Acceptable Use Policy

BeaconEDU exists to support legitimate school safety, educational administration, emergency response, accountability, and authorized communications. Users must act responsibly and within their assigned authority.

1. Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy applies to every organization, administrator, employee, contractor, operator, user, device, and application that accesses or uses BeaconEDU.

This Policy supplements the Terms of Service and any applicable subscription, licensing, implementation, data-processing, or services agreement.

2. Permitted Uses

BeaconEDU may be used for legitimate purposes such as:

School safety and emergency management.
Incident activation, command, coordination, documentation, and reporting.
Staff, student, classroom, visitor, and facility accountability.
Parent reunification, guardian verification, pickup authorization, and student release.
Authorized school, district, staff, parent, and guardian communications.
Safety drills, exercises, testing, training, and after-action review when clearly identified and appropriately controlled.
Organization, user, roster, map, notification, and device administration.
Technical support, security, maintenance, and approved development activities.

3. Prohibited Conduct

Users and organizations may not use BeaconEDU to:

Violate any applicable law, regulation, court order, contract, or legally enforceable policy.
Access an account, organization, school, student record, message, device, or system without authorization.
Share credentials, authentication tokens, pairing codes, or access methods with unauthorized persons.
Impersonate another person, organization, school, official, emergency responder, or public agency.
Initiate a false emergency, false alarm, hoax, fraudulent alert, or deceptive drill.
Send unlawful, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, abusive, threatening, harassing, defamatory, hateful, obscene, or discriminatory communications.
Send unsolicited commercial messages, advertisements, spam, lead-generation messages, or unrelated marketing.
Send messages to recipients who have opted out, withdrawn consent, or are not authorized to receive the communication.
Use purchased, rented, scraped, or unlawfully obtained contact lists.
Upload malware, ransomware, spyware, viruses, harmful code, or corrupted files.
Probe, scan, test, bypass, defeat, or interfere with authentication, access controls, rate limits, encryption, logging, network protections, or other security measures without written authorization.
Disrupt, overload, degrade, disable, or interfere with BeaconEDU or any related network, carrier, provider, device, or user.
Reverse engineer, decompile, extract, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, or create an unauthorized derivative product from BeaconEDU.
Alter, conceal, falsify, or destroy incident, communication, delivery, accountability, audit, custody, or safety records improperly.
Upload or disclose information that the user or organization is not authorized to provide.
Use BeaconEDU to surveil, track, or profile individuals for an unauthorized purpose.
Use automation, bots, scripts, or API access in a manner that is unauthorized, abusive, deceptive, or harmful.

4. Messaging Requirements

Organizations and users sending SMS, email, push, voice, pager, or other communications must:

Have appropriate authority to send the communication.
Use accurate sender information and non-deceptive message content.
Select only the intended district, campus, school, grade, homeroom, class, student, guardian, staff member, or other authorized audience.
Obtain and document consent when required.
Honor STOP, unsubscribe, withdrawal, and other valid opt-out requests.
Avoid sending excessive, irrelevant, or unnecessarily repetitive messages.
Follow carrier, telecommunications, email, and messaging-provider requirements.
Protect contact lists and communication records from unauthorized use.

5. Emergency and Drill Conduct

Emergency activations and drills must be initiated only by authorized personnel and in accordance with organizational procedures.

Tests and drills should be clearly identified when appropriate to prevent confusion, unnecessary emergency response, panic, or misuse of public-safety resources.

BeaconEDU may not be used to delay or avoid contacting 911 or other emergency services when circumstances require immediate assistance.

6. Data and Privacy Responsibilities

Users and organizations must:

Limit access to personnel with a valid operational need.
Maintain accurate roles and permissions.
Protect student, guardian, staff, emergency, medical, custody, identity, and communication information.
Use information only for authorized school and safety purposes.
Follow applicable retention, deletion, disclosure, and records-management requirements.
Promptly report suspected breaches, unauthorized disclosures, or compromised accounts.

7. Security and Device Responsibilities

Users must take reasonable measures to secure devices used with BeaconEDU, including:

Using supported operating systems and current security updates.
Protecting devices with passcodes, biometrics, or other appropriate controls.
Preventing unauthorized physical access.
Logging out, revoking, or reporting lost, stolen, reassigned, or retired devices.
Avoiding insecure networks when reasonable alternatives are available.
Following organizational device, cybersecurity, and acceptable-use policies.

8. Monitoring and Enforcement

BeaconEDU may monitor system activity, security events, usage patterns, delivery activity, and audit records as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, support, and enforce the platform.

BeaconEDU may investigate suspected violations and may:

Warn the user or subscribing organization.
Restrict a feature, message, recipient group, device, integration, or account.
Suspend or terminate access.
Preserve relevant records.
Notify the subscribing organization, provider, carrier, regulator, or law enforcement when appropriate or legally required.

9. Reporting Misuse

Suspected misuse, security concerns, or violations of this Policy may be reported to:

BeaconEDU
Email: info@lockdownalert.org
Website: lockdownalert.org

10. Changes to This Policy

BeaconEDU may update this Policy as the platform, security environment, messaging rules, or legal requirements evolve.

The Effective Date will be revised when an updated version is published.