Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Beacon is operated by Beacon Outdoors LLC, a Texas limited liability company ("Beacon," "we," "us"). We are the controller of your personal data. You can reach us at support@beacon.camp.

Information We Collect

When you create a Beacon account, we collect:

• Your name and email address
• Phone number (if you opt in to SMS alerts)
• Campground scan preferences and alert history
• Payment information (processed securely by Stripe; we do not store card details)

We also collect standard usage data such as IP addresses, browser type, pages visited, and timestamps to improve our service and troubleshoot issues.

How We Use Your Information

We use your information to:

• Operate and maintain your campground availability scans
• Send you email and SMS alerts when campsites become available
• Process subscription payments and manage your account
• Communicate service updates, security notices, and support responses
• Analyze usage patterns to improve Beacon
• Send occasional product and onboarding emails, which you can unsubscribe from at any time via the link in every such email (alerts and account emails you requested will still be sent)

We will never sell your personal information to third parties.

Data Storage

Your data is stored on secure servers within the United States. We use industry-standard encryption for data in transit (TLS) and at rest. We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account from your account settings; deletion is scheduled seven days ahead and you can cancel it yourself within that window.

When a deletion completes we permanently remove your account, your scans, and the photos and reviews you posted, along with the underlying image files. Two things deliberately survive, neither of which identifies you: a dated record that the deletion happened, so we can show it was honored, and any cancellation reason you gave us, stripped of any link to your account. A campground you added to someone else’s shared wishlist stays on their list, with your name removed. We also keep anything retention of which is required by law. One more record is kept on purpose, and it can identify you: if you opted out of text messages, your phone number stays on our text opt-out list after your account is deleted, so that we don't text it again unless you opt back in.

Third-Party Services

Beacon integrates with the following third-party services:

• Stripe — payment processing and subscription billing.
• Twilio — text message delivery and phone number verification (your phone number, only to send the verification code and the texts you opted into).
• Resend — transactional and (if opted in) marketing email delivery.
• Amazon Web Services (S3) — file/photo storage and hosting infrastructure.
• Neon / PostgreSQL host — database hosting (account data, stored in the United States).
• Upstash (Redis) — background job queues. A job waiting to run may hold your email address and first name until it is processed — for example, a scheduled onboarding email queued up to seven days in advance.
• Fly.io & Vercel — application hosting (API and website).
• Vercel Web Analytics — cookieless, aggregate statistics about visits to our website. See "Cookies & Analytics" below.
• Expo / Firebase Cloud Messaging — mobile push notification delivery.
• Sentry — error monitoring and diagnostics.
• Meta (Facebook) — advertising measurement. Beyond the browser Pixel, we send Meta a server-side event when a paid subscription is confirmed. See "Cookies & Analytics" below for exactly what that event contains.
• Google Analytics 4 — aggregate usage analytics. See "Cookies & Analytics" below.
• WeatherAPI — weather forecasts (no personal data shared).
• Recreation.gov and state reservation platforms — we read publicly available campground availability data; we do not share your personal information with them.

Business Transfers

If the Beacon business is reorganized, or transferred to an affiliate or a successor company — including a transfer to another company under common ownership, a merger, or a sale of the business or its assets — your personal data may be transferred as part of that business to the successor, which will continue to handle it under this policy until you are given notice of any change. We will notify you by email or through a prominent notice on Beacon if the company acting as controller of your personal data changes. A business transfer of this kind is not a sale of your personal information.

Cookies & Analytics

Beacon uses essential cookies to maintain your login session and remember your preferences. These are always on and cannot be disabled without breaking core functionality.

With your consent, we also use analytics and advertising cookies to understand how the site is used and to measure our marketing:

• Google Analytics 4 — aggregate usage analytics. We send a pseudonymous identifier only; we do not send your name or email to Google.
• Meta (Facebook) Pixel — advertising measurement and conversion tracking in your browser.

We ask for your consent on your first visit and load these cookies only if you accept. You can decline at any time by clearing the choice in your browser storage, and you can disable cookies in your browser settings.

Cookieless visit statistics. Separately from the cookies above, we use Vercel Web Analytics, provided by our website host, to count visits to our website and a small set of named actions on it, such as starting a sign-up, creating a scan or starting an upgrade. It does not set cookies. For each page you view, and each of those actions, Vercel receives the page address, the website that referred you to us (if any), the time, your browser, operating system and type of device, and an approximate location (such as country, region and city) worked out from your connection. An action is sent with its name and at most two labels from a fixed list, such as the plan you chose or the part of our website it started from. Before a page address is sent for these statistics, we remove anything after a "?" or "#" except campaign tags (the "utm_" labels some links carry), so the statistics we send never contain, for example, the code from a password-reset link. The statistics we send to Vercel do not include your name, email address or Beacon account ID. Vercel tells visits apart using a hash created from the incoming request rather than a cookie, discards that visitor session after 24 hours, and shows us only aggregate statistics.

Because it uses no cookies and does not identify you, these statistics are collected without asking first, including on your first visit before you answer our cookie banner. If you choose "Decline" on the banner, we stop sending them from that browser. That choice is kept in your browser's storage: if you clear it, or your browser does not let websites store it, the banner asks again on your next visit, and the pages you view and the actions described above are counted until you answer.

Server-side conversion measurement. Separately from the browser Pixel, when your paid subscription is confirmed our server can send Meta a "Subscribe" event containing a one-way (SHA-256) hash of your email address, a one-way hash of your Beacon account ID, and the amount and currency of the purchase. We do not send your email address, name, or payment details in readable form.

This event is covered by the same choice as the cookies above: we send it only if you accepted analytics and advertising. If you declined, or have not answered yet, it is not sent. Your choice is recorded on your account so it is honored even when the event is triggered by our servers rather than your browser, and it applies on every device you sign in on.

Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Request deletion of your account and personal data
• Export your data in a portable format
• Opt out of non-essential communications at any time

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the information below.

California Privacy

We do not sell your personal information, and we never have.

If — and only if — you accept analytics and advertising, we disclose a limited amount of information to Meta for advertising measurement: the hashed identifiers and purchase amount described under "Cookies & Analytics." Depending on how it is characterized, that may count as "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising under the CCPA/CPRA. It is opt-in: if you decline, or never answer, nothing is disclosed to Meta from your browser or from our servers. You can change your mind at any time by clearing the choice in your browser storage and answering again, or by contacting us.

California residents may also exercise the access, deletion, correction, and portability rights described in "Your Rights" by contacting us, and we will not discriminate against you for doing so.

Text Messages

If you join Beacon Alerts, our optional text message program, we use your mobile number to send you a one-time code that confirms the number, the campsite availability alerts you asked for, and messages about the program itself, such as a sign-up confirmation or a reply to HELP. We record when you agreed to receive texts, and if you opt out we keep your number on our opt-out list. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to cancel or HELP for help. The full program terms are in our Terms of Service.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. We share your mobile number with Twilio, our text message provider, only so it can send our texts and verification codes for us. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information won't be shared with any third parties. That includes the business transfers described above: your text message opt-in and consent do not pass to an affiliate or a successor, which would have to ask for your consent again.

Contact

This policy is provided by Beacon Outdoors LLC, 10303 Indiana Ave Ste 400 PMB 111, Lubbock, TX 79423. If you have questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at support@beacon.camp.