Privacy
Last updated 22 September 2026
Beacons shares your location with people you choose, for as long as you choose. It has no accounts, and it is built so that the server holding your data cannot read it.
No account
There is no sign-up. Beacons does not ask for, and never receives, your name, email address, phone number, contacts or photos. Your phone registers itself anonymously the first time it runs and is known to the service only by a random identifier.
When your location is used
Beacons asks for location access when you first create a share code or tap the button that centres the map on you. Your location is only sent while you have a live share code and sharing is not paused. With no live code, nothing leaves your phone.
Your location is encrypted before it leaves your phone
When you create a share code, your phone generates a random 256-bit key and keeps it in the device's
secure store. Every position is encrypted with that key using AES-256-GCM before it is uploaded. The key
travels only inside the fragment of the share link (the part after #), which browsers and
operating systems never send to any server.
The consequence is that the service stores ciphertext. It cannot show your location, search it, or hand it to anyone in a readable form. Only people holding a share link you sent can decrypt it.
What is stored
- An anonymous device identifier, the platform (iOS or Android), when the device last connected, and a push notification token. The token is used only for silent messages that remove an ended code from a follower's list; Beacons does not show notifications.
- Your share codes and their settings: how long sharing lasts, how long the invite admits new followers, how many devices may follow, and whether a history trail is offered.
- Which share codes each device follows.
- Your encrypted positions: the latest one per share code, plus trail points if the code offers history, each with a timestamp.
Names and avatars you give the people you follow are stored on your phone only and are never uploaded. So is your own trail: with Keep history on, your phone keeps its own recent positions for the window you choose, for you to look back at on the map. That record never leaves the phone.
How long it is kept
- Positions live only as long as the share code that carries them. When a code expires or you revoke it, its locations and trail are deleted.
- Trail points are dropped once they are older than the code's history window of 24 hours, 48 hours or a week.
- If a phone stops connecting for 30 days, for example because the app was deleted, its share codes are ended and their positions deleted, including codes set to share with no end date.
- Delete my data in Settings ends every share code you own, stops you following anyone, and deletes your device record and identifier from the service straight away.
Who it is shared with
Only the people holding a share link you sent. Beacons has no advertising, no analytics, no trackers and no data brokers, and nothing is sold or shared for marketing. The service runs on these providers:
- Supabase, which hosts the database and server functions that store the data above.
- Apple Push Notification service on iPhone, and Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android, which deliver the silent messages described above.
- Cloudflare, which hosts this website and the page a share link opens in a browser. The key in the link is never sent to it.
Purchases
Beacons Plus is bought through the App Store or Google Play, which handle payment. Your phone checks the purchase with the store directly; Beacons never receives your payment details, your Apple or Google account, or a record of the purchase.
Children
Beacons is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information about them.
Your control
You can revoke any share code instantly, pause sharing entirely, turn history off, or delete all of your data from Settings. Revoking takes effect immediately for everyone holding the link.