📡 CopyCall
Log In

Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 10, 2026.

1. Who we are

CopyCall (copycall.org) is operated by Kameron Gasso ("we," "us," "our"). This policy explains what information CopyCall collects, why, and what happens to it. It applies to everyone who uses the site, whether you have an account or you're just viewing a public shared map link someone sent you.

Questions about this policy: kameron@copycall.org.

2. The short version

  • We collect the account info you give us, the radio-logging data you enter, and a small amount of technical/security data (session, IP, user agent).
  • We never sell your data or share it with advertisers. There are no analytics or ad-tracking cookies anywhere on CopyCall.
  • Public FCC license data is public by law; we cache a copy of it so lookups are fast, we don't collect anything extra about you to do that.
  • If you turn on map sharing for an operation, that link exposes certain contact-level details to anyone who has the link — but never your private "Operator" labels, never notes, and never an exact location (only an approximate area) — see §5 for the exact list.
  • There's no self-service "delete my account" button yet. Email us and we'll do it by hand — see §7.

3. Information we collect

3a. Information you give us directly

  • Account info: username, email address, password (stored as a bcrypt hash — we never store or can see your actual password).
  • Your own default settings: a default location, timezone, unit preference, and logging defaults (frequency, mode, signal report, service type, power) you can optionally set in Settings.

3b. Information you enter about other people (third-party stations/operators)

CopyCall is fundamentally a logbook of other people's radio transmissions, so most of the data in the system is information you enter about someone else, not about you:

  • Callsigns/handles, service type, and locations of stations you've heard.
  • Optional "Operator" labels — a private name/notes grouping someone's callsigns together (e.g. "Bob — my neighbor"). This label is private to you and is never shown to any other user, on any public share link, or to us for any purpose beyond running the service.
  • Free-text notes fields on stations, locations, and individual contacts. These are exactly what you type — if you put someone's real name or other identifying detail in a notes field, that's information you chose to record, and (per §5) it can appear on a public share link if you turn sharing on. We'd ask that you only log information about others that you have a legitimate reason to keep, the same courtesy you'd expect if someone else were logging you.

3c. Location data

  • Locations you manually enter or search for.
  • If you click "Use my current location," your browser's GPS/location (via the W3C Geolocation API) is used only after your browser's own permission prompt — we never access device location without that browser-level consent, and it's a one-time read, not continuous tracking.
  • Map displays can "fuzz" a location to a lower-precision grid square for privacy on the map itself, but the underlying exact coordinates you entered are always what's stored in the database.

3d. Public government data

We maintain a local cache of FCC Universal Licensing System (ULS) data — licensee names, addresses, and callsign records — downloaded in bulk from the FCC's own public data files on a regular schedule. This is already-public government data; we don't call any live third-party lookup API per search, and this cache isn't linked to your account.

3e. Technical / security information

  • Session cookie: a single cookie that keeps you logged in. It's functional only — see §6.
  • When you log in, we record the IP address and browser user-agent string for that session, shown back to you under "Active Sessions" in Settings so you can recognize (and revoke) your own logins.
  • Basic server logs common to any web server (requests, errors) for operating and securing the site.

4. How we use this information

  • To operate the core service: storing and displaying your logged contacts, operators, stations, and reach maps.
  • To authenticate you and keep your account secure (password reset, session management, letting you see/revoke your own active sessions).
  • To respond to support requests you send us.
  • We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not sell, rent, or trade it to anyone.

5. When information is shared

By default, nothing you log is visible to any other user. Two things change that, both of which you control:

  • Public map-share links. If you turn on sharing for an operation (or your whole account) in Settings, anyone with that link — logged in or not — can see: callsign/handle, service type, frequency, mode, signal report, distance/bearing, the operation's name, and the contact's timestamp. Locations are shown at an approximate area only, never finer than roughly a 2-3 mile grid square, regardless of what precision you've set for that location — if you've logged a station's exact coordinates for your own reach calculations, a share link still only ever shows the coarser area, not the exact point. Two things are deliberately left off a public link entirely: your private "Operator" name, and any free-text notes you've written on a contact — both are about a real person who never agreed to appear on a public, unauthenticated page, so neither one rides along just because the rest of the contact does. Share pages also carry a noindex tag so search engines don't crawl or cache them. You can turn sharing off, or generate a new link (invalidating the old one), at any time.
  • Site administrators. A small number of trusted roles (Admin, User Manager, Data Manager) can access account and data information to operate the service — for example, to help with account recovery or investigate abuse. Every such action is logged. Today that's solely the site operator, but this policy is written to also cover anyone else who's ever granted one of these roles.

We also share limited information with the third-party services that make CopyCall work:

  • U.S. Census Bureau geocoding API — when you look up an address, only the address text itself is sent, never your name, account, or callsign.
  • OpenStreetMap — map tiles are requested directly by your browser when you view a map; that's a normal request to a public tile server, not something that passes through our servers.
  • Our hosting provider — like any website, our host has access to the server CopyCall runs on.

We may also disclose information if required by law (e.g., a valid legal process), or to protect the rights, safety, or property of CopyCall, our users, or others.

6. Cookies

CopyCall uses exactly one cookie: a session cookie that keeps you logged in, lasting up to 90 days from your last activity (a sliding window — using the site resets the clock). It's strictly necessary for the site to function; there is no cookie-consent banner because there's nothing optional to consent to. There are no analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking cookies anywhere on CopyCall.

7. Data retention & deletion

  • Deleting an Operation, Operator, or Known Station moves it to a "Recently Deleted" list for 30 days, with a one-click Restore, before it's permanently purged.
  • There is currently no self-service "delete my account" feature. To request deletion of your account and associated data, email kameron@copycall.org. We'll verify it's really you and process the request by hand.

8. Security

Passwords are hashed (bcrypt), never stored or logged in plain text. Access to administrative functions is role-gated and logged. That said, no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security.

9. Your choices

  • You can review and edit most of your own data (stations, operators, contacts, settings) directly in the app at any time.
  • You can turn public map sharing on or off, or rotate the link, at any time in Settings.
  • You can revoke your own active login sessions in Settings.
  • To request a copy of your data, or deletion of your account, email kameron@copycall.org.

10. Children's privacy

CopyCall is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at kameron@copycall.org and we will delete it.

11. Third-party services & links

CopyCall links to or relies on third-party services (OpenStreetMap tiles, the U.S. Census geocoding API, and FCC public data). We don't control these services and aren't responsible for their content, availability, or privacy practices — check their own policies if you're curious.

12. Where your data is stored

CopyCall is operated from, and its data is stored in, the United States. If you're accessing CopyCall from outside the U.S., you understand your information will be transferred to and processed in the U.S.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the service changes. Material changes will be noted on this page (and, while the site is small enough that this is practical, in the in-app changelog). Continuing to use CopyCall after a change means you accept the updated policy.

14. Contact

Kameron Gasso — kameron@copycall.org