This page defines key terms used across the 200 Brady Street platform, not as jargon, but as structural concepts. Each term reflects a design decision made to ensure contributor safety, platform independence, and public interest integrity. For more context on how these terms apply, see our Governance or Our Difference pages.

Governance & Milestones

Milestone Gated Deployment: Every major platform function is scoped, reviewed, and activated only through pre-defined development gates. Capital does not fast track features. Structure governs deployment. See milestones

Governance Bound Platform: The platform is built on rules that cannot be overridden by funders, municipalities, or internal pivots. Licensing, redaction, and contributor tiering are all locked by governance design. More on governance

Non-Override Logic: Critical protections (like redaction defaults and contributor tiering) are enforced structurally. No entity, funder, partner, or city, can bypass them. Learn why this holds

Deployment Readiness Review: Before any milestone can go live, the system undergoes internal structural review, aligned with contributor safety, not political or commercial pressure. View milestone structure

Redaction & Contributor Logic

Redaction Governed Input: Every submission is parsed by logic that defaults to redaction, not exposure. No personal information is required or stored by default. See redaction rules

Contributor Trust Tiers: Contributors are grouped into visibility tiers based on verification, civic alignment, and system usage. This helps prevent surveillance misuse while supporting public transparency. Review contributor protections

Public Enforcement Ledger: The platform functions as a living record of enforcement actions, visible, searchable, and independently governed. It’s not a dataset. It’s civic infrastructure. What makes us different

Exposure by Design Rejection: The system is built to protect contributors, not surface identities. There is no “opt-in to exposure” layer. Visibility is structured and default protected. Partner safely

Licensing & Access

Public Interest Licensing: Access to tools, APIs, and datasets is governed by licensing that requires reciprocity, transparency, and civic alignment. Enforcement bodies and insurers are contractually excluded. See licensing policy

Civic+ Subscriptions: A public interest tier that provides additional research tools, filters, and metadata access to qualified journalists, researchers, and civic allies, without monetizing contributor data. View revenue logic

Bylaw Mirror Licensing: After Milestone 4, cities may license a frontend that mirrors their bylaws in searchable public form. This license excludes enforcement functionality and contributor data access. See Milestone 4

API Access Restrictions: APIs are never exposed to enforcement bodies, surveillance vendors, or commercial resale channels. All integrations are limited to transparency-aligned entities. Explore access tiers

Legal Tools & FOI

FOI Metadata Indexing: The platform supports public submission and tagging of freedom of information documents, enabling structured search across jurisdictions and topics. Mapped in Milestone 2

Legal Recovery Infrastructure: Tools designed to help clinics and legal researchers bundle, analyze, and prepare disputes, particularly where enforcement patterns suggest systemic issues. Designed for justice allies

Class Action Tooling: In future milestones, the system will support referral pathways and bundling logic for collective legal action, without harvesting contributor data. Milestone timeline

Dispute Preparation Architecture: All data formatting, record linking, and visualization is built with eventual legal use in mind, not just display or engagement. Partner use cases

Platform Identity & Purpose

Civic Audit Infrastructure: A public system that tracks and reveals enforcement activity, independent of city systems, vendors, or enforcement bodies. It’s not govtech. It’s civic oversight architecture. Learn what this means

Contributor Governed Platform: Every decision layer, from data visibility to legal tooling access, is designed to protect contributors first. This principle is embedded into structure, not just policy. Review protections

Surveillance Free Architecture: No part of the platform is designed to enable predictive modeling, behavioral scoring, or enforcement escalation. The system cannot be repurposed for surveillance use. See what’s excluded

No Procurement Incentive: The platform does not sell to cities. It does not pitch compliance upgrades. It is not designed to be procured. It is designed to be visible and independently governed. Understand our stance