Compass 55. GPS Beacon.

General information

When enabled, GPS beacon allows you to share a link with others to track your real-time location in any web browser. Even when enabled, GPS beacon only functions (sends data to a server at regular intervals) when you record a track in the app (e.g. MENU > NEW TRACK starts a new track recording).

Here is what someone with a link to your beacon might see:

Locations list at the bottom is synchronized with the map. Scroll through locations to have them focused on the map with a light blue dot.

There is also a “Points” switch on the beacon web page. When switched on, it enables you to tap on any point on your “track” and see the corresponding location point in the list:

Please take into account that showing points on the map for each location tracked under the beacon may lead to the slow map interaction. When you switch “Points” on, you better zoom into the area of interest, so it’s not so many points to show.

Setup and configure

The idea for the GPS beacon is to enable leaving a breadcrumb for your loved ones, when needed. After you started the track, tap on a MENU and you’ll see beacon status and configuration button below the tracking indicator:

Tap on this “BEACON” button to configure your personal beacon:

By default, both beacon and link to it are not enabled. Tap on YES in either “Enable GPS Beacon” or “Enable web browser link” sections to enable the beacon and the link. For the first time only, either YES would do the same action: register your beacon on the server and create a web link for your beacon. After this first time you can always control the link access and/or sending data to the beacon separately.

After creation of a beacon/link you can open your own link in the browser, change link url or send the link via “Share” button in the “Web browser link” section:

Protect with password.

Tap on a password protection row in the “Web browser link” section to enable or disable password protection for the link. When password is setup for the link, it will be required to enter before any map/data are shown.

History.

Tap on a “Keep history” row in the History section to setup how many hours of your location history the beacon should store. History configuration screen also allows you to erase any history that is being kept for your beacon on the server.

You can also disable the history altogether and then only one - most recent location of Yours will be stored on the server and shown on your beacon web page.

Synchronization frequency.

When beacon is enabled and you have tracking active, the app will send your location breadcrumb in regular intervals to a server. You can configure this interval in the top “GPS Beacon” section.

Security and privacy considerations.

Function of a GPS Beacon includes sending and storing your location data on the server. Here are some statements on security of data and communications:

All communication with the servers is happening over https.

If you setup a password for your GPS beacon web link, only one-way hash of your password concatenated with a salt is stored.

All messages from the app to the server are signed and validated with the unique key exchanged between server and the app when your beacon is first created.

Request for the beacon creation is signed with the server/app key.

If you delete your beacon history via the app, it is deleted immediately.

History cleanup is happening on servers every 15 minutes and thus history data stored may exceed the number of hours setup by you by 15 minutes.

There is no identification of your IP address, device id or anything else stored (or sent) on the servers, that might relate your location records back to your device or to yourself.

Servers infrastructure and data storage is provided by the app owner/developer (Stanislav Dvojcenko, EU citizen, Czech Republic) and his company Kalimex-Consulting s.r.o. (EU, Czech Republic) in compliance with EU laws for the data privacy.

Updated privacy policy .