AI features are arriving in municipal software quickly, and procurement reviews are catching up. For a public agency, the useful question is not whether AI is good or bad. It is narrower and more practical: which data goes where, who uses each feature, and how would you know?
This post answers those questions for NPDESTracker in plain terms. It also lists what we do not claim, because a security page that only lists strengths is not much use to a reviewer.
Start by separating the data
Most of the confusion goes away once you separate three kinds of material:
- Your agency’s records. Inspections, photos, notices, contacts, complaints, task notes and report answers. This is the data that needs the most protection. It lives in your agency’s workspace, and no feature sends it to an external AI model.
- Public permit documents. The permit, its appendices and its fact sheet, published by the permitting authority for anyone to read.
- Our own product configuration. Module names, form layouts and report templates. This describes how the software is set up, not what your staff recorded.
An honest AI policy says which of these each feature touches. A vague one says “we use AI responsibly” and stops there.
Where AI is used, and what it receives
Here is how NPDESTracker handles it:
- Your records are not sent to AI. No feature sends your workspace’s records, uploaded files, photos or recordings to an external AI model.
- AI is a staff tool, used during setup. The features that can call an external AI model are tools for NPDESTracker staff, used while we set up a workspace. Nothing your staff use in NPDESTracker calls one, and every part of the product works without AI.
- One approved gateway. AI requests can go only to one approved model gateway. Any other AI destination is refused before a connection is made.
- Drafting from permits needs approved documents. The step that drafts requirements from public permit documents works only from documents on our approved list of public sources, and it refuses anything else.
- Smart Draft does not use AI. It builds a starting draft of an annual report answer from the evidence already linked to the question, using templates inside NPDESTracker. The same inputs produce the same draft, and a person reviews and saves every answer. The details are in the Smart Draft disclosure.
- The Inspection Copilot is in development. The offline, voice-first Inspection Copilot is not available today, and no release date is promised.
- We do not use your agency’s data to train AI models.
When our staff tools call the AI gateway, each request asks the provider not to retain it and not to use it for model training. Those are request settings that the provider enforces; we have not independently verified them, and we do not call them a guarantee.
What protects your records day to day
AI policy is one part of data protection. The everyday controls matter more. The statements below describe how NPDESTracker is built, tested and run, in our own words. None of them is the result of an outside audit.
- Separate workspaces. Each agency’s records are kept in its own workspace. Access rules enforced inside the database limit each agency user to the records of their own workspace.
- Tested separation. We test that separation with automated checks that sign in as a member of one workspace and try to read, change, delete and create records in another.
- Your administrators decide access. Workspace administrators decide who has access. Viewer accounts can read records but cannot change them.
- Staff access is recorded. A small number of NPDESTracker staff can reach any workspace through administrative tools, to set up workspaces and provide support. Administrative changes such as creating a workspace, changing its plan or adding a user are recorded with who made them and when.
- Two-step sign-in. Every account can turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app. Once it is on, the web application asks for the code before any workspace page opens.
- Short-lived file links. The links the application creates to open an uploaded file expire after five minutes.
- Credentials stay on the server. Credentials that can reach every workspace, and credentials for AI services, are used only on our servers. Our automated release checks scan a production build of the web application to confirm none of them is included in what browsers download.
- A reporting audit trail. Annual reporting keeps a log of who changed answers, linked evidence and report status, and a report certification cannot be edited afterwards.
- Your data, your export. Your agency owns its records. Workspace administrators can download an export of their workspace from the application, and we provide a complete export, including files, on request.
The ArcGIS connection follows the same pattern. Staff sign in with their own ArcGIS accounts, and NPDESTracker reads your maps and layers read-only. The details are on ArcGIS integration and security and in working alongside ArcGIS.
Who receives data
- Services that store or process customer data for us: Supabase (database, sign-in and file storage), Vercel (application hosting), Postmark (email delivery) and Stripe (billing, when used).
- Others that receive limited data: the US National Weather Service receives a map location for rainfall and forecast lookups; your own ArcGIS organization, when you connect it, and public map services your staff choose to import from; and public agency websites, which we check for permit changes and which receive nothing about you.
- Map backgrounds: when a map is shown, your browser loads its background tiles directly from Esri (ArcGIS basemaps and imagery), OpenStreetMap or OpenTopoMap, depending on the map and the background chosen; that provider receives the area of the map being viewed and your IP address.
- AI requests: requests from our staff’s AI tools go only to the one approved model gateway described above, and they carry no customer records.
- Analytics in the application: Microsoft Clarity and Google Ads tags, when switched on, run only on one public page after checkout. This website’s own tags are described in the privacy policy.
What we do not claim
- No certifications we do not hold. NPDESTracker does not currently hold a SOC 2 report, an ISO/IEC 27001 certificate, or FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization.
- No audit results. Nothing in this post is a certification or an audit finding. These are our own descriptions of how the product is built and tested.
- No “there is no AI” claim. There is optional AI. This post says where it is and how it is controlled, which is more useful than pretending it does not exist.
- No absolute promises. We do not describe any control as impossible to defeat, and we do not promise that a provider stores nothing.
The current security statements are on the security page.
Questions your IT reviewer should ask any vendor
These work for NPDESTracker and for anyone else you evaluate:
- Which features send data to an AI model, and exactly which data?
- Who can switch those features on, and who decides whether they are used for your agency?
- Is our data used to train models, by you or by any provider?
- Which service providers store or process our data, and for what?
- How is separation between agencies enforced, and how is it tested?
- Which certifications or audit reports do you hold? If none, do you say so in writing?
- Who on your staff can reach our data, and is that access recorded?
- How do we get a complete export, including files, if we leave?
A vendor that answers these plainly, including “we don’t have that”, is easier to trust than one that answers with adjectives. If an answer matters to your agency, ask for it in writing and keep it with the contract.
A note on public records
Municipal records can be subject to public records laws and retention schedules, and your stormwater permit sets its own recordkeeping rules. The federal rule for small MS4 permits, for example, requires records to be kept for at least three years and made available to the public (40 CFR 122.34). Before you switch on any AI feature, in any product, ask your records officer how text sent to an outside service fits those obligations. That is a policy question for the agency, not one a vendor should answer for you.
Where to go next
- The security page and the privacy policy
- Security and privacy in the documentation
- How onboarding, data handling and offboarding work
To report a security concern, or to send a security questionnaire, email admin@npdestracker.com.
Sources checked October 17, 2026.