) 455-0000 or email privacy@bensasphalt.com. See Your privacy rights.
Information we collect
We designed Ben’s Pothole Patrol to collect as little as possible. We don’t ask for your name, and you don’t need an account.
When you send a report
- Pothole location. If you tap “use my location,” your browser asks for your permission and then gives us your device’s GPS reading, how accurate it is and when it was taken. We only ask for your location when you tap that button, and we stop once we have a good reading. We don’t track your location. If you type an address instead, we receive the text you type and the matching address you pick; if we already have an approximate location for you (rounded to about 1 km), we send that too, to rank suggestions near you. A map shows the spot, and you can move the pin by dragging it, tapping the map or using the arrow keys; if you move it, we receive the pin’s location instead. The map itself loads directly from OpenFreeMap (see How we share information). Either way, we look up the street address or map point with our address lookup provider. Because a GPS reading taken at the pothole shows where you were at that moment, the CCPA treats it as sensitive personal information (precise geolocation).
- Photo (optional). Before it leaves your phone, the app shrinks the photo and converts it to a JPEG. Before it does, the app reads where and when the photo was taken and the camera model, if the photo has that information, and sends it with your report. We use it only to check that the photo matches the pothole’s location and date; our staff see it, and it is never published or put in emails. The photo file itself is then sent without that hidden information. Our server then processes the photo again and runs an automated safety check (see Photo safety screening). Please keep faces, license plates and other personal details out of your photos.
- Note (optional). Up to 500 characters about the pothole. Please don’t include personal information.
- Surface type (street or parking lot), if you choose one.
- Language you used (English or Spanish).
- How you found us. For example, a code in the link or QR code you used (such as a TV or campaign tag), the name of the website that sent you (not the full page address), and whether you opened Ben’s Pothole Patrol from your home screen.
- Device and security information. A short summary of your device and browser (for example, “iPhone · Safari · mobile”), taken from information your browser sends with every request. We don’t store your IP address. Instead we store a coded version made with a secret key (a keyed hash) and delete it after 30 days. We use it only to limit how many reports can be sent from one connection and to spot abuse. Our hosting provider’s bot protection also runs an automated check in your browser that looks at technical characteristics of your browser and connection to tell people from bots.
- Reference code and time. We create a reference code (for example, PP-7K3M9Q) and record when the report was sent.
If you email or call us instead
If Ben’s Pothole Patrol can’t send your report, or you prefer, you can email or call us. Then we receive your email address or phone number, anything you choose to tell us or attach (for example, your name or a photo), and the report details the app fills into the email for you. Photos you attach to your own email are not processed by the app, so they may still contain hidden metadata, such as where the photo was taken. You can remove it before sending.
What we don’t collect
- Your name or contact details, unless you email or call us.
- Your location in the background, or at any time other than when you tap to share it.
- Your contacts, other photos, or anything else stored on your device.
- Advertising identifiers, or information from tracking cookies.
Where it comes from
We get this information from you and your device, and we create some of it, such as the reference code and the hashed IP address. Street addresses come from our address lookup provider, based on the location or text you give us.
How we use information
- To review and repair potholes. Every report goes to Ben’s Asphalt staff by email and into our report tracker, where staff review it, decide what to do and record the outcome.
- To contact property owners. When a pothole is on private property, such as a parking lot, we may contact the owner or manager about it, including to offer a repair. We tell them the pothole’s location and condition and may show them the photo. We never give them your email address or phone number.
- To prevent spam, fraud and abuse and to keep the service secure. For example, rate limits, bot protection, photo screening, and flagging reports that contain web links or come from outside the United States.
- To run and improve Ben’s Pothole Patrol. For example, finding and fixing errors, spotting duplicate reports, and counting visits and reports in aggregate so we know which announcements work. Our analytics don’t use cookies and never include your location or the text you write.
- To comply with the law and to protect the rights, property and safety of the public, our customers and Ben’s Asphalt.
We don’t use your information for targeted advertising, to build a profile about you, or to make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
Sensitive personal information
The only sensitive personal information Ben’s Pothole Patrol collects is precise geolocation: the GPS location of the pothole. We treat an address you type the same way. We use and disclose it only for the purposes the CCPA regulations allow without offering a right to limit (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, § 7027(m)): to provide the service you asked for, which is getting the pothole reviewed and repaired; to keep the service secure and prevent fraud, abuse and illegal activity; to ensure physical safety; and for our service providers to do this work for us. We don’t use it to infer characteristics about you.
Because of this, we don’t offer a separate “Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information” link. You can still ask us questions or make any of the requests described in Your privacy rights.
Photo safety screening
Photos are uploaded to a private holding area first. Our server checks that each file is a real image, processes it again (which removes any remaining metadata) and sends the processed image, without your location, note or other report details, to OpenAI’s moderation service. That service checks it for sexual, violent or self-harm content.
- Photos that pass are added to the report.
- Flagged photos are held for staff review and are never emailed. Staff can approve or delete them.
- Files that fail our checks are deleted, and uploads that never become part of a report are deleted within 8 days.
The result of this check only decides whether a photo is attached to a report. It has no other effect on you. If a photo appears to show child sexual abuse, we will report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
Ben’s Pothole Patrol does not track you over time or across other websites, and we don’t allow third parties to do so through our site. Because we don’t do that kind of tracking, we don’t change what we do when your browser sends a “Do Not Track” signal.
We don’t sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of sale and sharing.
How long we keep information
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Pothole reports (location, addresses, surface type, note, language, how you found us, device summary) | 3 years. Then we anonymize the report: we delete the note, the address you typed and the device summary, round the location to about 110 meters (360 feet), and delete any remaining photo. We keep the anonymized record to track road conditions and repairs over time, and we will keep and use it only in deidentified form and not try to re-identify anyone from it. |
| Photos | 365 days after the report (with its location and time information), then deleted, or sooner if staff remove it. A copy attached to a notification email is kept with that email (13 months). Files that fail our checks are deleted right away, and uploads that never become part of a report are deleted within 8 days. |
| Hashed IP address | 30 days. |
| Copies of notification emails kept in our system for delivery and retries | 30 days. |
| Emails in Ben’s Asphalt’s Potholes@bensasphalt.com mailbox (report notifications and any email you send us) | 13 months. |
| Phone calls to us | Only as long as needed to handle your report and for our normal business records. |
| Address lookup cache (search results, not linked to you or to a report; typed searches are filed under a scrambled form of the text, location lookups under the location rounded to about 11 meters) | 7 days for address suggestions; 30 days for typed-address lookups; 180 days for location-to-address lookups. |
| Encrypted backups | 14 days. |
| On your device | Reports waiting to send: up to 7 days. Report draft: 30 minutes. Language cookie: 1 year. |
We may keep information longer when we need it for a legal claim, to meet a legal obligation or to investigate abuse.
How we protect information
All connections use HTTPS. Reports and photos are kept in private storage that only authorized Ben’s Asphalt staff can reach, each with their own account. We store only a hashed version of IP addresses, strip hidden metadata from stored photo files, and encrypt our backups. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and to limit who can see it.
Your privacy rights
If you are a California resident, the CCPA gives you these rights:
- Right to know. You can ask what personal information we have collected about you, where it came from, why we collected it and the categories of third parties we disclosed it to, and you can ask for a copy of the specific pieces of information.
- Right to delete. You can ask us to delete personal information we collected from you, subject to exceptions the law allows.
- Right to correct. You can ask us to correct inaccurate personal information.
- Right to limit use of sensitive personal information. We already use sensitive personal information only for the permitted purposes described in Sensitive personal information, so there is nothing further to limit.
- Right to opt out of sale or sharing. We don’t sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of.
- Right to non-discrimination. We won’t treat you differently for using any of these rights. Ben’s Pothole Patrol is free and works the same for everyone.
Because Ben’s Pothole Patrol doesn’t collect your name or contact details, we can usually find your report only with details you give us: ideally your reference code, plus the approximate date, time and location, or the note you wrote. We verify your request by matching those details to our records, and we will ask only for what we need. If we can’t reasonably match a report to you, we will tell you. We will never ask you to create an account.
You can use an authorized agent to make a request for you. We may ask for proof that you gave the agent permission, and we may ask you to confirm the request with us directly.
We will confirm that we received your request within 10 business days and respond within 45 calendar days. If we need more time (up to 45 more days), we will tell you why.
If you live outside California, you can make the same requests and we will consider them.
How to make a privacy request
- Call us toll-free at (888) 455-0000.
- Email privacy@bensasphalt.com.
Tell us which right you want to use, and include your reference code if you have it.
Children
Ben’s Pothole Patrol is a general-audience service and is not directed to children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and we don’t sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We will update this policy when our practices change and revise the “Last updated” date above. If we make a material change, we will post a notice on Ben’s Pothole Patrol before the change takes effect.
Contact us
Ben’s Asphalt, LLC2200 S Yale St
Santa Ana, CA 92704
Phone (toll-free): (888) 455-0000
Email: privacy@bensasphalt.com
See also our Terms of Use.