Privacy Policy

1. Who we are, and what this console is

Palmetto Surety Corporation (“Palmetto”, “we”) is a surety company based in Mt Pleasant, South Carolina. This policy covers the eBOND operations console at this address and the service behind it. It does not cover Palmetto's other systems, and it does not cover the jail, court and bail-network systems the console reads from.

The console is private and invitation-only. Accounts exist for licensed bail agents of agencies enrolled with Palmetto, for managing general agents overseeing those agencies, and for Palmetto staff. There is no public sign-up, no visitor account and no marketing list.

If you are a defendant, an indemnitor or a member of the public, you have no account here. Information about a bond you are named in reaches this console through the bail network and the agency that wrote the bond. Call or write to us using the details at the end of this page and we will point your question to the right place.

2. What we keep about an operator

An account here is deliberately thin. For each person with access, the console holds:

• the display name a Palmetto administrator entered for the account;
• the mobile number that account signs in with, which is the credential itself -- there is no password;
• the assigned role (agent, MGA manager, Palmetto administrator) and the agency or MGA the account is attached to;
• whether the account is in service or has been withdrawn; and
• the time of the most recent sign-in, together with when the account was created and last changed.

We do not ask for an email address, a date of birth, a photograph, a government identifier or a payment method, and the console has no field to put one in. Licence, appointment and authority details for an agency and its agents come from Palmetto's own agency records rather than from anything typed here.

3. Signing in: one-time codes and sessions

Signing in means entering your mobile number -- and, for agency users, your agency number -- and then a six-digit code texted to that handset.

• The code is never stored in a form anyone can read. Only a keyed hash of it is kept, tied to the account it was issued for.
• A code expires five minutes after it is issued, allows only a handful of attempts, and is deleted as soon as it is used, replaced or expired.
• A successful sign-in opens a session lasting at most twelve hours. The token in your browser is random and meaningless on its own; the server keeps only a hash of it, and clears expired sessions away.
• Sign-in requests and code attempts are counted per phone number and per network address so the flow cannot be hammered. Those counters are held in the server's memory and are not written down.

The number itself is used to text you a sign-in code when one is asked for, and -- for the Palmetto staff whose numbers are registered for them -- to text operational alerts about the console. That is all it is used for. One message goes out per code requested or resent, only in response to a sign-in attempt, and never for marketing: the number is not added to any list, and it is not sold, rented or traded. It reaches Twilio, which delivers the text, and your carrier, which carries it; nowhere else.

You can stop the texts by replying STOP to one of them, and resume them by replying START to the same number. Because the number is the credential, stopping them stops the sign-in codes too, and the account cannot be used until they are resumed. Nothing is deleted when you do -- the number stays registered to the account and the access stays as it was -- and if you cannot get back in, call the number at the end of this page.

Signing out ends the session immediately, at both ends.

4. Cookies, analytics and tracking

The console sets exactly one cookie, named epower_session. It carries the session token described above, is marked http-only so no script can read it, is limited to this site, is sent over HTTPS, and expires with the session or when you sign out. It is strictly necessary: without it the console cannot tell one signed-in operator from another.

There is nothing else. No analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels, no session recording, no fingerprinting and no social widgets. We do not sell or rent information about you, and we build no profile of you. That is also why the console shows no cookie banner -- there is no optional cookie here for you to decline.

The one outside request an ordinary page load makes is for the typefaces the console is set in, which the browser fetches from Google Fonts. Like any request to any server, it carries your network address; it carries nothing about your account or your work.

5. Defendant and booking information

The console collects nothing from defendants. Names, inmate and booking identifiers, booking dates, the jurisdiction (parish or county) and bondable offence details are read from the eBONDS / iGuarantee bail network, which takes them from the booking systems of the jails it serves. Palmetto is not the origin of that information and cannot correct it at source.

While an agent is searching, results are held briefly in the server's working memory -- around a minute, never more than five -- so that paging through a search does not re-ask the network for the same list. Searching alone writes nothing to our database, and closing the search leaves nothing behind.

Submitting a bond changes that. The defendant's name, the inmate and booking identifiers, the booking date, the jurisdiction and the offences bonded are written into the execution record, alongside the powers used, the amounts, the agency and the operator who submitted it. That record is the surety's account of an obligation it has taken on, and it stays.

6. The operator audit trail

Every consequential action is recorded: a power reserved, issued, released or voided, a bond submitted, an authority limit changed, a person's role or agency assignment changed. Each entry names the account that acted, what changed and from what to what, the bond or agency concerned, and when. Automated processes -- the vendor poster, the reservation sweeper, the directory sync -- record their own name in the same way, so no action is left looking as though a person performed it.

The trail is append-only. Entries are not edited, and the console has no way to delete one. They outlast the accounts they name: an operator who leaves keeps their name on the limits they changed and the access they granted, because a surety record has to stay attributable years after the person has moved on. Role and access history keeps a snapshot of the person's name and number as they stood at the time, so the record still reads correctly once the account itself is gone.

7. Who else receives information

Running this console means information reaches a small number of outside parties, each for a single purpose:

Twilio -- text message delivery

Receives your mobile number and the text carrying your one-time sign-in code. It receives nothing about the bonds you write. Palmetto also uses it to text operational alerts to its own staff.

The eBONDS / iGuarantee bail network

Receives what is needed to look up a defendant and post a bond: search terms, the booking, inmate and offence identifiers, the powers being used, the amounts, and the identity of the agency acting. It is also the source of the defendant and booking information the console shows you.

Palmetto's agency directory

A Palmetto-operated database of agency, agent, licence, authority and power-inventory records. The console reads from it to know which agencies and agents exist and what they may write. It is Palmetto's own system rather than a third party's, and connections to it may travel through a fixed-address network relay so that the database can recognise them.

Replit -- hosting

Runs the console, the service behind it and the PostgreSQL database holding accounts, executions and the audit trail. Everything described on this page is stored there.

Google Fonts

Serves the typefaces the console is set in, as described above.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it -- a court order, a subpoena, a request from an insurance or bail regulator -- or where it is needed to establish or defend the surety's rights under a bond. We do not sell information, do not pass it to data brokers, and do not use it for advertising.

8. How long things are kept

One-time sign-in codes

Five minutes, or until used -- deleted on use, on replacement, or when they expire.

Sessions

Twelve hours at most. Ended immediately on sign-out, and deleted once expired.

Defendant search results

Around a minute in the server's memory, never more than five, and never written to the database.

Executed bonds, reservations and the powers behind them

Kept indefinitely. They record surety obligations and are subject to insurance and bail recordkeeping requirements.

The audit trail

Kept indefinitely, for the same reason.

Operator accounts

Kept while access is needed. An account withdrawn from service can no longer sign in; the audit entries and access history naming it remain.

To be plain about it: nothing here is deleted on a timer. Beyond expired codes and sessions being cleared away, the console runs no purge job, and records go only when Palmetto deliberately removes them.

9. How the information is protected

• Traffic between your browser and the console is encrypted in transit.
• Sign-in codes and session tokens are stored only as hashes, so a copy of the database hands nobody a way in.
• Every request is authorised on the server against the role on your account. Hiding a screen is never the only thing between an operator and data they should not see.
• Access is granted by a Palmetto administrator, by invitation, and can be withdrawn in seconds.
• Every write is attributed to an account in the audit trail.

No system is perfect and we do not claim this one is. If you think an account has been compromised, call the number below straight away so it can be shut off.

10. Questions, corrections and requests

There is no self-service export or delete button in the console, and we would rather say so than offer one that cannot do what it promises. If you want to know what is held about you, or you believe your name, mobile number, role or agency is recorded wrongly, speak to the Palmetto administrator who set your account up, or call or write to us using the details below.

We will correct account details that are wrong. Some records cannot be deleted on request: an executed bond and the audit entries around it document a financial obligation Palmetto has taken on, and surety practice and regulation require them to be kept. Where a request cannot be honoured, we will say why.

11. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it, and the version at this address is always the current one. Where a change materially affects how operator or defendant information is handled, Palmetto will also tell enrolled agencies through their usual Palmetto contact.

Contact