Privacy Policy

Phantom Grid is a service of Phantom Grid LLC, an Illinois limited liability company, which is the entity responsible for the data described here.

What we hold, and why:

• Account data. Your email and sign-in identity, used only to authenticate you.
• Utility data you approve. What your utility shares with your approval: your usage, your bills, and, only if you choose, account and service details.
• Free-tool inputs. If you use the free reconcile tool, the usage file and the bill figures you enter. We use the file once to show your result, and we do not keep it.
• Uploaded bills. We keep the text of the bill you upload, with your name, address and account number removed. We never sell or share what we keep. If our own reader cannot read your bill, we send its text to Google, our AI provider, to read it. In that case we keep the layout of the page, with every name, address and number removed, so our reader can learn it.
• A bill you ask us to keep. If our reader cannot read your bill and you tick the box asking us to keep it, we store that one PDF for up to 30 days, encrypted, and only we can open it. We use it only to teach our reader that layout. We email you when your reading is ready, or once at day 30 if it is not. We delete the file when your reading is delivered or at day 30, whichever comes first, and the deletion is automatic. If you do not tick the box, we never keep the PDF.
• Usage data requests. If you ask us to request your usage data from your utility, we record that you asked, when, the exact wording you agreed to, the Electric Choice ID and meter number from your bill, and your email address. The Electric Choice ID and meter number are deleted once the request has been submitted. We keep the record that you agreed, as proof that you did.
• The wait for ComEd’s confirmation. A request is not submitted until ComEd says so, by email, usually within seconds. We keep the Electric Choice ID and meter number until then. If it does not arrive, we delete them anyway within an hour of sending the request. A timer does that, and it runs whether or not the confirmation ever comes.
• Utility account connections. When you connect your ComEd account, we record that you agreed, what you chose to share and for how long, your email address if you have no account with us, and the ComEd account number you entered. The account number is deleted automatically within 48 hours. We keep the record that you agreed, for the same reason as above. If you connect your Ameren Illinois account, we securely keep the access it gives us, so we can read the usage data you approved.
• A record that an upload happened. Apart from the bill, we keep a short note of each upload: when it arrived, which of our pages it came from, whether we could read it, which bill format it was, which utility issued it and which rate class it was on, and whether you got a reading. The format is worked out from the labels printed on the bill, not from who you are. The note also carries a random number your browser makes, so we can tell a returning visitor from a new one when we count people served. That number is not made from you, your bill, your device or your network address, and it cannot be traced back to any of them. We do not record your IP address with it. The random number is deleted automatically 180 days after the upload; the count of uploads stays.

We use your utility data only to check your bill and show you what we found, and where each number comes from. We do not use it to build advertising profiles or to train models for unrelated purposes.

We never sell your data and we never share it with installers, vendors, financiers, or data brokers. Phantom Grid takes no commission, so there is no incentive to. Your data is used to serve you, and for nothing else.

We read utility data only after you approve it, and only the data you approve. Access is read-only. We ask for the shortest time that does the job, and you get a record of exactly what you approved.

You revoke Phantom Grid’s access with your utility, which is the system of record for the authorization. Phantom Grid does not currently offer a revocation control of its own. On revocation we stop reading new data; you may also ask us to delete the data we hold, at admin@phantomgrid.io.

We keep your utility data for as long as needed to provide the verification you asked for, and delete or anonymize it on request or when an authorization ends, subject to any legal retention obligations.

You can ask us to access, correct, export, or delete the data we hold about you, and you can revoke utility-data access with your utility at any time. We don’t sell your data, so there is nothing to opt out of selling. To make a request, email admin@phantomgrid.io; we’ll verify it’s really you before acting, and we won’t penalize you for exercising these rights.

A few companies handle data for us, each only on our instructions:

• Google: sign-in, and running and storing the service. Google is also our AI provider. When our own reader cannot read a bill, Google receives the text of that bill, only in that case, and returns the figures printed on it. See Uploaded bills.
• Stripe: payment processing for paid verifications. You enter your card details on Stripe’s own checkout; your card number never reaches our servers and we do not store it.
• Google Analytics: Google LLC measures how the site is used. It sets a pseudonymous identifier for your browser, records which pages you open and which steps you reach, and receives your IP address to derive an approximate location. Those records are per visit, not totals, and we keep a copy of them to study how the site is used. We never send it your name, your email, your bill, or any figure taken from your bill.
• Resend: sends our email, such as your reading, a link to confirm it is you, and our own alert that a request came in. It receives the email address and the message.
• Twilio: carries text messages. Two separate uses: the internal lead alert to our own number, and, for customers who ticked the optional consent box, the single message telling them their report is ready. It receives the mobile number and the message, nothing else, and never uses either for its own purposes. See Text messages.

Your utility (e.g. ComEd) is the source of the energy data and governs its own systems. We use analytics only to understand and improve the service — never to build advertising profiles, and never to sell your behavior.

Phantom Grid operates one text message programme. It sends a single message telling you that the electricity report you asked for is ready to view. There is no marketing programme, no promotional programme and no recurring messages of any kind.

• You only receive it if you ask for it. Consent is given by ticking a box that is unchecked by default and is never bundled with anything else. Declining does not affect the service: your report request proceeds either way. The exact wording, and a working copy of the control, is published at phantomgrid.io/sms.
• Message frequency is one message per report request. We do not send on a schedule.
• Reply STOP to any message to opt out, or HELP for help. You can also email admin@phantomgrid.io and we will remove your number.
• Message and data rates may apply. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
• No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Mobile numbers and consent records are never sold, rented or disclosed to third parties, affiliates or data brokers for any purpose. We run no affiliate marketing and no third-party lead generation.
• Retention. A number given with a report request is deleted once that report has been sent. A number registered at phantomgrid.io/sms is held with the consent wording it was given under until you ask us to remove it.

Separately, and unrelated to the above, one internal alert goes to our own mobile number when someone submits a lead through this site. That number is ours, not a visitor’s.

We protect data in transit and at rest and limit access to what is necessary to operate the service. No system is perfectly secure, but read-only, least-privilege access is our default posture.

If we change this policy materially, we will note the change rather than silently editing, and update the “last updated” date above.

September 19, 2026: we now keep the text of each bill you upload, with your name, address and account number removed. Until then we kept only what you asked us to keep.

Privacy questions or data requests: admin@phantomgrid.io.