Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 7, 2026

This document is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with a qualified attorney regarding your specific situation.

1. Introduction

HotChili Analytics, LLC ("Company", "we", "us", or "our") operates the Verity Index platform ("Service") available at verityindex.com. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our Service.

1A. Google & YouTube

Our services interact with Google APIs, including the YouTube API Services. Google's privacy practices are described in the Google Privacy Policy, which governs how Google collects, uses, and shares information when you interact with Google products. We encourage you to review it in addition to this policy. You may revoke our application's access to your Google data at any time via the Google security settings page.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide
  • Account Information: When you register, we collect your username, email address, and a hashed version of your password. We never store plain-text passwords.
  • YouTube URLs: When you submit a video for analysis, we collect the YouTube video URL or video ID you provide.
  • Payment Information: If you subscribe to a paid plan, payment details are collected and processed directly by Stripe. We do not store your full credit card number, CVV, or other sensitive payment data on our servers. We receive and store your Stripe customer ID and subscription details.
  • Communications: If you contact us via email, we retain the content of your messages and our responses.
2.2 Information Collected Automatically
  • Usage Data: We collect information about how you use the Service, including pages visited, features used, analysis submissions, and timestamps.
  • Session Data: We use server-side sessions to maintain your login state and preferences.
  • Log Data: Our servers automatically record information such as your IP address, browser type, referring pages, and access times for security and troubleshooting purposes.
2.3 Information from Third Parties
  • YouTube/Google: We access publicly available video metadata and transcripts through YouTube's services to perform our analysis.
  • Stripe: We receive subscription status updates, payment confirmations, and billing events through Stripe webhooks.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

  • Provide, maintain, and improve the Service
  • Process video analyses and generate fact-checking reports
  • Manage your account and subscription
  • Process payments through Stripe
  • Communicate with you about the Service, including updates and support
  • Monitor and analyze usage patterns to improve user experience
  • Detect, prevent, and address technical issues and security threats
  • Enforce our Terms of Service and comply with legal obligations

4. AI Processing

When you submit a YouTube video for analysis, the following processing occurs:

  • Multimodal information — including the audio track, on-screen visual frames, and the publicly available transcript — is extracted from the YouTube video
  • That multimodal content is processed by our AI analysis engine (VerityNgn) running on Google Cloud Platform
  • AI models identify and analyze factual claims across the audio, visual, and transcript signals and assess their factual accuracy against web evidence
  • A report is generated and stored in our database, associated with your account

The VerityNgn analysis engine is open-source and available at github.com/hotchilianalytics/verityngn-oss.

5. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information in the following circumstances:

  • Service Providers: We share data with third-party service providers who assist us in operating the Service, including:
    • Stripe for payment processing
    • Google Cloud Platform for hosting and AI processing
    • YouTube/Google for video content access
  • Public Reports: If you choose to make an analysis report public, its content (including the YouTube video ID, our editorial verdict label, and the analysis summary) will be visible to all visitors on our gallery page.
  • Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or governmental regulation, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others.
  • Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction.

5A. YouTube API Data Retention

We apply lifecycle controls to statistics and metadata obtained from YouTube API Services so that we do not retain or display such data beyond the periods required by applicable YouTube API Services Developer Policies. Specifically:

  • Frontend (verityindex.com): As of May 17, 2026, the frontend does not persist YouTube-derived title, channel, published date, thumbnail, or view-count data. Titles and thumbnails shown on the public gallery, splash page, and report pages are hydrated at render time in the user's browser via the public YouTube oEmbed endpoint and cached only in the browser's session storage for one hour. Our servers never receive or store that payload.

Our backend analysis pipeline does not store any YouTube API metadata covered by the YouTube API Services Developer Policies' retention rules; the editorial outputs we keep (verdict label, claim list, narrative) are independently produced by HotChili Analytics and are not YouTube API data.

6. Data Retention

We retain your information as follows:

  • Account Data: Retained for as long as your account is active, plus 12 months after deletion request
  • Analysis Reports: Retained according to your subscription tier:
    • Free: 7 days
    • Starter: 90 days
    • Team: 1 year
    • Enterprise: Indefinite
  • Payment Records: Retained for 7 years for tax and legal compliance purposes
  • Log Data: Retained for up to 90 days for security and troubleshooting

7. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including:

  • Encryption of data in transit using TLS/SSL
  • Secure password hashing (passwords are never stored in plain text)
  • Regular security reviews and updates
  • Access controls limiting employee access to personal data

However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data.

8. Your Rights

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

  • Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
  • Correction: Request correction of inaccurate personal data
  • Deletion: Request deletion of your personal data (subject to legal retention requirements)
  • Portability: Request a machine-readable copy of your data
  • Objection: Object to certain types of processing
  • Withdrawal of Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@hotchilianalytics.com.

9. Cookies and Tracking

The Service uses server-side sessions to maintain your authentication state. We use essential session cookies required for the Service to function. We do not use third-party advertising cookies or tracking pixels. Stripe may set cookies in connection with payment processing — please refer to Stripe's Privacy Policy for details.

10. Children's Privacy

The Service is not intended for use by individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will take steps to delete that information.

11. International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your country of residence, including the United States. These countries may have data protection laws that differ from your jurisdiction. By using the Service, you consent to the transfer of your information to these countries.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated through the Service or via email to registered users. Your continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Information

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:

HotChili Analytics, LLC
Email: info@hotchilianalytics.com
Web: www.verityindex.com