Privacy Policy

Backcountry Assistant ("we", "us", "our") provides AI-powered field intelligence for satellite messengers and mobile phones. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. By using the service you agree to this policy.

1. Information we collect

Account information

• Email address and display name. There is no sign-in password: you sign in with a six-digit one-time code that we send to your email address or your mobile number and that expires ten minutes later. We never collect or store a sign-in password.
• Mobile phone number, if you sign up with one. Signing up by phone is a normal way to create an account, and in that case your number is your account identifier and we store it from the moment the account exists. If you sign up by email, a phone number is optional — you only need one to use the SMS relay.
• Optional profile details: timezone, unit preferences, reply language.
• Optional Garmin MapShare ID and emergency contact.

SMS relay

• We store your SMS opt-in status — a yes-or-no setting on your account recording whether you have agreed to receive SMS messages from us. Opting in is a separate, affirmative act: it is never inferred from signing up, and you can turn it off at any time.
• We collect the content of SMS messages you send to the service and replies we send to you, in order to operate the conversational assistant.

Trip and location data

• Routes, waypoints, trip drafts, and gear notes you create in the app.
• GPS coordinates from Garmin MapShare (if you link it) used to answer location-aware questions.

Payment data

• Subscription billing is handled by Stripe. We do not store card numbers. We store the Stripe customer ID and subscription status.

Usage and diagnostic data

• Application logs, error reports, and basic request metadata (timestamp, endpoint).
• Website analytics. We run our own analytics software on our own servers to count page views and a handful of product events (for example, clicking a call-to-action, starting a sign-up, or opening checkout). It is cookieless — it sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device — and it records only your page URL, referring page, screen size, browser language, and a country derived from your IP address. Your IP address is used to derive that country and is not stored. No analytics data is sent to any third party, and no advertising or cross-site tracking network is involved. Once you are signed in, analytics events are tagged with your account ID so we can see which steps of the product people complete. Your browser's "Do Not Track" setting is honored.

The demo, without an account

• The demo at /app/demo lets you ask the planner a few questions before signing up. What you type there is sent to the same model providers listed in §3. Each exchange transcript is kept for up to one year (our transcript storage expires it after 365 days) so we can review the demo for abuse, and the usage record for each reply expires after 90 days. Demo exchanges are not linked to a name, email, or phone number; they carry only a keyed hash of your connection address, which we use to rate-limit the demo and do not reverse.

2. How we use information

• To operate the assistant, deliver SMS/satellite replies, and respond to your questions.
• To provide proactive safety alerts (weather, wildfire, air quality, avalanche) that you have enabled.
• To authenticate you, bill your subscription, and provide customer support.
• To improve reliability and debug issues via logs.

3. Who we share information with

We share information only with service providers who process it on our behalf to operate the service:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) — the edge of our system: inbound and outbound message delivery (email via SES, SMS via AWS End User Messaging), the queues those messages pass through, storage of account, conversation, and trip records, and content delivery for the website and app. Our application servers and map/terrain database run on hardware we operate ourselves rather than on AWS.
• Stripe — payment processing.
• OpenAI and Anthropic — the AI providers whose models generate replies. The content of your messages, along with the location and conditions data needed to answer them, is sent to whichever of these providers the service is configured to use at the time; we may switch between them for availability or answer quality, so treat both as recipients. Neither uses this content to train their models: OpenAI states that data sent to its API is not used to train or improve its models unless the customer opts in, and we have not opted in; Anthropic's commercial terms state that it may not train models on customer content. OpenAI keeps abuse-monitoring logs for up to 30 days.
• Garmin — if you link a MapShare feed, we fetch your public MapShare data from Garmin.
• Weather, avalanche, wildfire, and river data providers — we call public APIs (NWS, NOAA, avalanche.org, NIFC, USGS, Open-Meteo). We send them only the data needed to fulfill a query (typically a coordinate).

Website analytics is deliberately absent from that list: it runs on our own servers, and no analytics vendor receives your data.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share mobile numbers or SMS opt-in data with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

4. Data retention

• Account data is retained for the life of your account. You can delete your account at any time by emailing hello@backcountryassistant.com; this removes account data, conversations, and trips.
• Message logs are retained for up to 90 days for reliability and abuse prevention, then purged.
• Aggregate, de-identified usage metrics may be retained indefinitely.

5. Your choices

• SMS opt-out. Reply STOP to any SMS from us to immediately unsubscribe. Reply HELP for help. You can also clear the SMS consent checkbox or remove your phone number in the app: You tab, under SMS relay.
• Access / export. Email hello@backcountryassistant.com to request an export of your data.
• Deletion. Email hello@backcountryassistant.com to permanently delete your account and associated data.
• Analytics. Our website analytics is self-hosted and cookieless, so there is nothing to consent to and no tracking cookie to clear. If you turn on "Do Not Track" in your browser, we do not record your visit at all.
• Email. Contact hello@backcountryassistant.com for any privacy request.

6. Security

We use industry-standard measures: TLS in transit, encryption at rest, passwordless sign-in with short-lived one-time codes, least-privilege access. No system is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a material breach of your data, we will notify you.

7. Children

The service is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13.

8. International users

The service is operated from the United States. By using it you consent to your data being processed in the US.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page with an updated date. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy or privacy requests: hello@backcountryassistant.com.