Privacy policy

Last updated September 20, 2026

FireLoss Scout is operated as an independent service that presents publicly reported Florida fire data. This policy explains what it stores about you, why, who else can see it, and how to get it back or have it deleted. It is written to be read rather than to be defended, and it describes what the software actually does.

What we collect

We collect the account name, email address, authentication and security records, timezone, followed counties, notification preferences, and delivery history needed to operate the service. We do not sell account data or use it for advertising in version 1.

• Account: the name and email address you give us, your chosen language and timezone, and whether your email has been verified.
• Signing in: a hashed password if you set one, any passkeys you register, the identifier your Google or Facebook account returns if you link one, and your two-factor secret and recovery codes if you enable it. Passwords are hashed. Two-factor secrets and recovery codes are encrypted so the application can use them to verify your identity.
• What you asked to follow: the counties you selected, whether alerts are on, how often you want them, the minimum classification that should reach you, and any filter presets you saved.
• What we sent you: one record per alert or digest, holding which incident it concerned, which channel carried it, and whether it was sent, skipped, bounced or failed. It does not hold the text of the message.
• Devices: for each browser you turn phone notifications on in, the push address that browser issues and the keys needed to encrypt a message to it, plus any label you give that device.
• Sessions: for each device signed in to your account, its IP address, the browser it reports itself as, and when it was last active, so you can recognize a session and end one you do not.
• Successful sign-in times are stored without IP addresses, device fingerprints or session tokens.
• Billing, if you buy a plan: the identifiers our payment processor issues for your customer and subscription records, which plan you hold, its status, its current billing period, a record of any extra leads you purchased, and a log of the notifications the processor sends us. Card numbers, expiry dates and security codes are submitted directly to the processor and are never received, processed or stored by us.
• If you write to us: the name, email address and message you type into the contact form, or the message you send us while signed in. These arrive in our support mailbox and are not stored in this database. We use them to answer you.
• Leads you have revealed: for each owner record you reveal, a copy of what was shown to you at that moment, when you revealed it, and which allowance paid for it. We keep that copy so a lead you paid for stays yours after the underlying record changes, and so your usage can be accounted for.

What we do not do

There is no analytics package, advertising tag, session recorder or third-party tracking script anywhere in this website. We do not sell or rent your data, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not build a profile of you. We do not track which incidents you read in order to target anything at you.

One third-party script does load, on the contact page only: the check that the form is being used by a person rather than by a script. It is there to stop automated messages and not to follow you, and it runs on no other page.

Cookies

We use cookies only to run the site, so there is no cookie banner to dismiss. One keeps your session and signs you in, one carries the token that protects forms from being submitted by another site, one remembers your language, and one keeps you signed in if you asked to be remembered. None of them is used for advertising or analytics. Essential session and security cookies may also be set before you sign in.

Providers and location data

Google and Facebook may process authentication data when you choose those sign-in options. When an incident map or county street detail is drawn, the OpenStreetMap Foundation receives requests for the viewed map areas, your IP address and browser information, and our website origin. We draw incident markers in your browser; tile requests do not include incident names or exact coordinate values. Geoapify processes validated incident coordinates on our server so we can store and display a separate estimated address. The estimate never replaces NERIS location text or coordinates and is not represented as an official incident mailing address.

Cloudflare runs the check that tells a person from a script on our contact form. To make that judgement it receives your IP address, how your browser identifies itself, characteristics of your connection, and which site the form sits on. Cloudflare states that it does not receive what you typed into the form, and we do not send it.

Our email provider handles the address we send alerts and account messages to, and the hosting company that runs this server necessarily holds the database it stores. Neither is permitted to use your data for their own purposes.

Stripe processes payments for us. If you buy a plan you are sent to a page Stripe hosts, and the card or bank details you enter there go to Stripe and not to us. Stripe receives your email address and the billing information it needs to take payment, and it keeps your invoice history. What comes back to us is identifiers, the state of your subscription, and whatever a card ends in where Stripe chooses to show it. Stripe never receives anything about a property, an owner or an incident; it is told which price you chose and nothing about what you looked at. Stripe handles that data as our processor and under its own privacy policy.

Fire incidents and property records

Most of what this website displays is not about you. Incident records come from public agency reporting, and where property-owner information is shown it comes from public county tax rolls. That information is about a property and the person or company recorded against it, who is usually not the reader. We present those public records as they were published, we do not add to them, and we ask that you use them responsibly. If you are named in a record and believe it is wrong, the authoritative copy is held by the county or the responding agency and a correction has to be made there; write to us and we will tell you where.

How we use it, and when we would disclose it

We use what we collect to operate, secure, support, maintain and improve the service, to take payment and to prevent fraud and abuse, to send the alerts and account messages you asked for, to enforce our terms, and to meet our legal, accounting and tax obligations. We may produce and use aggregated or de-identified statistics that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, including to measure and describe how the service is used.

We would disclose your information where the law requires it or a lawful request from a public authority compels it; to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim; to investigate suspected fraud, abuse or a breach of our terms; to protect the rights, property or safety of any person; and to a buyer or successor if this service or the business behind it is sold, merged or reorganised, in which case this policy continues to apply to information already collected until that buyer publishes its own.

How long we keep it

Your account and everything attached to it is kept until you delete the account, and there is no automatic expiry: we would rather say that plainly than claim a retention schedule the software does not enforce. Deleting your account removes it, your followed counties, your preferences, your delivery history, your devices and your linked sign-in methods. A signed-in session expires after two hours of inactivity, or when you sign it out. A message you send to support lives in our support mailbox rather than in this database.

Two things outlive a deletion, and we would rather say so. We keep the records of payments, invoices and tax information that accounting and tax law requires us to keep, and a minimal record of a suspension or a breach of our terms for as long as we might need it to defend a claim. Separately, our payment processor keeps its own transaction records under its own policy and schedule; deleting your account here does not delete those, and we cannot delete them for you.

Your choices

Signed-in users can export account data, change alert preferences, unlink sign-in providers when another sign-in method remains, and request account deletion through profile settings.

Deleting your account also cancels any subscription you hold. That cancellation is immediate rather than at the end of the period you have paid for, and no refund is due for the remainder of it, so cancel from the billing screen instead if you want to keep your access until the period ends. The leads you revealed are deleted with the account.

These are offered to everyone who uses this service, wherever you live, rather than only to readers a particular law happens to cover. You can see and export what we hold from your profile settings, correct your name, email address, language and timezone there, turn alerts off at any time, end any session you do not recognize, and delete your account outright. You do not have to explain why, and we will not make you argue with anyone to do it.

Security

Passwords are hashed, the connection is encrypted in transit, and administrator actions are recorded in an append-only log that stores a one-way fingerprint of the network address rather than the address itself. You can add two-factor authentication or a passkey to your account. No service can promise that a breach is impossible; what we can say is that we hold as little as the product needs in order to work.

Children

This service is meant for adults and we do not knowingly create accounts for children under 13. If you believe a child has registered, write to us and we will remove the account.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. If a change materially affects what we collect or who receives it, we will tell account holders by email rather than relying on you to notice this page.

Contact

Write to scout@firelossscout.com, or use the contact page, with any question about this policy, to ask what we hold about you, or to have it deleted. You do not need an account to write to us. Signed-in members can also reach us from the account menu, under Contact support. Please do not send passwords, one-time codes or other credentials.