Data & AI Trust Standard
Evidence beats assertion. Every important finding on this platform shows its source, date, confidence and reasoning; AI drafts and analyzes but never decides; confidential information stays where its owner put it. This page states the rules we hold ourselves to.
Source provenance and freshness
Material facts carry source, observed date, confidence and verification status. Each field has a review window; stale facts are labeled and lower the Knowledge Score. Estimated and inferred values are marked as such and are never presented as verified.
AI evidence
AI-generated text on this platform is labeled. Report narratives are written from a payload the reader can see, and every figure must appear in that payload. Ally, the assistant, may only state facts supported by the data in front of it; dollar figures not in the approved price list are blocked before they reach a visitor.
Confidentiality levels
Four levels: public; organization internal; restricted project team; business confidential. Plus aggregate-only, share-with-named-person, time-limited and revocable permissions, all logged.
Access controls
Authorization is enforced on the server for every request, never only in the interface. A person outside an organization receives "not found," never a hint that a record exists. Organization owners and admins manage who sees what.
Anonymity in BFI
Individual survey answers are never attributed. Breakdowns with fewer than five respondents are suppressed. Sponsors cannot see, alter or suppress individual responses.
Human approval
Adverse classifications of a business, pricing and product changes, marketing claims, contract terms and anything that would send to a customer pass through a human approval step. No AI actor can approve.
Audit logs
Verification, confirmation, sharing changes, exports, certificate issue and correction, and access refusals are recorded with who, what, when and the prior state.
Data retention and return
Customer data is processed on the customer's instructions and returned or deleted at the end of the relationship under the data-processing terms in the agreement. Uploaded source files are kept only to support the records they produced.
Public-records law
Many customers are public bodies. Where a public body promises a business confidentiality, the platform records who authorized the promise, when, on what basis, and the public description of the material, as Michigan law contemplates. This is a record-keeping aid, not legal advice; counsel confirms what confidentiality can be promised.
Preliminary analysis and disclaimers
Planning, zoning and legal analyses are preliminary and cite their sources. They are not official determinations and not legal advice. Reports that concern public officials or bodies are AI-assisted opinions based on gathered records, checked by a human, and never statements of fact about a person.
AI is not the final authority
Ally is an AI assistant and says so when asked. It is not a government official, an attorney, an assessor, an incentive approver or a board. Consequential actions require a named person.
Approved claims
External statistics we cite are kept in a claims register with the source and date. We do not embellish a statistic beyond its source, and we do not claim endorsement by any association or accreditation by any body.