Your files never leave your device.

When we first started using tools like this ourselves, we hesitated. These CSV files have our creditor names, our account numbers, our payment history. It felt risky to hand them to a website we'd just found.

We built MyChapter13.org differently — specifically so you wouldn't have to feel that way.

What actually happens when you load a file

When you drop your CSV files onto the load page, your browser reads them directly from your computer — the same way you'd open a file in Excel or a text editor. The files are parsed in your browser's memory. All the calculations — your completion date, your payment breakdown, your creditor balances — happen right there, on your device, in the tab.

Nothing is sent to our servers. Not the file contents. Not the parsed data. Not even a summary. Our servers never see your data at all.

This isn't a policy decision — it's an architectural one. The tool is built as a purely client-side application. There is no endpoint to send your data to. The code that runs when you load your files is the same code that runs in every visitor's browser, doing nothing but reading, parsing, and displaying.

What we do store — and where

When you load your files, the site saves them to your browser's localStorage — a storage area that lives on your own device, not on any server. This is what lets you close the tab and come back later without having to reload your files every time.

That data stays on your machine. We cannot access it, read it, or retrieve it. If you clear your browser data, it's gone. If you use a different browser or a different device, it won't be there. It belongs to your device, not to us.

You can clear your saved files at any time from the load page.

What's actually in those CSV files anyway?

We also want to be honest about what your NDC files contain — because it's less sensitive than you might think.

Your Account Ledger and Claim Summary do not contain your Social Security number, your address, your date of birth, or any passwords. What they contain is essentially a financial history of your bankruptcy case: creditor names, claim amounts, payment dates, and dollar figures. Sensitive in context, but not the kind of data that enables identity theft.

We mention this not to minimize your privacy, but to give you an accurate picture. Your NDC files are more like a bank statement than a tax return. And a bank statement that never leaves your device is about as private as it gets.

What we do collect

We use Google Analytics to understand how people use the site — which pages are visited, how long people spend, where they come from. This is standard website analytics and contains no information about your case or your files. It tells us "someone visited /glossary for 3 minutes" — not who you are or what's in your plan.

That's it. We don't run ads. We don't sell data. We don't have a mailing list (yet — and if we ever do, it will be opt-in). We're two people who went through Chapter 13 and built a tool we wished existed. We have no interest in your personal financial data beyond helping you understand it.

The one thing that will change this

Eventually, we plan to offer an opt-in feature that lets users contribute their anonymized plan data to help build community benchmarks — things like "plans like yours typically complete in X months" or "the average trustee fee in your district is Y%." That feature doesn't exist yet.

When it does, it will be explicitly opt-in, clearly explained, and the anonymization process will be documented. We'll also have written a companion piece explaining exactly what gets shared and what gets stripped. Until then, nothing leaves your device.

If you have questions about any of this, we're reachable. We're real people.