gridpin

What leaves your machine: nothing

An address is personal data, and in a hospital or a social service it is health data. A cloud geocoder receives every address you send it. GridPin reads a file on your disk and opens no connection.

Privacy, research Command line

What runs where

  • gridpin batch, query and the Python, R and DuckDB packages read the sheet file and write your output file. They open no network socket.
  • gridpin serve listens on the address you give it (127.0.0.1 by default) and answers only there.
  • The only download is the sheet itself, once, from dl.gridpin.dev; GRIDPIN_OFFLINE=1 forbids even that.
  • No account, no key, no telemetry, no sub-processors.

Check it yourself

Do not take our word for it. While a batch runs, list its open files and sockets, or watch the network interfaces:

terminalCLI
gridpin batch usa.bin patients.csv out.csv &
lsof -a -p $! -i        # no line: no socket
sudo tcpdump -i any -n not host 127.0.0.1   # nothing from gridpin while it runs

Why it matters

Under the GDPR an address of a person is personal data, and sending it to a processor needs a contract and a legal basis. Under HIPAA an address finer than the first three digits of a ZIP code is one of the identifiers of protected health information, and a cloud geocoder that receives it is a business associate. Geocoding on your own machine keeps the data where it already is. This is not legal advice: your own counsel decides what your rules require.

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