Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-08-01

Permit Ranger is a small wilderness-permit availability watcher. This policy explains what information the service stores, why it stores it, and what it never does with it. The short version: we keep only what the alerting features need, we never sell data, and we never book anything on your behalf.

Information we store

You create your own account by signing up with your name, email address, and a password. When you sign up, the service stores:

Your name, used to address you in the app and on billing records.
Your email address, used as your login name and to identify your account.
A hashed version of your password (bcrypt). Your actual password is never stored in readable form.
Your saved preferences: favorite passes, trips (entry-date ranges) with party sizes and the passes each trip watches, notification active hours, and your notification topic name.
Alert history: a record of the availability alerts the service has sent you, so the app can show them to you and avoid duplicate notifications.
Alert link clicks: booking links in the alerts we send you go through a short permitranger.com/r/ redirect, and we record first-party when such a link is clicked (time and delivery channel) so we can tell whether alerts are useful. No third party is involved and the link still takes you straight to recreation.gov.

Cookies

When you sign in, the service sets a single session cookie so you stay logged in between visits. The cookie is cryptographically signed and identifies your account only; it is not used for advertising or cross-site tracking. There are no analytics or third-party tracking cookies. Signing out removes the session.

Push notifications

Availability alerts are delivered through ntfy.sh, a third-party push notification service. Each account has its own notification topic, generated randomly unless you choose your own. Messages published to your topic contain the permit name, the dates that opened, and a booking link. Anyone who knows your topic name can subscribe to it, so treat your topic like a private address and pick a hard-to-guess one if you set it yourself. ntfy.sh has its own privacy policy that governs the delivery of these messages.

SMS text alerts

If you choose to receive alerts by SMS, you provide a mobile phone number in your account Settings and turn SMS alerts on. Your number is stored with your account and used only to deliver the alert messages you asked for. SMS messages are delivered through Twilio, a third-party messaging provider, which processes your number to send them. We never collect phone numbers any other way, never buy or use third-party contact lists, and never share your number for marketing. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any message or by turning SMS alerts off in Settings. Full details are on the SMS Consent page at /sms-consent, linked in the footer of every page.

Payments and billing

Permit Ranger is a paid subscription. Payments are processed by Stripe, a third-party payment processor. Your card number and full payment details are collected and stored by Stripe, never by Permit Ranger; we never see or store your card number. On our side we store only pointers to your Stripe customer and subscription records so the app knows your subscription status. Stripe's own privacy policy governs how it handles your payment information. You can manage your payment method, view invoices, and cancel through the Stripe billing portal, reachable from your account.

recreation.gov polling

The service periodically checks public availability data on recreation.gov for the permit areas it covers. This polling uses no personal information about you; it only reads publicly available quota and availability numbers. Permit Ranger is not affiliated with recreation.gov and never logs into recreation.gov, never holds inventory, and never books permits for you.

What we do not do

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with anyone.
We do not store your card number or payment details; those stay with Stripe, our payment processor.
We do not run ads or use advertising trackers.
We do not store your recreation.gov credentials; the service has no access to your recreation.gov account.

Data retention and deletion

Your account data is kept while your account exists. If you want your account and its data removed, send a data-deletion request through the contact form at /contact and the account, along with its favorites, trips, alert history, and settings, will be deleted.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new last-updated date. Material changes will be noted at the top of the page.

Contact

Questions about privacy or your data? Reach us through the contact form at /contact.