Rawi Studios ("we", "us") makes Carat, appraisal report software for residential appraisers. Your reports carry your license number and your clients' confidential information, so this policy explains exactly what we keep, why, and who else sees it.
1. Who we are
Rawi Studios is responsible for the personal data described here. Contact us at support@carat.homes.
For the information inside your appraisal reports, you (or your firm) decide what is collected and why. We process it on your behalf, only to run Carat for you.
2. What we collect
Information you give us
- Account: your name, email address and sign-in method (Google or email and password; passwords are handled by Google Firebase Authentication and never reach our servers).
- Firm profile: company name, address, license and certification numbers, E&O details, MLS memberships, signature images and logos you upload for your reports. A stored signature is kept with a one-way hash of its PIN (never the PIN itself), visible only to its owner, and placed on a report only when its owner enters the PIN.
- Directory profile (optional): the contact details, services, coverage states, availability, E&O details and notes you choose to list for AMCs and lenders, and your private fee range. We also record when, and by whom, the sharing agreement was accepted or withdrawn.
- Organization: the colleagues you invite, their roles and which reports are assigned to whom.
- Reports and files: everything you enter or upload into a report, including photos, sketches, comparables and imported legacy reports.
- Support: what you send us when you ask for help.
Information collected automatically
- Technical: IP address, browser and device type, and server logs of requests, kept for security and troubleshooting.
- Usage: basic counts of which features are used, to decide what to improve. We do not record your screen or keystrokes.
3. Report data and confidentiality
Appraisal reports often include borrower and owner names, property addresses, lender and AMC details, and other confidential assignment information. We treat all of it as your confidential data:
- It is visible only to you and the members of your organization you share it with.
- Our staff access it only when you ask us to (for example, to help with a support request), or when the law requires.
- We do not use your report data to build products for other customers, and we do not pool your comparables or adjustments with anyone else's.
You remain responsible for your own obligations as an appraiser, including the confidentiality and record-keeping requirements of USPAP and your state.
4. How we use it
- To run Carat: store your reports, build the MISMO XML, PDF and UCDP package, draw maps and sketches, and run readiness checks.
- To keep your account secure and stop abuse.
- To answer support requests and tell you about changes to the service, such as UAD specification updates.
- To bill your subscription, once billing is in place.
- To meet legal obligations.
5. What we never do
- Sell or rent your personal information or report data.
- Sign, submit or deliver a report for you. Nothing leaves Carat unless you download or send it.
- Share your work with lenders, AMCs, the GSEs or other appraisers. The one exception is a directory profile you choose to list: only its public fields are shown, only after you accept the sharing agreement, and only until you withdraw. Your fee range is never shown, and your reports are never part of it.
- Use your report data to advertise to you or anyone else.
6. Services that process data
We use a small number of providers to run Carat. Each receives only what it needs:
- Google Cloud and Firebase (United States): sign-in, the application servers and file storage for your reports.
- Vercel: serves the website itself. It does not store your reports.
- Mapping and geocoding (US Census Geocoder, Esri ArcGIS, Geoapify, FEMA, and state GIS services such as NJGIN and NYS GIS): receive property addresses or coordinates to find parcels and draw comparable, flood, aerial and plat maps.
- Payments: when billing launches, card details will be handled by the payment processor and never reach our servers.
7. Retention and export
Your reports stay in your account for as long as it is open, so you can meet your workfile retention requirements. You can download any report's XML, PDF and package at any time.
You can delete your account at any time under Settings → Your account, on the web or in the phone app. If you are the last member of your organization, that deletes the organization and all of its reports, photos and profiles from our active systems straight away, so download what you need to keep first. If others remain on the team, you leave it: the reports stay with the organization and your name stays on the ones you signed. Backups age out within 100 days. We may keep billing records longer where the law requires.
8. Security
Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest in Google Cloud. Photos and downloads are served with short-lived access tokens, and every request is checked against your account and organization. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your data, we will tell you without undue delay and as the law requires.
9. Your rights
You can ask us to access, correct, export or delete your personal information. Depending on where you live (for example California, under the CCPA, or the EU and UK, under the GDPR), you may have further rights, including to object to processing or to complain to a regulator. Email support@carat.homes and we will respond within 30 days.
If you are a borrower or homeowner named in a report, please contact the appraiser who prepared it; they control that report, and we will help them respond.
11. Children
Carat is a professional tool for licensed and trainee appraisers. It is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their information.
12. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will email account holders and update the date above before the change takes effect.
13. Contact
Rawi Studios · support@carat.homes · rawistudios.com