Privacy & data handling
What happens to an invoice you give DDClear
Last reviewed 5 September 2026.
The short version
- No account or card needed to check an invoice. DDClear asks who you are only if you choose to save a dispute file to an account; the check itself never does.
- On a free check DDClear stores no invoice — not in a database, not in the page address, not in your browser. The check exists in memory and then it is gone.
- The free checker stores nothing. Dispute files are saved to your account, with any deadline DDClear could compute shown on the file — DDClear does not send reminders, so put the date in your own diary. Delete anytime. DDClear does not store your original invoice file — it is saved only if you attach it to a dispute file and agree at that moment.
- To read an invoice, DDClear has to send it to the two AI reading services named below. That is the one moment your file leaves, and it only happens on the upload / paste path.
- The manual form and the three-date quick check send nothing at all — DDClear runs those entirely in your browser.
- If you create an account, DDClear stores the email address and name your sign-in passes to it, your organisation's name, and the dispute files you choose to save — nothing from a free check.
- DDClear sells nothing about you to anyone, shows no advertising, and sends no email — there is no mailing list to be on.
Who this is written for, and who is writing it
DDClear is a tool for businesses — drayage motor carriers and the people who dispatch for them — and this page is written for the office manager deciding whether to drop a customer's invoice into it. DDClear is run by its founder, Matt Rusin, and the address for anything on this page is matt@ddclearapp.com. It is one person, and one person reads that inbox.
What happens to your invoice
To read your invoice, DDClear sends it to two third-party AI services — Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini). DDClear keeps no copy of it. Nothing confidential is stored. DDClear's free checker stores nothing. Saving a dispute file to an account is a separate, opt-in choice.
- You upload or paste it, and DDClear sends the file or text to two third-party AI services — Anthropic's Claude API and Google's Gemini API — and uses the fields they return.
- DDClear's own rules engine judges it: deterministic code, not AI, makes every pass, fail or void determination against 46 CFR Part 541.
- On a free check, DDClear keeps your invoice in memory for the length of the check and stores no copy afterwards — nothing goes into a database, the page address, or your browser's storage.
- If you save a dispute file to a DDClear account, DDClear stores the invoice fields, the findings, the deadlines it computed and any evidence you add — but not the original invoice file, unless you attach it and agree at that moment. You can delete a dispute file at any time: DDClear removes it immediately, purges it within 7 days, and purges everything 90 days after a subscription is cancelled. DDClear's free checker stores nothing.
What Anthropic and Google do with what they receive is governed by their own terms, which DDClear does not restate here:
Read them before you send an invoice you are not free to share.
Accounts and signing in
You never need an account to check an invoice. You need one only to save a dispute file, and the first thing the save dialog does is ask your permission — before any sign-in code has loaded.
Sign-in is handled by Clerk, an outside authentication service. Nothing from Clerk loads on the free checker: its script runs only inside the save dialog after you tick the consent box, and on the signed-in pages. From that point Clerk sets its own cookies in your browser, under its own privacy policy.
If you choose Sign in with Google, DDClear (through Clerk) asks Google for three permissions — openid, email and profile — and receives your email address, your name, and the web address of your profile picture if your account has one. DDClear uses that information for one purpose: to create your account and sign you in. DDClear does not sell it, does not share it with anyone else, does not use it for advertising, and asks for no other Google permission — it never touches your Gmail, Drive, Calendar or contacts.
Of what the sign-in passes to it, DDClear stores your email address and your name (if you gave one) in its own database, along with your organisation's name — the minimum needed to show you your own dispute files and nobody else's. DDClear does not store your profile picture; the account menu shows the one your sign-in service holds.
DDClear keeps a copy of each account event the sign-in service sends it — created, updated, deleted — for 30 days, so that a repeated delivery of the same event cannot be applied twice, then purges it. Those copies include every email address on the account.
What the sign-in services do with what they receive is governed by their own policies, which DDClear does not restate here:
What a saved dispute file holds
A dispute file is the check you just ran, kept. When you save one, DDClear stores, under your organisation:
- The invoice fields DDClear read or you typed: who billed you, the invoice number, the bill of lading number, the amount, the container numbers, and the dates the check turns on — invoice date, the date you received it, the last day a charge was incurred, and the equipment return date.
- The engine's exact input and exact output for that check, with the version of the rules that produced it — so the result can be replayed later and come out the same.
- Every deadline DDClear could compute, the basis it used, and any change you make to the file afterwards.
- Which account created the file, and your organisation's time zone.
When you tick the box to save a dispute file, DDClear records that you did: the version and a fingerprint of the exact text you agreed to, the time, your IP address and your browser's identification string. That record is what proves what was promised to you when the file was saved.
DDClear does not store your original invoice file — it is saved only if you attach it to a dispute file and agree at that moment. Evidence upload is not built yet; when it is, evidence you attach will be stored under the same rules as the file it belongs to, and this page will say where.
Deletion — the promise, in plain terms
DDClear deletes your invoice when the check ends. It exists inside DDClear only while the check is running — held in memory for those few seconds — and DDClear writes no copy of it to a database, to the page address, or to your browser's storage. When your result renders, the working copy is gone. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.
The free checker has no account, so there is no history of past checks to go back through and nothing anyone could ask DDClear to hand over for one. If you save a dispute file to an account, that is stored — and the delete control sits on the file itself, at the bottom of the page for that file. You can delete a dispute file at any time: DDClear removes it immediately and purges it within 7 days. If you cancel, DDClear keeps your dispute files and evidence for 90 days so you can export them, then purges them automatically.
You can delete your account from the account menu on any signed-in page, or by emailing matt@ddclearapp.com. DDClear removes your record immediately and purges it within 7 days. Deleting your organisation puts its dispute files on the same clock.
The dispute letter DDClear drafts is generated in your browser from the result on screen. DDClear does not send it, does not receive a copy, and does not contact the carrier or equipment provider for you — you review it and send it in your own name.
Where DDClear runs, and what its servers see
DDClear's code runs on Vercel, so every request to DDClear — including an invoice you upload — passes through Vercel's servers, and DDClear stores account data and dispute files in a Postgres database hosted by Neon. DDClear uses both for one thing: running DDClear.
When a read of an invoice fails, DDClear's server log records that it failed and which of three fixed kinds of failure it was. DDClear writes neither the invoice nor your network address to that log.
To keep the free checker from being drained by a script, DDClear counts requests per network address in the memory of the running server. DDClear writes that count nowhere; it is gone when the server restarts.
DDClear uses Vercel Web Analytics to count page views and five named events (a check started, a result shown, a letter generated, the save dialog opened, a save completed). It sets no cookie and writes nothing to your browser's storage, and the event data is a handful of short category labels — never an invoice field.
Both hosting services keep the operational records any hosting service keeps, under their own notices:
What DDClear does not do
- Sell or rent anything about you. Not your email address, not your organisation's name, not the contents of a dispute file, not the fact that you checked an invoice from a particular carrier. To nobody, for nothing.
- Advertise. There are no ad networks on this site, no tracking pixels, and no cross-site cookies. A “do not track” or Global Privacy Control signal from your browser changes nothing, because there is nothing for it to turn off.
- Email you. DDClear sends no email of any kind today — no reminders, no newsletter, no follow-up after a check. The free checker has no email field.
- Text you. DDClear collects no phone number.
- Watch a deadline for you. A saved file shows every deadline DDClear could compute, but nothing notifies you when one is near. Put the date in your own diary.
“Deterministic rules engine” — what that actually means
It means the part of DDClear that decides anything is ordinary code, not AI. A fixed list of rules, walked in a fixed order: is this element on the invoice, yes or no; is the gap between these two dates more than thirty days, yes or no. Nothing in it is a judgement call, and nothing in it is generated.
Two things follow from that, and they are the reason it is built this way:
- The same invoice always produces the same result. Run it twice, run it next year, run it on someone else's machine — the answer does not wander, because no model is being asked to have an opinion.
- Every finding names the rule it came from, with a link to the regulation itself. You can check DDClear's work line by line instead of taking its word, which is what makes a result usable in front of a carrier.
The AI has exactly one job: reading. It turns a PDF or a photo into fields — invoice date, container number, rate. It is never asked whether a charge is owed, and its output is treated as data to be judged, not as an answer. Where the two models that read your invoice disagree, DDClear asks you rather than picking a side.
Your rights over what DDClear holds
Whatever the law where you are says, the offer is the same: email matt@ddclearapp.com from the address on your account and DDClear will tell you what it holds about you, give you a copy, correct it, or delete it. You do not need to give a reason. DDClear will not treat you differently for asking.
DDClear is a business tool and does not meet the thresholds that bring the California Consumer Privacy Act to bear — it is nowhere near the revenue line, holds data on nowhere near the number of Californians the law counts, and sells no personal information. If that ever changes, this page changes first. The same goes for the other state privacy laws written in the California mould.
DDClear is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has created an account, email the address above and DDClear will delete it.
If something goes wrong
If DDClear learns that account data it holds has been read or taken by someone who should not have had it, DDClear will tell every affected account holder at the email address on the account, say what was involved, and notify any authority the law requires — as soon as it can, and no later than the law where you are allows.
When this page changes, the review date at the top changes with it. If a change affects what DDClear stores about a saved dispute file, the save dialog carries a new version of its text and asks you to agree again before you save another one — that is what the consent version is for.
The honest position
DDClear is new and one person builds it. There is no badge to show you, and this page is not going to imply one. What protects your invoice here is structural rather than promissory: DDClear's free checker stores nothing, so a check leaves no archive to breach; what a saved dispute file holds is listed above and you can delete it; and the only moment a file leaves is the one described above, in the words of the services that receive it.
If you are not free to share a customer's commercial invoice with an outside service, use the manual form or the three-date quick check. Both stay on your machine, and both run the same rules engine.
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DDClear provides invoice-compliance analysis, not legal advice. Dispute outcomes depend on facts and forum. Consult a maritime attorney for case-specific guidance.