Privacy Policy

Your Privacy at a Glance

NorthRidge Systems LLC ("NorthRidge," "we," "us") operates the FieldMetrx™ platform, Axel™, and related services (collectively, the "Platform"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect information about you and your organization when you use the Platform, including the FieldMetrx mobile application available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, the web application, and our public-facing websites. FieldMetrx is a business-to-business platform built for residential sewer, drain, and trenchless contracting companies. Where a contractor business enters information about its end customers into the Platform, the contractor business is the data controller of that information and NorthRidge acts as a data processor on its behalf.

A. Account & Identity Information

• Name, job title, and business email address (provided at account creation).
• Business name, mailing address, and phone number.
• Username and hashed password (passwords are never stored in plaintext).
• Billing contact information and subscription tier.

B. Job & Operational Data

• Job records, customer addresses, work order details, service descriptions, and notes entered by your team.
• Inspection photos, videos, and MP4 files uploaded through the TrenchCam™ feature or the web upload interface.
• Proposal content, pricing data, and signed customer documents.
• Field annotations, defect classifications, diagnostic results, and AI-generated inspection reports.

C. AI Interaction Data

• Text messages and voice inputs submitted to Axel™.
• Voice transcriptions generated from in-field voice notes.
• AI session metadata including session timestamps, active job context, and model responses.
• Quick-prompt selections and in-app feedback signals.

D. Customer Communication Data

• Customer and homeowner phone numbers entered by a contractor business for job coordination, billing, service notifications, or other customer communications.
• SMS consent records, consent source and timestamp, message preferences, opt-out or suppression status, and requests for help.
• Message delivery metadata, including message type, delivery status, failure reason, and provider message identifier. We do not store the content of a payment card or other sensitive authentication data in an SMS message.

E. Device & Technical Data

• Device type, operating system version, and unique device identifiers (iOS IDFV or Android ID).
• IP address, mobile carrier, and network connection type.
• App version, crash reports, and diagnostic performance logs.
• Push notification tokens (used solely to deliver Platform notifications).

F. Location Data (Mobile App)

• Approximate and precise GPS coordinates when you grant location permission, used for job routing and service address verification.
• Location data is captured only when the app is in active use ("When In Use" permission). We do not collect background location without explicit disclosure and separate opt-in.
• You may revoke location permission at any time in your device Settings. Revoking location permission does not prevent use of core Platform features.

G. Camera, Microphone & Photo Library

• Camera: used to capture inspection photos and videos linked to active job records. Images are encrypted in transit and stored in your account's secure data partition.
• Microphone: used for voice-to-text input to Axel™ and for hands-free field commands. Audio is transcribed in real time and the raw audio is not retained after transcription unless you explicitly save a recording.
• Photo Library: accessed only when you choose to upload an existing photo. We do not scan, index, or copy your full photo library.

H. Usage & Analytics Data

• Pages and screens viewed, features used, and navigation patterns (aggregated and anonymized).
• Session duration, button interactions, and feature engagement metrics.
• Error events and performance telemetry to diagnose and fix Platform issues.
• We do not use third-party advertising trackers or cross-app behavioral tracking.

We use the information described above only for the following lawful purposes:

Service Delivery

• Providing, operating, and maintaining all Platform features.
• Processing job records, generating proposals, and enabling Axel™ sessions.
• Delivering push notifications about job updates, pending uploads, and system alerts.
• When a tenant has enabled SMS features, routing authorized service messages such as appointment updates, technician status updates, invoice or payment notices, receipts, and review invitations through the tenant's configured messaging provider.
• Processing subscription billing and enforcing account access controls.

AI Model Operation & Improvement

• Powering Axel™ real-time field AI responses using job context, photo submissions, and voice inputs.
• Reviewing anonymized and aggregated AI interactions to improve model accuracy, safety, and usefulness.
• Identifying and correcting systematic AI errors that could affect field outcomes.
• We do not use your identifiable data to train AI models sold or licensed to third parties.

Safety, Compliance & Security

• Detecting and preventing unauthorized access, fraud, and Terms of Service violations via our Sentinel monitoring system.
• Responding to legal process, court orders, or lawful government requests.
• Investigating suspected violations and enforcing our Acceptable Use Policy.
• Maintaining audit logs as required by applicable law.

Communications

• Sending transactional emails (account creation, password reset, subscription confirmations).
• Notifying you of Platform updates, new features, and material policy changes.
• Responding to support requests submitted to Support@northridgesystem.com.
• We do not send unsolicited marketing email without your separate opt-in consent.

SMS and Text Messages

SMS functionality is an optional tenant feature and is not active for a company unless that company enables it and completes the required provider setup. When enabled, the contractor or service business that owns the customer relationship controls the purpose and content of messages, and NorthRidge processes the information as its service provider. Messages may include appointment reminders, technician status updates such as “technician is on the way” or “technician has arrived,” invoice and payment notices, receipts, and requests for service reviews.

Contractor businesses are responsible for collecting any consent required by applicable law before sending SMS, identifying themselves in their messages, keeping reliable consent records, honoring revocations and opt-out requests, and using the Platform only for phone numbers they are authorized to contact. Promotional or marketing messages require any additional consent required by law and are not implied by a service appointment or an invoice.

We do not sell, rent, or share your mobile number or your text message consent with any third party or affiliate for their marketing or promotional use. Service providers who help us deliver these messages may handle your number, message content, consent, and suppression signals only for that purpose and under our instructions. NorthRidge does not use SMS consent data to market unrelated products or services.

Where supported by the messaging provider, a recipient may reply STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT to opt out of texts, or reply HELP for assistance. Opting out of SMS does not delete the underlying customer record or prevent the contractor from contacting the customer through another lawful channel. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply, and wireless carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

If you are located in a jurisdiction covered by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or equivalent legislation, we process your personal data under the following legal bases:

If you are a business purchasing access to the Platform on behalf of your employees, you are the data controller for your employees' and customers' data stored in the Platform. NorthRidge acts as a data processor on your behalf with respect to that data.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share data only as described below:

Service Providers (Sub-Processors)

• Cloud infrastructure providers that host and store Platform data (e.g., cloud database, object storage), bound by data processing agreements.
• AI service providers that power Axel™ features: Anthropic, PBC; OpenAI, L.L.C.; Google LLC (Gemini); ElevenLabs Inc.; and OpenRouter Inc. Each provider processes data on our behalf under its standard API terms and confidentiality obligations and is contractually prohibited from using your data to train models served to anyone else.
• Payment processors (e.g., Stripe) for subscription billing. We share only the minimum data needed to complete the transaction.
• SMS and communications providers (for example, Twilio) when a tenant enables SMS features. These providers receive phone numbers, message content, consent or suppression signals, and delivery metadata only as needed to transmit and manage authorized messages.
• Error monitoring and crash reporting services to diagnose app failures. Data is anonymized where possible.

Legal & Regulatory Disclosures

• In response to a valid court order, subpoena, or other lawful legal process.
• To comply with applicable federal, state, or local law.
• To investigate, prevent, or act on suspected fraud, security breaches, or violations of our Terms of Service.
• To protect the rights, property, or safety of NorthRidge Systems LLC, our users, or the public.

Business Transfers

• In the event of a merger, acquisition, asset sale, or financing, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction.
• You will be notified of any such transfer by a material update to this Privacy Policy, with a minimum of 30 days notice before any change in data controller becomes effective.

We require all third-party service providers to maintain appropriate technical and organizational security measures and to use your information only as directed by NorthRidge and consistent with this Privacy Policy.

You may request early deletion of your account data at any time by contacting us at Support@northridgesystem.com. Deletion requests will be processed within 30 days except where we are required by law to retain the data.

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at Support@northridgesystem.com. We will respond within 30 days (or 45 days where permitted by law with notice).

Rights Available to All Users (U.S. & International)

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Deletion: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention obligations.
• Portability: Request your operational data (job records, photos) in a machine-readable format.
• Withdraw Consent: Revoke consent for optional data collection (location, microphone, marketing) at any time via device Settings or by contacting us. Withdrawal does not affect prior processing.
• Opt-Out of Marketing: Unsubscribe from any non-transactional communications at any time.

California Residents: Additional Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

• Right to Know: Request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, used, or disclosed about you in the past 12 months.
• Right to Delete: Request deletion of your personal information with limited exceptions.
• Right to Correct: Request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale or Sharing: We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. No opt-out is required, but you may contact us to confirm.
• Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information: You may request that we limit our use of sensitive personal information (such as precise geolocation) to purposes strictly necessary to provide the Platform.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: Exercising your privacy rights will not result in denial of service, different pricing, or any other discriminatory treatment.

Other U.S. State Residents

• Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws including Virginia (VCDPA), Colorado (CPA), Connecticut (CTDPA), Utah (UCPA), Texas (TDPSA), Oregon (OCPA), and Montana (MCDPA) have similar rights regarding access, deletion, correction, and portability of personal information.
• Contact us at Support@northridgesystem.com to exercise applicable rights. We will verify your identity before responding to substantive requests.

EU/EEA/UK Residents: Additional Rights (GDPR/UK GDPR)

• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including profiling.
• Right to Restriction: Request that we restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Automated Decision-Making: We do not make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you.
• Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.

NorthRidge implements industry-standard technical and organizational measures to protect your data against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction:

• All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using TLS 1.2 or higher.
• Stored data is encrypted at rest using AES-256 or equivalent industry-standard encryption.
• Authentication tokens are short-lived and rotated; passwords are hashed using bcrypt with appropriate cost factors.
• Access to production systems is restricted to authorized NorthRidge personnel via multi-factor authentication.
• Photo and video uploads are stored in access-controlled object storage, accessible only to your account's authorized users.
• We conduct regular security reviews and maintain an incident response plan.

No method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. If you believe your account or data has been compromised, contact us immediately at Support@northridgesystem.com. In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law (including, where required, within 72 hours for GDPR-covered users).

Important: Axel™ AI Data Handling

In compliance with emerging U.S. state AI transparency laws and the EU AI Act (applicable to high-risk AI systems), we disclose the following about Axel™:

• You are interacting with an AI system. Axel™ is an artificial intelligence assistant, not a human advisor.
• AI inference inputs: your chat messages, voice recordings, uploaded photos, uploaded video, and active job context are transmitted to one or more of our AI service providers to generate responses in real time.
• Named third-party AI service providers we use as processors: Anthropic, PBC; OpenAI, L.L.C.; Google LLC (Gemini); ElevenLabs Inc.; and OpenRouter Inc. Which provider handles a given request depends on the feature, model availability, and our internal quality and reliability requirements. Each provider processes data on our behalf under its standard API terms and confidentiality obligations.
• What is sent to these providers: the text of your message, the audio file of your voice note (discarded by the provider immediately after transcription returns), the photos and videos you choose to attach, and a brief context block describing the active job (job type, customer-reported issue, pipe material and diameter, and relevant findings) so the response is useful. We do not send your password, billing details, contact list, or device advertising identifier to these AI providers.
• Consent: on first launch, and again whenever this disclosure materially changes, you must explicitly agree to this AI data sharing before any AI feature transmits your content. You can withdraw consent at any time by tapping More → Legal → Revoke AI Consent, or simply by not using the AI features; the rest of the Platform works without them.
• No shared model training: your identifiable data and job data are not used to train AI models that are made available to other customers or third parties. Provider API terms confirm this and we require each provider to offer the same or equivalent protections described in this Privacy Policy.
• Anonymized improvement: we may use anonymized, aggregated AI session data (with all identifying information removed) to evaluate and improve Axel™ quality.
• Human review: AI interactions flagged for safety or compliance review may be reviewed by authorized NorthRidge personnel under confidentiality obligations.
• AI outputs are advisory only and require professional verification. See our Acceptable Use Policy for full AI disclaimer terms.

Where to read each provider's privacy policy

• Anthropic, PBC — https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
• OpenAI, L.L.C. — https://openai.com/policies/row-privacy-policy
• Google LLC (Gemini) — https://policies.google.com/privacy
• ElevenLabs Inc. — https://elevenlabs.io/privacy-policy
• OpenRouter Inc. — https://openrouter.ai/privacy

If we add or remove an AI service provider, we will update this section and ask you to re-consent within the app before any new provider receives your data.

The FieldMetrx™ Platform is a professional field operations tool intended exclusively for use by adults (18 years of age or older) employed or contracted by businesses in the sewer, drain, and trenchless rehabilitation industry. The Platform is not directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

If you believe that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at Support@northridgesystem.com. Upon verification, we will delete such information from our systems promptly. Account holders are responsible for ensuring that only authorized adult users access the Platform through their account.

The Platform may contain links to third-party websites or allow optional integration with external services (such as Google Drive). This Privacy Policy does not apply to those third-party services. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party service you connect to the Platform.

When you authorize a third-party integration (e.g., Google Drive for photo export), you grant that service access to data you explicitly choose to transfer. NorthRidge is not responsible for the data practices of third-party services, and you should review their terms before enabling any integration.

• We send push notifications only after you grant notification permission on your device.
• Notification types include: job status updates, pending upload alerts, trial expiration notices, and critical system alerts.
• You may disable push notifications at any time in your device's Settings without affecting access to the Platform.
• Transactional emails (password resets, subscription confirmations) are sent to your registered business email and cannot be opted out of while your account is active.
• Non-transactional communications (product updates, new features) can be unsubscribed from via the link in any such email.

NorthRidge Systems LLC is based in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. Your data is processed and stored on servers located in the United States. If you access the Platform from outside the United States, please be aware that your information will be transferred to and processed in the U.S., where data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.

For users in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland: where required by applicable law, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission, or other lawful transfer mechanisms, to transfer personal data to the United States. You may request information about the safeguards applicable to your data transfer by contacting us at Support@northridgesystem.com.

Apple App Store

In accordance with Apple's App Store Privacy requirements, we provide a Privacy Nutrition Label that summarizes the categories of data the FieldMetrx mobile application collects and how that data is used. The Privacy Nutrition Label is visible on the App Store listing and is supplemental to this Privacy Policy. In the event of any conflict between the Privacy Nutrition Label and this Policy, this Policy controls.

Google Play Data Safety

In accordance with Google Play's Data Safety requirements, we provide a Data Safety section that summarizes the categories of data the FieldMetrx mobile application collects, shares, and protects. The Data Safety section is visible on the Google Play listing and is supplemental to this Privacy Policy. In the event of any conflict between the Data Safety section and this Policy, this Policy controls.

Data Deletion Requests

Business users with administrator access may request deletion of their account data by contacting us at Support@northridgesystem.com. End customers whose information was entered into the Platform by a contractor business should direct deletion requests to the contractor business that holds the customer relationship; NorthRidge will assist the contractor business in fulfilling lawful deletion requests.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will:

• Update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.
• Post a prominent notice within the Platform at least 14 days before material changes take effect.
• Send a notification to your registered email address for significant changes affecting your rights.

Your continued use of the Platform after the effective date of any revised Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree with the revised policy, you should stop using the Platform and contact us regarding your options.

For any privacy-related questions, data access requests, deletion requests, or to exercise any of your rights described in this Policy, please contact us at:

For complaints that have not been resolved to your satisfaction, California residents may also contact the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA). EU/EEA/UK residents may contact their applicable national or regional data protection supervisory authority.

FieldMetrx uses the following third-party service providers to operate the platform. Each provider processes data only as necessary to provide their services.

FieldMetrx will update this list when new sub-processors are added. Significant sub-processor changes affecting data handling will be communicated to tenants via email with reasonable advance notice.