Privacy Policy
Effective Date: August 18, 2026 • Last Reviewed: August 2026
VanHeartbeat is built on a privacy-respecting architecture. We do not require user account registration, do not collect personal identities or email addresses, and do not track or sell your browsing history. Your preferences (like pinned beaches and color theme) remain exclusively on your device.
1. Information We Do Not Collect
Unlike commercial applications, VanHeartbeat does not require you to provide personally identifiable information (PII) to access any of our civic telemetry modules. Specifically:
- No User Accounts: You do not need to register, create a username, or provide a password.
- No Personal Contact Data: We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, or physical mailing addresses.
- No Location History Storage: When you use geolocation features, your coordinates are processed temporarily in your browser and are never saved to a server database or associated with a user profile.
2. Client-Side Device Storage (localStorage)
To provide a customized experience without requiring accounts or cloud databases, VanHeartbeat uses your browser's local storage capabilities (localStorage) to persist:
Keys like vanutils_pinned_can-i-swim store IDs of beaches, ferry routes, or mountains you star.
Remembers your preference for light or dark mode (theme) across page visits.
Remembers banners you dismissed (vanutils_dismissed_alert_*) so you are not prompted repeatedly.
This data is stored purely on your personal device and is never transmitted to or stored on our servers. You can clear this data at any time through your browser settings.
3. Device Location Data
Certain utilities (such as finding the nearest beach on /swim or evaluating parking spot clearance on /parking) offer optional 1-tap browser geolocation.
- Location permissions are entirely optional and requested only via standard browser permission prompts.
- Coordinates are used ephemerally in-browser to calculate mathematical distance (e.g. Haversine formula) to known landmarks.
- Your exact coordinates are never permanently logged, shared with third parties, or tied to your identity.
4. Web Analytics & Performance Telemetry
To monitor platform stability, assess which telemetry feeds are most helpful to the community, and optimize edge cache delivery, we may utilize privacy-conscious web analytics tools, such as Cloudflare Web Analytics.
These services collect aggregate, non-personally identifiable technical information such as:
- Page views and navigation paths;
- Referring websites or search queries;
- General geographic region (country or metropolitan area level, e.g. Vancouver / Canada);
- Browser type, operating system, device screen resolution, and page load speed metrics.
We do not correlate this aggregate analytics data with individual personal identities. For more details on how cookies are utilized, please review our Cookie Policy.
5. External Links & Public Feeds
VanHeartbeat provides direct links to external websites and official public services (such as Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health, TransLink, BC Ferries, City of Vancouver, DriveBC, and Environment Canada). When you click an external link, you are subject to the privacy policies and practices of that third-party website. We encourage you to review their respective policies.
6. Policy Updates & Contact
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect platform enhancements or changes in legal standards. Any revisions will be published immediately on this page with an updated effective date.
If you have questions, feedback, or concerns regarding privacy practices on VanHeartbeat, you can reach out through our Contact page or via email at privacy@vanheartbeat.ca.