> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whittierinformed.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Who Will Own Your Data on Whittier's New $6,500-a-Month Website? - URL: https://www.whittierinformed.com/who-will-own-your-data-on-whittiers-new-6-500-a-month-website/ - Published: 2026-08-26T06:00:10.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-26T06:07:09.000Z - Description: A police software contract got rejected over data concerns. A bigger website deal didn't face the same questions. - Author: Eddie Cota - Tags: City Hall, budget, technology Whittier is switching website vendors to meet a new federal ADA accessibility requirement. The council approved the contract on August 11, unanimously, after one round of questions about translation and text alerts. CivicPlus's [privacy policy and broader legal terms](https://www.civicplus.help/legal-center/docs/hosting-and-data-privacy-information?ref=whittierinformed.com), the documents spelling out who controls resident data and what the company can do with it, weren't part of the meeting packet at all. That's a different approach than the one the council took just a month earlier. In July, the council rejected a police software contract with a company called Peregrine, specifically over data-sharing concerns and vendor terms the city couldn't negotiate, the kind of scrutiny that looked like it might become the new standard. This time, that standard didn't carry over. ## **The deadline behind it** The push to modernize the website comes from federal law. [The U.S. Department of Justice now requires city websites to be accessible](https://advocacy.sba.gov/2026/04/27/doj-extends-compliance-dates-for-state-and-local-governments-to-make-their-websites-accessible/?ref=whittierinformed.com) to people with disabilities, screen reader compatible, captioned video, and more, by April 2027\. That's a hard deadline, and city staff says it's why a simple redesign of the current site wouldn't be enough. ## **What it actually costs** The council approved a one-year contract of $118,840.60 that night to switch from its current vendor, Granicus, to CivicPlus. In addition, the council approved a separate $61,500 contract with UX Design Collective, a firm that will work alongside CivicPlus to help design the site. That brings the city's first-year commitment to $180,340.60. CivicPlus then charges a $77,584.60 fee to keep the site running in the second year, followed by what CivicPlus calls an "Annual Uplift" of 5%, language that suggests the increase repeats every year. To put it in perspective, that would come to roughly $453,000 over five years to keep a website running. For comparison, the city currently spends about $13,100 a year to maintain its existing site through Granicus. Margot Diamond-Nelson, the city's Community Engagement Manager, called the comparison "not quite an apples to apples" one. The old price only covered basic website upkeep, she said; the new one adds accessibility tools, web governance, and mass notification the current site doesn't have. ## **What happens to the city's own records?** CivicPlus limits how much of Whittier's history actually makes the move to the new site. Only about a year of city council agendas and minutes will make it to the new site. Calendars and older archived pages don't transfer at all, and it's unclear how, or whether, residents would still be able to access them. Also, the number of web pages that can be built or moved over is capped at 350, and the city hasn't said how many pages its current site has, so it's unclear whether entire sections of what exists today will simply be left off the new one. ## **Left behind: the Police Department's site** The Police Department redesigned its own site in 2025, and it's excluded from the CivicPlus contract entirely, still running on Granicus, the same provider the rest of the city is leaving. Diamond-Nelson told the council Granicus can't do what CivicPlus can: convert PDFs into a format screen readers can actually read aloud, and translate them into other languages. The Police Department's site is getting neither. That means someone using a screen reader, or a resident who doesn't read English, hits a wall on PD's own documents, crime reports, policies, and public safety notices. And once the redesign rolls out everywhere else, PD's site will be the odd one out, different look and different navigation. Given how much the city is already spending to bring the rest of its websites up to the same standard, it's worth asking why the department wasn't folded into the same project. ## **Every move on the site can be tracked** CivicPlus's privacy policy says the company can track individual visitors to Whittier's website, not just anonymous totals. It allows analytics "whether in aggregate or at a personal level," including which pages someone views, where they click, and how long they linger. Two outside companies are listed as working on the platform: Google Analytics and a company called Pendo. Pendo offers a feature called [Session Replay](https://www.pendo.io/product/session-replay/?ref=whittierinformed.com), which reconstructs a visitor's mouse movements, clicks, and form activity into a playback, essentially a recording of how someone moved through the page. It only activates if it's turned on. On its own, this tracking doesn't attach a name to a visitor. But if that same person also logs into the site or fills out a form using their name, that browsing activity and their identity could end up connected. But it raises a real question: could the city find out who's spending hours reviewing agendas, budgets, or contracts, the kind of deep research someone digging for accountability might do? For residents trying to hold the city accountable, or activists tracking a specific issue, that's worth knowing before they start digging. ### **Who actually controls a resident's information isn't clear** CivicPlus's contract splits data into categories. Information tied to a specific transaction, like a permit application, stays under the city's control. But anything tied to a resident's account, if the site's login feature is used, falls into a category CivicPlus calls "Resident Account Data." For that category, CivicPlus lists itself as the controller, not the city. ### **CivicPlus can use city data to improve its other products** CivicPlus's standard terms let the company study how customers use its platform, including information "concerning the Customer data and data derived therefrom," and use what it learns to improve its other products, even after a contract ends. Whether that provision applies to Whittier's agreement isn't clear from the contract itself. ### **City documents run through an outside AI company** CivicPlus's list of the companies it works with names OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as the one processing city PDFs into accessible versions for screen readers. That means staff reports, agendas, and contracts get run through a commercial AI system. ### **Encryption depends on a detail the city won't confirm** Whether resident information is actually encrypted while it's stored, meaning scrambled so it can't be read without the right key, even if someone gains unauthorized access, depends on which pricing tier the city bought, something the contract doesn't specify. CivicPlus calls its two hosting options Standard and Platinum. Its own documentation says encryption at rest comes with the Platinum tier, paired with an add-on called Encrypted Forms, and is explicitly left out for Standard customers. ### **The alert system can reach people who never signed up** CivicPlus's proposal describes an emergency alert feature that pulls contact information from landline directory listings, updated daily, to reach residents during emergencies, whether or not they ever registered for anything, think of it like an Amber Alert. ### **A message to city hall might not stay at city hall** If a resident fills out a contact form on the site, that message doesn't necessarily stay between them and city staff. CivicPlus lists its own sales, marketing, and customer-relationship vendors as recipients of information collected through the platform. ### **The company can hand over data without a court order** CivicPlus's policy allows it to disclose resident information to outside parties without a subpoena, based on its own internal judgment about what counts as illegal activity or a risk of harm. There's no published standard for how that call gets made. ### **Aggregated visitor data can reach advertisers** CivicPlus's policy also allows sharing aggregated, anonymized visitor information with "business partners, trusted affiliates, and advertisers." It's not tied to a name, but the policy governing Whittier's official site names advertisers as a category of who can receive that information. ### **If the company is sold, resident data goes with it** CivicPlus's own privacy policy states that if the company is ever sold again, resident data goes with it. Personal information the company holds "may be sold, disposed of, transferred, divested, or otherwise disclosed as part of the transaction," and whoever buys CivicPlus "may continue to use" that data. Every account or piece of information tied to Whittier's new site is subject to that same clause. CivicPlus itself has [already been sold once](https://www.wsj.com/articles/insight-partners-backs-government-technology-provider-civicplus-11620860400?ref=whittierinformed.com), to a private equity firm, Insight Partners, in 2021. In 2025, an [Abu Dhabi-linked investment firm](https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/04/03/abu-dhabi-stake-venture-capital-biggest-insight-partners/?ref=whittierinformed.com) bought a stake in Insight Partners' own parent company. That change only became public through an unrelated lawsuit, not through any disclosure to CivicPlus's customers. ## **The scrutiny that didn't carry over** In July, the council voted 3-2 against a [$509,655 police software contract with Peregrine](https://www.whittierinformed.com/council-rejects-police-software-contract-over-privacy-and-bidding-concerns/). Mayor James Becerra and Council Members Vicky Santana and Aida Macedo were the three who said no, over vendor terms the city couldn't negotiate and a data-sharing setup that let the company use city information for its own purposes. "We don't have any bargaining power with them," Macedo said at the time. Priced out over the same span, the CivicPlus deal costs in the same range. It shares similar non-negotiable terms, and, as this story lays out, similar unanswered questions about who controls resident data. This one passed unanimously. Whittier Informed sent Margot Diamond-Nelson questions about the cost, the records migration, the tracking and data-control concerns, and whether this CivicPlus contract was measured against the same standard applied to Peregrine. She did not respond.