Data Privacy

We are very conscientious about data privacy. We do not collect, share, or sell customer data. Our business model is to pay for the services we use and not use any free services. (Which tend to be the ones that track users). The service provider is outside of our control, however, and would have the tools to track a customer if they wished. But that should not be a problem if you’re using a reputable carrier. Here are the parties that could potentially track you.

1. Sunbeam. We are opposed to this and have intentionally set up our business model to avoid free services. We control the software running on the phone and we do not have any “bloatware” or other unnecessary software installed. We do have an “Update” tool that pings our server to check for an update on a time schedule. (And if an update is available, it will notify you of this). We also have a “Bug Report” tool that can be used, if desired, to report a bug to us. But neither of these functions is used to spy on or track users.
2. The carrier. The carrier would in theory be able to use tower triangulation to locate a user. However, this should not be a problem if reputable carriers are used. No customer information from our software is given to the carrier.
3. Our Here navigation feature. We’ve built the Navigation function ourselves using the HERE Technologies software development kit. But the connections to HERE are limited and no customer details are available to them. You can also download the map data in advance (from within Navigation, preferably over Wi-Fi to reduce cellular data), or purchase the SD card from us that has the map data preinstalled on it to further reduce your data usage and activity. There is a “Search” function to find nearby businesses or other POI that does need a network connection to be used. This data connection is also with HERE Technologies.
4. Waze navigation feature. Waze navigation is provided by Google and as has its own privacy policy available here. Phone models that include Waze also have aGPS enabled which uses the Google SUPL server for faster GPS initialization. (supl.google.com) While our devices do not have any Google Play services installed, we suggest using a model that does not include Waze if this is a concern to you.
5. Our Weather feature. The data source for our Weather function is The Weather Company, by IBM. Again, this is a paid service and IBM is not provided any customer-specific information.
6. Our Voice-to-Text Input feature. This feature is powered by Microsoft using Azure real-time speech-to-text transcription. Audio is sent directly to the speech service and is not stored or processed on the phone. Here is a link to the Microsoft Azure speech-to-text data privacy page: Data, privacy, and security for Speech to text - Azure AI services | Microsoft Learn Please note that this page contains information about all Azure speech-to-text services. Sunbeam phones use the real-time transcription service.