Privacy Policy
Effective October 3, 2026
Ticket Defender ("we", "us") is a website that checks Washington State automated speed camera citations for technical defects in the State's own records. This policy explains what information we handle and why.
What we collect
- What you enter: the citation number and PIN from your notice.
- What we retrieve for you: using that number and PIN, our system signs in to the State's public citation portal, the same way you would, and retrieves your citation dashboard and the camera operator's deployment log. These records can include the registered owner's name and address, license plate, vehicle details, violation details, photographs, and any balance due.
- Technical information: your IP address, browser and device type, the page you came from, and request times. We use it to keep the service secure, to limit abuse, and to understand how the site is used.
- Advertising measurement: we use a Google Ads tag, which may set cookies or similar identifiers. We send Google only anonymous step events, such as "a ticket was checked". We never send your citation details to Google Ads.
Your permission comes first
We do not retrieve anyone's records without their permission. Before each check, you confirm that the citation is yours (or that you are checking it for the person it was issued to) and that you authorize us to use the citation number and PIN you entered to sign in to the State's citation portal for that one check. Our servers refuse a lookup that does not carry that confirmation. We keep a record of when it was given and which version of the wording you saw. See the Terms of Use for the full permission.
How we use it
- To run the check you asked for and show you the results, evidence and downloads.
- To make the service more accurate. We may review results and the extracted facts (such as times, places and checklist items) to improve our checks.
- To prevent abuse and keep the service running.
- To measure whether our advertising works.
AI processing
Parts of your records, including text and images, are read by Google's Gemini AI models through Google Cloud so that we can extract facts such as times and locations. Our rules then compare those facts. We do not use your records to build advertising profiles.
Who we share it with
We use Google as our service provider (Google Cloud, Firebase hosting, Vertex AI, and Google Ads measurement). We do not sell your personal information. We may disclose information if the law requires it.
How long we keep it
We keep the records we retrieve so repeat visits are fast and so we can review accuracy. We have not yet set an automatic deletion schedule. You can ask us to delete the records we hold about your citation at any time (see Contact below).
Security
Records are stored with Google Cloud, and access is restricted. No system is perfectly secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Your choices
You can decline to use the service, clear cookies in your browser, or ask us to delete your records. Please do not enter a citation or PIN that is not yours or that you are not authorized to use.
Children
The service is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 18.
Changes
We may update this policy. The effective date above shows the latest version.
Contact
You can reach us at waticketdefender@gmail.com.