Last updated September 22, 2026.
Course Beacon ("we," "us") provides a course and program discovery directory that colleges and universities publish for their own students and visitors. This page explains what information we collect through the product and why.
Account information. When you sign up, we collect your name and email address, and either a securely hashed password or, if you choose "Sign in with Google," the basic profile information Google shares (your name and email) -- we never see or store your Google password. If you turn on two-factor authentication, we store the secret key used to verify codes from your authenticator app, and securely hashed backup recovery codes (never the recovery codes themselves, once you've seen them).
Institution/course data. When your institution connects its course data (by file upload or automated feed), we store that data to power your public directory. This is your institution's own public course catalog information (course titles, descriptions, sections, meeting times, seat counts) -- not individual students' personal education records.
Billing information. If you upgrade to a paid plan, payment is processed directly by Stripe. We never receive or store your card number -- only what Stripe tells us back (your plan status and subscription dates).
Contact and support messages. If you use our Contact page, we store the name, email, and message you submit so we can respond.
Basic usage data. Like most web services, our hosting provider logs standard technical information (IP address, browser type, pages requested) for security and troubleshooting.
We don't sell your information. We share it only with the service providers that help us run the product -- Stripe (payments), Resend (email delivery), Google (only if you choose Google sign-in), and Railway (our hosting infrastructure) -- each solely to perform that specific function.
We use a single session cookie to keep you signed in. We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
You can permanently delete your account and institution's data at any time from your account settings -- this removes your account, your institution's course data, and any uploaded files. We keep contact/support messages and billing records for a reasonable period afterward, as needed for our own recordkeeping.
Course Beacon's directory displays your institution's own public course catalog information. It is not a system of record for individual student education records, and we don't collect personal information from the students browsing your public directory.
If you have questions about this policy or your data, reach out through our Contact page.
As an early-stage, actively developed product, this policy may be updated as our practices change. We'll update the date at the top of this page when we do.