SARSTREAM User Notice & Privacy
Version 1.2 · Effective 2026-10-17
This page has six parts: the Notice to Every User (read this first), the Privacy Policy, the Service Providers SARTech uses, How We Protect Data, How Long We Keep Data, and Records and Legal Requests. Agencies accept a separate document, the SARSTREAM Agency Agreement; if anything here differs from it, the Agency Agreement controls for agencies.
Notice to Every User
Please read this before you use SARSTREAM. It is short. Your agency has accepted the SARSTREAM Agency Agreement for itself and for everyone it lets use SARSTREAM, and makes this notice available to you.
Who runs SARSTREAM
SARSTREAM is a free beta service run by SARTech LLC. Your agency lets you use it under its own agreement with SARTech, which covers your use.
DO NOT RELY ON IT IN AN EMERGENCY
SARSTREAM CAN FAIL, FREEZE, LAG, SHOW OLD VIDEO THAT LOOKS LIVE, SHOW WRONG POSITIONS, OR LOSE DATA — WITHOUT WARNING, EVEN DURING A SEARCH. IF YOU RELY ON IT, PEOPLE COULD BE HURT OR DIE. It is not 911, dispatch, or a way to track responders. Never use it as your only source of information for a safety decision. Follow your agency's radio, command and safety procedures. Pilots: SARSTREAM is never a flight reference.
Detect is an aid. It will miss people and flag things that aren't people. An empty lead list does not mean an area is clear — always watch the video. The optional AI hint is a computer-written guess and can be wrong.
You use it at your own risk
YOU USE SARSTREAM ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. BY USING SARSTREAM, AND TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, YOU RELEASE AND WILL NOT SUE SARTECH LLC OR ITS MEMBERS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS OR VOLUNTEERS, OR BOULDER EMERGENCY SQUAD OR ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, MEMBERS OR VOLUNTEERS, FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING FROM SARSTREAM — INCLUDING CLAIMS FOR THEIR NEGLIGENCE, AND CLAIMS FOR INJURY OR DEATH. This does not cover gross negligence, willful and wanton conduct, or anything else the law does not allow to be released. SARSTREAM is provided "as is", with no warranties. Each person and organization named here may enforce this paragraph.
Be 18, or have your agency's OK
You confirm that you are at least 18 years old, or that your agency has your parent's or guardian's written consent for you to use SARSTREAM.
Follow the rules
- Use SARSTREAM only for your agency's authorized work.
- Keep your links, codes and keys private — don't forward them without your agency's permission.
- Respect the privacy of the people you see and record. Don't share mission video or photos outside your agency's channels.
- Don't try to get into data or functions you weren't given, or test SARSTREAM's security. Report security problems to support@sarstream.org.
The full rules are in Section 7 of the Agency Agreement.
Your information
SARSTREAM records your sign-in email (if you use one), IP address, browser and activity, and — if you stream from a phone or fly a drone — your location. Your agency's administrators can see this. The Privacy Policy below explains more.
If you do not agree with this notice, do not use SARSTREAM, and tell your agency.
Privacy Policy
Who is responsible for what
- SARTech LLC ("SARTech", "we") operates SARSTREAM (the "Service").
- Agency Data — video, photos, positions, Detect leads, mission names and notes, map data — is controlled by the agency that created it. We host and process it for the agency under the Agency Agreement and, unless the agency opts out, use it to improve the Service (see How we use it). Questions or requests about Agency Data (for example, a video that shows you) go to that agency; we refer requests sent to us to the agency.
- Account and security data — sign-in emails, access logs, security records — is used by SARTech to run and secure the Service, and is also available to the agency's administrators for their own users.
What we collect
| Category | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-in and account data | Email address; role (viewer or administrator); the agency; sign-in links and session records; join codes; acceptance records for SARSTREAM documents (typed name, title, time, IP address, browser) | You, your agency's administrators, and the Service |
| Access and security logs | IP address, browser/user-agent, pages and requests, time, a random per-tab identifier, sign-in attempts (including the email address typed, even if it is not on any list) | Your browser and our servers |
| Live video and audio | Drone, camera, body-cam and phone streams; Go Live phone streams include audio | Your agency's devices |
| Recordings and photos | Recorded video segments and stitched flight videos, with audio where the device sends it (phones, body cams, encoders); drone and phone photos, including location data embedded in the photo (EXIF/GPS) | Your agency's devices |
| Detect uploads and results | Videos, photos and flight logs your agency's users upload to Detect (including embedded location and camera data); Detect leads, image crops, enhanced clips and AI-hint replies; who turned Detect on or re-scanned | Your agency's users and the Service |
| Positions and telemetry | Drone position, height, heading, camera direction, battery and similar; the drone controller's (pilot's) position; Go Live phone location and compass heading (about once per second while live); device serial numbers; the drone's own status and warning messages (for example health alerts, nearby-aircraft warnings, return-to-home); the raw messages drones and controllers send (kept for troubleshooting) | Drones, controllers, phones, and partner systems your agency connects |
| Mission information | Mission names, notes, bookmarks, stream and drone names (free text — may contain names of people); a record of changes to settings and mission details (who changed what, with the old and new values) | Your agency's users and the Service |
| Email records | A log of each email SARSTREAM sends: recipient, time, subject and whether it was delivered — never the email's text | The Service |
| Map data | Objects your agency's own CalTopo/SARTopo account sends to or receives from SARSTREAM, and a copy of the agency's map saved when a mission ends | Your agency's mapping account |
| Agency settings | Agency name and logo, administrator lists, storage and mapping credentials the agency provides | Your agency |
| Usage counts | Daily totals per agency (data volume, viewer minutes, missions, emails sent) | The Service |
We do not collect payment information, government ID numbers or biometric identifiers. We do not run facial recognition. Detect looks for possible people and heat signatures in drone video; it does not identify anyone.
How we use it
- To provide the Service: sign you in, deliver video and positions to your agency's people, record and replay missions, run Detect when your agency turns it on, send sign-in links and mission emails, and sync with your agency's own mapping account.
- To secure the Service: detect and block misuse, rate-limit sign-in attempts, investigate incidents and keep audit records.
- To support and improve the Service: diagnose problems, understand usage in aggregate, and test and improve features such as Detect — including training Detect's models with Agency Data within SARTech and its service providers acting for it, unless the agency opts out (Agency Agreement §9.2).
- To comply with law and enforce the Agency Agreement.
We do not sell personal information, use it for advertising, share it with data brokers, or disclose Agency Data, or any dataset or model made from it, except to service providers acting for us, as the agency directs, or as described in Records and Legal Requests below. We do not use Agency Data in marketing or publicity without the agency's written permission.
Who can see it
- Your agency's users see what the agency shares with them. Your agency's administrators can see their users' sign-in records and access logs, including IP addresses.
- SARTech's operators can access data as needed to run, secure, support and improve the Service.
- Other agencies see your agency's data only if your agency shares it.
- The public. Agencies are not listed on the public SARSTREAM page unless they opt in, and mission names are not shown publicly unless the agency opts in. However, anyone who knows an active agency's web address can see the agency's name and logo, and whether it currently has an active mission.
- Service providers listed below, only to provide their service to us.
- Legal process, only as described in Records and Legal Requests below.
Third-party services you may see directly
- Maps. SARSTREAM includes Google Maps features and content. Map pages load Google Maps in your browser, so Google receives your IP address and the map area you are viewing. Use of Google Maps features and content is subject to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service (https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps/) and the Google Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy).
- Recordings and photos are delivered to your browser directly from Cloudflare's storage service, which sees your IP address.
- DJI. The DJI Pilot 2 app on a drone controller is DJI's product. SARSTREAM sends nothing to DJI, but the DJI app may send data to DJI under the pilot's or agency's DJI account settings.
- CalTopo/SARTopo. If your agency connects its own CalTopo account, positions, tracks and photos are sent to that account, and CalTopo's terms and privacy policy apply there.
Cookies and browser storage
We use only what the Service needs to work:
| Name | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
sarstream_session_viewer, sarstream_session_admin (and the older sarstream_session) | Keep you signed in (viewer or administrator) | 24 hours for email sign-in links and join codes, or until an administrator-created link expires; extended while a page stays open; cleared when you sign out |
sarstream_golive_device | Remember which phone has Go Live permission | 365 days |
Browser storage (sarstream.*, detect.* and similar) | Remember display and layout settings, a per-tab identifier for viewer counts, the Go Live stream name, Detect upload progress, and — on drone controllers — the pairing token, publish key, connection login and map ID | Until cleared |
We use no advertising or analytics cookies. Google Maps may set its own storage under Google's policy.
Do Not Track
SARSTREAM does not track you across other websites and does not respond differently to browser "Do Not Track" or Global Privacy Control signals, because it does no cross-site tracking or advertising.
Children
The Service is not intended for anyone under 18 unless their agency has obtained a parent's or guardian's consent under its own youth policies. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.
Where data is stored
SARTech stores and processes data in the United States. Provider locations are listed below; some providers operate globally, and Cloudflare's storage location hints do not guarantee where data is stored.
Your choices and requests
- Users can ask their agency's administrators to remove them, which signs them out everywhere in that agency.
- Access, correction or deletion requests about Agency Data go to your agency. Requests about your own sign-in records can be sent to support@sarstream.org; we coordinate with your agency, because those records are also the agency's security records.
- Agencies can request export or deletion of all their data as described below and in the Agency Agreement.
Changes to this page
We post changes here with a new version number and date; earlier versions stay available from the links at the end of this page. We email agency administrators about material changes, and at least 30 days before adding a provider that would receive mission video or location data. Changes to this page never change the Agency Agreement.
Service Providers
These are the outside companies SARTech uses to run SARSTREAM, what each one does, and what data it handles.
| Provider | What they do for SARSTREAM | Data they handle | Location | More information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean, LLC | Hosts the SARSTREAM server (application, databases, live video relay, local recording buffer, logs) | All data at rest on the server: account and audit data, positions and telemetry, mission data, locally buffered recordings, logs | United States (New York region, nyc1) | https://www.digitalocean.com/legal |
| DigitalOcean, LLC — temporary Detect servers | Run Detect for a mission or a re-scan; created for that work and destroyed when it ends (normally within about 1 hour, at most about 4 hours) | Live drone video frames and positions for that mission; Detect leads and their image crops are returned to the main server | United States (New York region, nyc1) | https://www.digitalocean.com/legal |
| Cloudflare, Inc. — R2 storage | Stores recordings, stitched flight videos and photos (one bucket per agency), and SARSTREAM's encrypted backups and log archive; delivers recordings and photos to viewers' browsers | Recordings and photos (including embedded location data); encrypted backups; an encrypted archive of server logs and raw drone messages | Cloudflare network; storage location hints set to Eastern and Western North America (not a guarantee) | https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ |
| Cloudflare, Inc. — DNS and domain registration | Resolves the sarstream.org name | Host names only | Global | https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ |
| Zoho Corporation — Zoho Mail | Sends SARSTREAM email (sign-in links, mission start/end, invitations, alerts) and holds copies in the sending mailbox | Recipient email addresses, sign-in links and join codes, mission, drone and stream names, map links, who ended a mission | United States (Zoho US data center, zoho.com) | https://www.zoho.com/privacy.html |
| Google LLC — Google Maps Platform | Map display in viewers' browsers | Viewer IP address and the map area being viewed (sent by the browser directly to Google) | Global | https://policies.google.com/privacy |
| Amazon Web Services — public elevation tiles | Elevation data used to estimate camera footprints (fetched by the SARSTREAM server, cached) | Approximate map-tile coordinates of the mission area; no personal data | United States | https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/ |
| Let's Encrypt (ISRG) | Issues the HTTPS certificate | Host names only | United States | https://letsencrypt.org/privacy/ |
| GitHub, Inc. | Hosts SARSTREAM's private source-code repository | A few small test images cut from agency drone video | United States | https://docs.github.com/site-policy/privacy-policies/github-general-privacy-statement |
| Backblaze, Inc. — B2 storage | Holds SARTech's encrypted workstation backups | The workstation's encrypted backup, which can include SARTech's development, test and training copies of Agency Data | United States | https://www.backblaze.com/company/policy/privacy |
| Anthropic, PBC — Detect AI hint; development help | Only for agencies SARTech has turned the hint on for, and only when a signed-in user clicks it on one Detect lead: describes in words what the lead might be. SARTech also uses Anthropic's models to help test and improve Detect | AI hint: image crops and recorded frames of that one lead (including the full frame with the lead marked), distances between repeat sightings, the camera type, the estimated size of the spot and the drone's height; no names, positions or account data. Anthropic does not train its models on AI-hint data and deletes it within 30 days, unless it is flagged for a policy review or the law requires longer. Development help: sample images and frames from agency video | United States | https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy |
| Aviation and weather data sources — FAA (TFRs, NOTAMs, airspace layers hosted on Esri ArcGIS Online), NOAA / National Weather Service (aviationweather.gov, nowCOAST lightning), USDA Forest Service (FEMS weather stations), Iowa State University Mesonet (radar), airplanes.live and ADS-B Exchange (via RapidAPI) (aircraft positions) | Only when the Airspace & conditions overlay is on for the agency: supply airspace, aircraft and weather near the mission | The approximate area of the mission (coordinates and radius); for radar and lightning map tiles, the viewer's browser fetches them directly, so those sources also see the viewer's IP address and the map area viewed; no names or account data | United States | The sources' own sites |
SARTech can also run Detect on a GPU workstation it controls (in Colorado, United States) for agencies it has set up for this; it receives the same video frames and positions as the temporary Detect servers above and returns the leads and image crops to the main server. It is not a third-party provider.
Services an agency connects itself
These are used only if the agency chooses, under the agency's own account and terms. They are not SARTech's providers.
| Service | What happens | Whose account |
|---|---|---|
| CalTopo / SARTopo | SARSTREAM sends drone and controller positions, flight tracks, camera direction, photos, Detect leads the agency chooses to send and a viewer link to the agency's map, reads the agency's assignments, and saves a copy of the map when a mission ends | The agency's own CalTopo Team / service account |
| DJI (Pilot 2 app, aircraft and controller firmware, DJI cloud) | The controller connects to SARSTREAM; SARSTREAM sends nothing to DJI, but DJI's app may send data to DJI under the pilot's or agency's DJI account settings | The agency's / pilot's DJI account |
| Cellular, satellite (e.g. Starlink) and other networks | Carry video and data from the field | The agency's |
How We Protect Data
This describes what SARTech does today. It may change as the Service changes; the commitments are in Section 9 of the Agency Agreement.
- Encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS) for web access and video playback.
- Each agency's data is separated in the application, and cross-agency tests run before changes are deployed.
- A separate storage bucket and storage credential per agency for recordings and photos (the first pilot agency's bucket predates this design and uses the platform's own storage credential).
- Short-lived sign-in sessions, join codes that can be rotated, revocable links and keys, and administrator sign-out tools.
- Audit records of sign-ins, access and administrative actions. Cookies and most sign-in tokens are removed from web-server logs; those logs are readable only by the server's administrator account, and their off-site copies are encrypted.
- Nightly backups, encrypted before they leave the server, kept for 1 year in a separate storage bucket; files that no longer change (raw drone message capture, daily logs) are encrypted and copied there once and kept.
- SARTech avoids deploying software updates while any agency has an open mission.
What SARTech does not have: no formal certification or audit (such as SOC 2, CJIS, HIPAA or FedRAMP) and no 24/7 security monitoring. No system is perfectly secure.
Found a security problem? Please email support@sarstream.org and don't test the Service in ways the Agency Agreement forbids.
How Long We Keep Data
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Recordings, stitched flight videos and photos | Until deleted by the agency, or until the agency's retention period passes (see Agency retention period below) |
| Drone and phone positions and telemetry, including controller (pilot) positions and drone status and warning messages | Every point received, until the agency's data is deleted |
| Missions, flights, notes, bookmarks, map-sync records, and the record of changes to settings and mission details (old and new values) | Until the agency's data is deleted |
| Sign-in sessions and links | Expire within hours to days of use (longer-lived links can be created by agency administrators); the records remain until the agency's data is deleted |
| Sign-in, access, security and administrative audit records (including detailed access logs) | Until the agency's data is deleted; nothing is pruned automatically |
| Agency-level and platform-administrator audit records | Permanently, as SARTech's own business records |
| Email send log (recipient, time, subject, delivered or not — never the text) | Until the agency's data is deleted |
| Raw drone and controller message capture (troubleshooting) | Kept, on the server and in the encrypted off-site archive. It mixes agencies, so it is kept as an access-restricted operational record (Agency Agreement §9.8) |
| Web-server access logs and system logs | Kept, on the server and in the encrypted off-site archive, as access-restricted operational records |
| Encrypted off-site backups | 1 year |
| Detect uploads, leads, image crops, enhanced clips and AI-hint replies | Until the agency's data is deleted |
| SARTech's development, test and training copies of Agency Data | Removed within 30 days after the agency opts out or its data is deleted; copies in backups expire as described above, and a few small test images may remain in source-code history; models already built are not retrained (Agency Agreement §9.2) |
| Final export prepared before an agency's data is deleted | Kept, encrypted, until the agency asks SARTech to delete it |
| Other operational copies: safety copies made before software updates, SARTech's encrypted workstation backups | Deleted or expire on their own schedules within 12 months; used only to restore, secure or fix the Service |
| Copies of emails SARSTREAM sent | Kept in SARTech's access-restricted sending mailbox |
| Usage totals (no personal data) | Permanently |
| Records of acceptance of SARSTREAM documents | Permanently, as SARTech's own business records |
Positions, tracks and photos an agency sent to its own CalTopo account are kept there under the agency's control.
- Agency retention period. An agency can ask SARTech to set a retention period of N days for recordings and photos; after N days from upload they are deleted automatically, and replay shows "recording expired". Positions, flight tracks, mission records and notes are kept until the agency's data is deleted.
- Deleting items. Agency administrators can delete individual recordings, flight videos and photos in the Service; they are removed from storage at once, and a small record that the item existed remains. If a recording failed to upload, or was deleted before it was uploaded, its original file is kept, hidden from everyone, until the agency's data is deleted.
- Removing a person. Removing a user signs them out everywhere in that agency at once; their sign-in and audit records remain until the agency's data is deleted.
- Export, deletion and holds. An agency administrator can ask for a full export, deletion of all the agency's data, or a hold on named missions by email to support@sarstream.org from an administrator address on file. Timelines are in Section 9 of the Agency Agreement.
Records and Legal Requests
Mission data belongs to the agency that created it. If anyone — police, a court, a lawyer, a reporter or a member of the public — asks SARTech for it, we send them to the agency, tell the agency (normally within 2 business days and before disclosing anything, unless the law forbids it), and hand over data only if the agency tells us to in writing or the law requires it. We require valid legal process properly served on SARTech LLC, may object to a request that is overbroad or invalid, and disclose only what we must. We do not answer open-records (CORA) requests for agencies; we forward them to the agency. If we believe in good faith that disclosing specific data at once is necessary to prevent death or serious physical injury, we may disclose it to an appropriate authority and tell the agency afterwards. We keep a record of each request and what was disclosed, and share it with the affected agency on request unless prohibited. We do not comment to the media about any agency's missions or data.
Service of process: SARTech LLC, 1035 Pearl St Ste 400, Boulder, CO 80302 · support@sarstream.org · registered agent as listed with the Colorado Secretary of State.
Contact
SARTech LLC, a Colorado limited liability company (Colorado Secretary of State ID 20268074224) doing business as SARSTREAM · 1035 Pearl St Ste 400, Boulder, CO 80302 · support@sarstream.org