Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Information You Provide Directly

When you use AccreditedNow.org we collect the following categories of personal information:

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our website we automatically collect certain technical information including your IP address, approximate location (such as your U.S. state) derived from your IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, and time spent on pages. This information is used to improve our website and, in the case of approximate location, may be included in the lead profile associated with your submission. Technical information is not sold to third parties except as described in the "Data Sharing and Sale" section, and only if you have opted in. We retain automatically collected technical information for up to 24 months, after which it is deleted or aggregated into non-identifying statistics.

Information from Third Parties

We use third-party services including Abstract API for email validation, Uploadcare for secure document storage, Stripe for payment processing, MailerLite for email communications, Anthropic for the automated document-review steps described in Section 4 and Section 4A, Didit for the optional identity verification, sanctions/PEP screening, ongoing monitoring, and entity business verification (KYB) described in Section 5, and ipapi.co for approximate location lookup from IP address. These services may collect additional information subject to their own privacy policies.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To deliver your accredited investor self-assessment results and printable certificate
• To provide CPA verification services when requested and paid for
• To send you the welcome email sequence and investment-related communications you consented to receive
• To add you to our email marketing list in the appropriate subscriber group
• To introduce you — only if you opt in by checking the optional consent box on our form — to third-party investment sponsors, fund managers, real estate syndicators, and financial service providers whose offerings match your stated interests, by sharing your name, email, and investment preferences (never your mobile phone number). We do not sell your information to data brokers or general marketing lists
• To maintain our lead database and prevent duplicate records
• To improve our website, services, and user experience
• To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service
• To send transactional emails including payment confirmations and CPA verification updates
• To send transactional text messages, such as letting you know your CPA-signed verification letter is ready, when you have provided a mobile phone number (message and data rates may apply; reply STOP to opt out)

3. How We Share Your Information

If You Opt In, We Introduce You To:

With your permission, and only if you check the optional box on our form, we share your name, email, and investment preferences (never your mobile phone number) so these firms can follow up with you about opportunities that may fit your interests. You control this and can withdraw at any time by emailing optout@accreditednow.org. If you do not opt in, we do not share your information with any of them.

• Investment Sponsors and Fund Managers — companies offering private equity, venture capital, hedge fund, and Regulation D investment opportunities
• Real Estate Syndicators — companies offering private real estate investment opportunities
• Financial Service Providers — registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, and financial planning firms

Information We Share:

• Your name and email address
• Your state of residence
• Your net worth range and investment interests
• Whether you self-reported as qualifying as an accredited investor
• Whether your email address has been confirmed

Information We Never Share:

• Financial documents submitted for CPA verification (tax returns, W-2s, brokerage statements)
• Your actual net worth or income figures
• Payment information (handled entirely by Stripe)
• Passwords or authentication credentials
• Your mobile phone number and your consent to receive text messages (used only to send you transactional updates about your verification, such as when your letter is ready)

"Never shared" here means we never disclose these to investment sponsors, fund managers, syndicators, marketers, or any other party for that party's own purposes, and we never sell them. It does not restrict the secure service providers listed immediately below, who process this information solely to deliver the service you purchased and only under our instructions.

Verification You Request Through a Sponsor

When you begin an accredited-investor verification through a link from an investment sponsor, fund manager, or syndicator who is covering (paying for) that verification, your signed verification letter and your accredited-investor status are shared with that specific sponsor. This is the service you asked us to perform — the verification exists so that sponsor can rely on your accredited status for their offering — so it is not a sale, is not the optional marketing sharing described above, and is not governed by that consent box. It is limited to the one sponsor whose link you used. Your uploaded financial documents, the automated summary derived from them, and your actual net worth or income figures are never shared with the sponsor. If you would rather not share your result with a sponsor, do not proceed with a sponsor-covered verification — you can verify on your own instead and then choose whether to share the letter yourself.

The same limited sharing applies if you pay for your own verification but arrived through a sponsor's branded link and choose to authorize sharing (an optional checkbox on the form): your signed verification letter and accredited-investor status — but never your uploaded financial documents, the summary derived from them, or your actual net worth or income figures — are shared with that one sponsor. If you do not check that box, nothing about your verification is shared with the sponsor.

Service Providers

We share information with service providers who help us operate our business including Airtable (database), MailerLite (email marketing), Make.com (automation), Uploadcare (document storage), Stripe (payments), Abstract API (email validation), Anthropic (automated document review — see Section 4), Didit (identity verification, sanctions/PEP screening, ongoing monitoring, and entity business verification — see Section 5), and Vercel (web hosting). These providers are contractually prohibited from using your data for their own marketing purposes.

Legal Requirements

If we receive a subpoena, a regulatory inquiry or notice of a legal claim that concerns your records, we may keep the affected records beyond the deletion periods described in this policy for as long as the matter requires, and then delete them on the normal schedule.

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or government authority, or if we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of AccreditedNow LLC, our users, or the public.

Business Transfers

If AccreditedNow LLC is acquired, merged, or sells substantially all of its assets, your information may be transferred to the acquiring entity. We will notify you via email of any such change in ownership.

4. Financial Documents — Special Protections

Documents submitted through our licensed CPA verification service (verify.html) including tax returns, W-2s, 1099s, brokerage statements, bank statements, FINRA license copies, and the government-issued photo ID required with every verification are:

• Encrypted in transit using TLS 1.3 encryption
• Stored with AES-256 encryption at rest via Uploadcare's secure servers
• Reviewed by your assigned licensed CPA, the one person who decides your verification (an automated step prepares their work paper first, and our team accesses the documents only to resolve an issue with your case)
• Processed by an automated document-review step before that review, described immediately below
• Never sold, and never disclosed to investment sponsors, marketing partners, or any other party for that party's own purposes
• Permanently deleted from our systems 90 days after your verification letter is issued, together with the detailed automated work paper derived from them. (We keep a limited verification determination record as a compliance and audit record on a longer track — see "Records We Keep to Evidence Your Verification" below.)
• Retained longer only at your explicit written request. (Separately, the results of any identity, screening, monitoring, or business-verification checks are kept as compliance records on a longer track under Section 5; those results are stored by us, while the underlying biometric image and any KYB ownership documents are held by our verification provider, not in our systems.)

Automated Document Review

To reduce errors and shorten turnaround, your uploaded documents are processed by an automated review step before your CPA reads them. This step transmits the documents to Anthropic, our artificial-intelligence service provider, which extracts the assets, liabilities, income figures, and document dates they contain and returns a structured summary — a work paper — that your CPA uses as a starting point.

Three things about this step matter, and we state them plainly:

• It never makes the decision. The automated step does not verify, approve, or decline anything, and it cannot change the status of your case. A licensed CPA reviews the underlying documents and makes the determination. The summary is a convenience for that CPA, not a substitute for their judgment.
• Your documents are not used to train artificial-intelligence models. Our agreement with Anthropic prohibits it, and this processing is not retained by Anthropic for training purposes.
• The summary is treated exactly like the documents. It is stored under the same access controls, is never sold or disclosed to sponsors or marketers, and is deleted on the same 90-day schedule as the documents it was derived from.

If you would prefer that your documents skip the automated review step and go directly to your CPA, email info@accreditednow.org before you upload and we will process your case manually at no additional cost. Choosing manual review may add time to your turnaround.

Records We Keep to Evidence Your Verification

When your CPA issues your verification, we create and keep a verification determination record. This is a compliance and audit record — evidence that a licensed CPA performed a proper review of your accredited-investor status — and it is an express exception to the 90-day deletion described above. We retain it for the period required by our record-keeping and professional obligations, generally up to five (5) years from the date your letter is issued, and longer where the law requires.

The verification determination record is limited to a summary of your verification. It contains:

• the fact that your verification was performed, its result, and the accreditation basis relied on (for example, the income test or the net-worth test);
• your name and the city and state shown on your letter, and, for an entity, the entity name;
• the name and license of the CPA who signed your letter, and the issue and expiration dates;
• a list of the categories of documents your CPA reviewed (for example, "federal tax return (2023)" or "brokerage statement") — the category and any year only, never your original file names — each accompanied by a cryptographic fingerprint (a hash) that lets us confirm a document's authenticity later without keeping the document itself; and
• a brief statement of the basis for the determination, along with technical record-keeping details such as an integrity checksum of your issued letter.

The verification determination record does not contain your uploaded documents, and it does not keep the detailed financial figures, account numbers, or balances beyond the short summary needed to record the basis for your verification. Your uploaded documents and the detailed work paper are still permanently deleted on the 90-day schedule described above. Like our other compliance records, this record is never sold and never disclosed to any party for that party's own purposes; where your verification was performed for a specific sponsor's offering, your verified status may be shared with that sponsor, as described in Section 5.

4A. CPA Net Worth Statements and Income Letters

This section applies when you order a CPA net worth statement or a CPA income letter.

Information About Other People

An order can list more than one person, such as a spouse or co-applicant. The person who places the order confirms they have permission from each person listed to provide that person's information and documents. We use them only to prepare that person's statement or letter.

How the Documents Are Handled

The documents receive the same protections described in Section 4: encrypted in transit and at rest, reviewed by the licensed CPA who prepares and signs your statement or letter, accessed by our team only to resolve an issue with your order, never sold, and never disclosed to any other party for that party's own purposes.

Automated Review

Before the CPA reads them, your documents are processed by the same automated review step described in Section 4 (Anthropic), which extracts figures to prepare a draft for the CPA. It never decides anything: the CPA reviews the documents and signs the statement or letter. Your documents are not used to train artificial-intelligence models.

Who Receives Your Statement or Letter

We deliver it to the person who placed the order. We do not send it to the board, landlord or lender. You choose whether to share it.

The Public Check

Each statement or letter carries a Statement ID or Letter ID and a QR code. Anyone who enters the ID on our statement lookup page can see the name of the person it covers, who it was prepared for, its dates, the signing CPA's name, firm and license number, and a digital fingerprint that confirms a copy is unaltered. The check never shows financial figures, account details or contact information.

No Marketing Use

Information from these orders is not used for partner introductions, is not added to marketing email lists, and your phone number is not used for text messages.

How Long We Keep It

Your uploaded documents, the automated review's summary and the CPA's working drafts are permanently deleted 90 days after your statement or letter is delivered. We keep the signed statement or letter and a record of the order (names, dates, the recipient named, the Statement ID or Letter ID and its digital fingerprint) for five years after delivery, so that the public check keeps working and the CPA has a record of what was signed. If an order is cancelled before delivery, its uploaded documents, summaries and drafts are permanently deleted 90 days after it is cancelled.

5. Identity Verification and Sanctions Screening

Identity Verification

To confirm you are who you say you are, the identity check collects images of your government-issued photo ID (such as a driver's license, passport, or state ID) and a facial image (a selfie) with a liveness check that confirms a live person is present. This step is performed by our identity-verification provider, Didit, and is used for the sole purpose of confirming your identity for the verification. You consent to it at the moment the check is performed. If you would rather not complete an automated identity check, you can upload a photo of your government-issued ID instead and your CPA will review it manually.

Biometric Information

The facial image and liveness check involve biometric information — a scan of facial geometry used to match your selfie to your photo ID. Several states give this data special legal protection, notably Illinois (the Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA), Texas (the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act), and Washington. We state our practices below as our written biometric policy:

• Consent before collection. We obtain your informed consent before any biometric information is collected. You give it by checking the consent box presented before the identity check begins. If you do not consent, no biometric information is collected — you upload a photo of your government-issued ID and your CPA reviews it manually instead.
• Used only to verify your identity. We do not use biometric information for advertising, profiling, or any purpose other than confirming your identity for this verification.
• Never sold, never profited from. We do not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from your biometric information, and we never disclose it to sponsors, marketers, or any other party for that party's own purposes.
• Not used to train artificial-intelligence models.
• Retention and destruction schedule. AccreditedNow does not retain the facial image or the underlying facial-geometry data at all. The image is collected and held only by our identity-verification provider, Didit, solely to perform the check, and is destroyed when the purpose of the check has been satisfied or within three (3) years of your last interaction with us, whichever occurs first — consistent with the maximum retention period under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. AccreditedNow keeps only the outcome of the check (verified or not), never the image.

Sanctions and Watchlist Screening

The onboarding add-on also screens your name and date of birth against government sanctions lists and politically-exposed-person (PEP) databases, so that the sponsor and your CPA can rely on a completed anti-money-laundering (AML) check. We record the result of that screening (for example, cleared or flagged for review). This screening is performed by Didit on our behalf. Screening is informational: it is checked against third-party and government data that may be incomplete or out of date, a result is not a guarantee, and a flagged result is routed to a licensed CPA for review — it is never an automatic decline.

Ongoing Monitoring

Where a sponsor elects it for its investors, the sanctions/PEP screening may be extended into ongoing monitoring — your name is re-screened against watchlist changes on a recurring basis so a new match that appears after your initial check can be surfaced. When it applies, monitoring runs for a limited term (by default up to five years), after which it ends unless renewed. We keep only the monitoring result and its dates, on the compliance-records track described below; the same "informational, not a guarantee, reviewed by a CPA" limits apply. Monitoring is performed by Didit on our behalf and applies only to cases a sponsor has enrolled — it does not apply to a self-paid individual verification.

Business Verification (KYB) for Entities

When an entity (such as an LLC, trust, or fund) is being verified and the business-verification (KYB) add-on applies, we also verify the entity itself. This confirms the entity's registration and good standing in official government business registries, screens the entity against the sanctions/PEP lists above, and reviews the ownership documents you provide (such as a certificate of formation, articles of organization, or an operating agreement) to identify the entity's beneficial owners. Registry data is retrieved, and the ownership documents are collected and processed, by Didit on our behalf. Those KYB ownership documents are held by Didit under its own retention schedule, not in our systems — AccreditedNow keeps only the KYB result (verified or not) as a compliance record on the track described below. If a document you provide for KYB is also needed for your CPA's accreditation review, the copy you upload for that review is a separate copy held in our systems and handled under Section 4 (including deletion on the 90-day schedule), independent of the KYB copy held by Didit. KYB applies only to entity cases with the add-on; nothing in this subsection applies to an individual verification.

How Long We Keep Identity, Screening, Monitoring, and KYB Records

Unlike the financial documents in Section 4, which are permanently deleted 90 days after your letter is issued, the results of your identity check, sanctions/PEP screening, ongoing monitoring, and business verification are retained by AccreditedNow as compliance records (evidence that a required check was performed) for the period required by law and our record-keeping obligations, which for these anti-money-laundering and identity records is generally about five years and may be longer where the law requires. This longer compliance-records track is an express exception to the 90-day deletion in Section 4. As noted above, the biometric facial image and the KYB ownership documents themselves are not retained by AccreditedNow — they are held only by our provider, Didit, under its own schedule; we keep the results, not the underlying images or documents. These records are never sold and never disclosed to any party for that party's own purposes; the verified/screened status may be shown to the sponsor whose offering you are being onboarded for, as the whole purpose of the add-on.

6. Cookies and Tracking

Our website uses minimal cookies and tracking technologies:

• Essential cookies — required for the website to function correctly
• Analytics — we may use basic analytics to understand how visitors use our site
• Advertising & conversion tracking — we use Google Ads conversion tracking, Google Analytics (GA4), and the LinkedIn Insight Tag to measure advertising performance, understand which campaigns bring visitors to us, and show our ads to people who have visited this site. These tools set cookies and tags in your browser and may record the pages you view here. We do not sell the data collected by these tools. You can opt out of LinkedIn ad targeting in your LinkedIn account settings, and of Google ad personalization at adssettings.google.com

You can disable cookies in your browser settings. This may affect some website functionality but will not prevent you from using our core services.

7. Data Security

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your information:

• All data transmitted to and from our website is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS
• Lead data is stored in Airtable with access controls limiting who can view records
• API keys and credentials are stored securely and not exposed publicly
• Email validation via Abstract API helps prevent fraudulent submissions
• Payment processing is handled entirely by Stripe — we never store credit card information; sponsors who turn on automatic reorder keep a card saved with Stripe, removable anytime from their dashboard

While we take reasonable precautions no data transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your information. In the event of a data breach we will notify affected users as required by applicable law.

8. Your Rights and Choices

Opt Out of Data Sharing and Sale

You may opt out of the sharing or sale of your personal information at any time using our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page, or by emailing optout@accreditednow.org with your name and email address. We also honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signals as a valid opt-out request. We will process your request within 15 business days and remove you from all data sharing and sale lists.

Unsubscribe from Marketing Emails

Every marketing email we send includes an unsubscribe link. You may also email optout@accreditednow.org to be removed from our email list.

SMS / Text Messages

If you provide your mobile phone number during checkout or verification, we may send you a transactional text message to let you know your CPA-signed verification letter is ready, or a similar status update about a verification you have requested. Message frequency varies and is tied to the status of your verification; in most cases you will receive a single message when your letter is issued. We do not send marketing or promotional text messages.

Message and data rates may apply. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any message; reply HELP for help, or contact us at info@accreditednow.org. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

We do not share or sell the mobile phone number you provide, or your consent to receive text messages, with any third party or affiliate for marketing or promotional purposes. Your mobile number is used solely to send the transactional verification updates described above. It is never included in the information shared under Section 3: even if you opt in to sharing your other contact information with investment sponsors, your mobile number is excluded, so those firms never receive it for calls, texts, or any other outreach.

Access and Correction

You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you or request corrections to inaccurate information by emailing info@accreditednow.org.

Deletion

You may request deletion of your personal information by emailing optout@accreditednow.org. Note that we may retain certain information as required by law or for legitimate business purposes such as fraud prevention.

Data Portability

You may request a copy of your personal information in a portable format by emailing info@accreditednow.org.

9. California Residents — CCPA Rights

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants you additional rights regarding your personal information:

Right to Know

You have the right to request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources, our business purpose for collecting or selling it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it.

Right to Delete

You have the right to request deletion of personal information we have collected about you, subject to certain exceptions.

Right to Opt Out of Sale

You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. To exercise this right, use our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page or email optout@accreditednow.org with subject line "CCPA Opt Out." We will process your request within 15 business days. We also honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signals as a valid opt-out request.

Right to Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights. You will receive the same quality of service regardless of whether you opt out of data sale.

How to Submit a CCPA Request

Email info@accreditednow.org or optout@accreditednow.org with your full name, email address, and the specific right you wish to exercise. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request.

Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information to data brokers, marketing partners, or general marketing lists. With your opt-in consent and at your direction, we share limited contact information (name, email, investment preferences — never your mobile phone number) with investment sponsors and financial service providers so they can follow up with you; you may withdraw at any time via our Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information page or by emailing optout@accreditednow.org.

10. Children's Privacy

AccreditedNow.org is intended for adults aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18 years of age. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a minor we will delete it immediately. If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a minor please contact us at info@accreditednow.org.

11. Changes to This Policy

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
• Send an email notification to subscribers on our list
• Post a prominent notice on our website for 30 days

Your continued use of AccreditedNow.org after the effective date of any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

12. Contact Us

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

We will respond to all privacy-related inquiries within 10 business days.