Privacy Policy
Last updated: September 2, 2026
Who runs dwgtree
dwgtree is operated by Andrew R. Mail, an individual based in California, United States. Contact: security@dwgtree.com
This is a small application maintained by one person. This page is written to be accurate rather than reassuring; where a limit exists, it is stated.
What this policy covers
dwgtree stores engineering drawing structures — item numbers, titles, review status, and who is responsible for each part. That is working information about projects in progress, and it is treated as such.
What we collect
Information you give us when you create an account
- Your email address.
- Your password, stored only as an argon2id hash. It is never stored in recoverable form and never written to logs.
Information created by using the service
- Whether and when your email address was verified.
- Session records, so you stay signed in. Session tokens are stored hashed.
- Records of emailed verification and password-reset links, stored hashed and deleted when used or expired.
- A count of consecutive failed sign-in attempts, and a lockout timestamp if the threshold is reached. Reset to zero on a successful sign-in.
Content you enter
- Items: item numbers, titles, the name you enter as Responsible, PDM URLs.
- Types, statuses, projects, and the contains-links between items.
- Your display settings.
- Status history. Every time an item's status changes, dwgtree records the new status and the time of the change. This log is append-only and is kept for the life of the item — the history of an item that has existed for years is as long as its life. It is removed when the item is deleted, and when the account is.
What we do not collect
- No analytics, no trackers, no advertising identifiers, no third-party scripts.
- No payment information. dwgtree does not currently process payments.
- No IP address logging beyond what our hosting provider retains for operating the service, and what rate limiting requires in memory to function.
A note on the Responsible field
The Responsible field is free text, and users typically enter a colleague's name. That person may not have a dwgtree account and may not know the record exists.
If you enter someone else's name, you are responsible for doing so appropriately under your own organization's policies. Consider using initials, a role, or a team name rather than a full name where that would serve the same purpose.
Why we hold it
- To provide the service you signed up for: storing and displaying your trees.
- To sign you in, and to keep your account secure (verification, rate limiting, lockout).
- To send you transactional email — verification and password reset. We do not send marketing email.
We do not sell your data, share it for advertising, or use it to train machine learning models.
Who else touches it
Four service providers, and nothing else:
| Provider | What they receive | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Render | Hosting and the PostgreSQL database — all application data | United States (Oregon) |
| Postmark | Your email address and the transactional messages sent to it | United States |
| Sentry | Error reports. Each is assembled from a fixed list of fields rather than by collecting a request and removing things from it, so the request body, cookies, and authorization headers have no route in. Passwords, session tokens, and emailed links never reach it. | United States |
| Amazon Web Services (S3) | Nightly encrypted database backups — all application data, including your email address and password hash. The credential dwgtree holds can only write backups; it cannot read them. | United States (Ohio) |
Each holds data under its own retention schedule, which we do not control.
The operator is emailed when accounts change
When an account is created and when one is deleted, dwgtree emails that account's address to the person who runs the service. This is how a new sign-up is noticed without opening the database, and it keeps a copy of the address list somewhere other than the hosting provider.
Only the email address and the time are sent. No password hash, no items, no projects, nothing you have entered. The messages go out through Postmark like every other email, and afterwards they stay in the operator's mailbox — which is outside the application, and is not emptied when an account is deleted. See How long we keep it below.
How long we keep it
- While your account exists: as long as you keep it.
- When you delete your account: immediately and completely from the live database. Every item, contains-link, status history entry, project, project root, type, status, display setting, session, and pending verification or password-reset link is removed. There is no soft delete, no grace period, and no recovery. Two things can leave a copy of your email address behind, and both are described in the entries below: backups, and the notices sent to the operator.
-
Backups, and what this means for deletion. Deletion
from the live database is immediate, but deleted data survives in
backups until those backups age out. Two backup mechanisms exist, and
this is the honest outer limit:
- Our hosting provider retains point-in-time recovery data for 3 days.
- A nightly encrypted snapshot is stored off-site with a second provider and retained for 30 days.
So while your data disappears from the running service at once, a copy can persist in backup storage for up to 30 days before ageing out. Backups exist so that an incident cannot destroy the service and so we can reach affected users; they are not browsable, and they are not used to restore individual accounts.
- Operator notices. The two emails described above — one when an account is created, one when it is deleted — sit in the operator's mailbox, and deleting your account does not remove them. Each contains an email address and a time and nothing else. Unlike a backup they do not age out on a schedule, so if you want yours deleted, email security@dwgtree.com and they will be.
- Third parties: Postmark and Sentry retain their own records on their own schedules.
Your rights
Whatever your location, you can:
- See your data. It is all visible in the application. The CSV export gives you your tree in a portable form.
- Correct it. Every field is editable.
- Delete it. Account deletion is on the account page, requires your password, and is immediate and irreversible.
- Ask questions. Email security@dwgtree.com and a person will reply.
If you are in the EEA or UK, we process your data to perform the contract of providing the service, and on a legitimate interest in keeping accounts secure. You may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. If you are in California, we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA.
Security
How the application is built and operated is described in detail at dwgtree.com/security, including known limits.
If a security incident affects your data, you will be notified by email at the address on your account within 72 hours of the incident being confirmed.
Children
dwgtree is a tool for engineering work and is not directed at children. You must be 18 or older to create an account.
Changes
This page is updated when the practices it describes change. It reflects the application as deployed, not as intended. Material changes will be sent to the email address on your account.