HiveScout — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 11 October 2026

HiveScout watches a single web page on your group’s computers and tells the other machines in your own group when that page changes. It is configured with an invite code given to you by whoever runs your group’s coordinator.

What leaves your machine

When your coordinator asks this machine to check the page, the extension sends back only a fixed list of measurements. That list is an allow-list enforced twice, independently: on the way out of the extension, and again before anything is stored on the server. Anything not named there is dropped, so a fault on either side alone is not enough to leak.

• A device identifier — a random value created on your machine at install. It is not derived from your hardware, your browser profile, or you.
• A classification of what the page showed, from a fixed set: normal, queue, captcha, blocked, maintenance, unknown, error.
• Numbers and true/false flags about the check: which markers were present, how long the page took to load, the HTTP status, the browser tab’s local id, and whether the check timed out.
• The extension version.
• Whether this browser has visited the store before (yes or no), taken from whether the store’s own security cookie is present. The cookie itself, and its value, never leave your machine.

What never leaves your machine

• Page content — no HTML, no text, no screenshots.
• Cookies, logins, session tokens, or anything identifying you to the site being watched.
• Your browsing history, or any page other than the one your coordinator assigns.
• Form input, keystrokes, or clipboard contents.

What the coordinator records

Your coordinator is a server run by whoever gave you the invite code — for most people a family member or friend. It is not operated on your behalf by the extension’s author.

It stores the measurements above, and derives a group key from the network address your connection arrives on — for IPv6 a network prefix rather than your full address. This exists so several machines in one home are counted as one and the group is not asked to load the page too often. The operator of your coordinator can see this.

Retention. The most recent 20,000 events are kept; older ones are deleted automatically. Records of a device being admitted or removed are kept for as long as that device is on the roster, because the roster is rebuilt from them.

Contact details. Your group organizer may store members’ names, email addresses and phone numbers so they can reach them about drops. If you have agreed to texts, drop alerts are sent to your phone through Twilio. Ask the organizer to change or remove your details at any time.

Invites. When you invite someone from the extension, the name you type under Who’s it for? becomes that person’s name on your group’s People list, shown to your group organizer, along with who invited them. It is deleted if the invite expires unused; once they have joined, it stays until the organizer removes that person.

Accounts on hivescout.app

You can register on hivescout.app to make your own invite codes. An account stores your first and last name, your email address, and — only if you give it — your phone number (your phone number is optional and is not texted). If you choose a password, only a one-way scrambled form of it is stored, never the password itself. If you sign in with Google, HiveScout receives only your name, your email address and an account number from Google — nothing else from your Google account. For each code it records which computer last used it and when, so your account page can show it. Signing in sets one cookie, used only to keep you signed in. Registration and password-reset forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to keep out automated sign-ups. Signing in creates a sign-in record: when it started, when it was last used, and when it ends, at most 30 days later. The record holds only a one-way scrambled form of the cookie’s value. Signing out ends it, and changing or resetting your password signs you out everywhere else. To slow down password guessing and automated sign-ups, HiveScout counts recent sign-in, registration and password-reset attempts by network (IP) address and by the email address typed in. Confirmation and password-reset emails contain one-time links that expire — confirmation links after 7 days, and password-reset links after 1 hour. Only a one-way scrambled form of each link is stored. If your confirmed email matches a person your group organizer already added, your account is linked to that person, so your account page can list the computers you already use, and the organizer sees the account on their list. To have your account, its codes and its sign-in records deleted, write to app@hivescout.app. Attempt counts are kept only as short-term counters.

Email from HiveScout

If HiveScout has your email address — for example from signing in, or because your group organizer added it — it may send two kinds of email:

• Service email about HiveScout itself: new versions you need to install, changes to how it works or to this policy, and problems with your group’s setup.
• Marketing news: new features, offers, and options such as text-message alerts or paid plans and what they would cost. This is opt-in — you receive it only if you choose to, and you can opt in or out at any time.

Neither ever carries third-party advertising. Every email says how to stop further ones, or write to app@hivescout.app at any time. Stopping email does not affect alerts in the extension.

What is never done with it

Nothing is sold, rented, or shared with third parties, except: a phone number you agreed to receive texts at is passed to Twilio to deliver them; your email address is passed to an email delivery service only to send HiveScout’s own email; if you sign in with Google, Google is told that you signed in to HiveScout; and if paid plans are introduced, payments will be handled by a payment processor such as Stripe — HiveScout will never see or store your card number, and this policy will be updated before any payment is taken. There is no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party network request — the only connections made are to the coordinator address you entered and to the site being monitored.

Your control

• The extension does nothing until you enter an invite code. With no coordinator address and no token it connects to nothing.
• Turn it off at any time in Options, or remove the extension.
• Ask your coordinator’s operator to revoke your invite. That disconnects your machine and stops any further records being attached to it.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about the records a coordinator holds: app@hivescout.app.