Privacy
Plain English, on purpose.
This notice says what Beacon stores, what it never sees, and what you can ask us to do — without the legal fog.
Last updated 28 October 2026 · Pilot version
Who we are
Beacon is operated by Simplistow Ltd (company no. 15668455), registered in England and Wales. For anything in this notice, email hello@bybeacon.co.uk.
Tracking a parcel without an account
A lookup stores the tracking number, the courier we detected, when it happened, and a salted one-way code for your connection — that code is how free lookups stay rate-limited, and it can’t be turned back into your address on the internet. We don’t see your name, your address or what’s in the box, and nothing from a lookup is linked to you as a person. To fetch the courier’s updates we send the tracking number to our tracking provider — that’s it.
With a free account
We store what you give us: your email address, your name if you add it, your mobile number if you add it (so sign-in texts and — once messaging goes live — delivery updates can reach you there), the parcels you save, the places you add (like your home address, so couriers’ updates make sense), and your preferences. We also record how the product is used — things like “a parcel was saved” — to understand what’s working. We don’t sell your data, we don’t show ads, and we don’t use advertising trackers.
Who handles it for us
Beacon runs on a small set of services that process data on our behalf: our hosting and database providers, a parcel-tracking provider (which receives tracking numbers and, for saved parcels, the delivery postcode where a courier needs it for full results), and an email provider that sends sign-in emails. Each one gets only what it needs to do its job.
How long we keep things
Anonymous lookup records are kept for rate-limiting and to understand how the pilot is going. Account data is kept while you have an account, and removed when you ask us to delete it.
Your rights
Under UK data-protection law you can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email hello@bybeacon.co.uk from the address you signed up with and we’ll sort it. If you’re not happy with how we handle it, you can complain to the ICO (ico.org.uk).
Cookies
Only what the product needs: a session cookie that keeps you signed in, and a setting on your device that remembers your light-or-dark preference. No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, so no cookie banner.
Security, briefly
Secrets live server-side only, every database table is access-controlled row by row, and messages from couriers’ systems are signature-checked before we trust them. No system is perfect, but we build as if your data matters — because it does.