Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 1, 2026
Who we are
StayReadySoCal ("we," "us") is an independent, informational website. We are not a government agency, a nonprofit, or affiliated with any of the agencies or organizations we link to. This policy explains what information we collect from visitors, how we use it, and who else may collect it when you interact with services embedded on or linked from this site.
If you have questions about this policy, contact us at info@stayreadysocal.com.
What this site does, in brief
StayReadySoCal curates and links to official hazard-lookup tools, preparedness guidance, county emergency-alert sign-ups, and volunteer/mutual-aid organizations. Most of what you do on this site (looking up a hazard tool, checking a prep checklist, signing up for county alerts) happens on someone else's website, not ours. This policy only covers what happens on stayreadysocal.com itself.
Information we collect
Information you provide directly
StayReadySoCal does not offer account creation or login, and browsing the site does not require you to submit any personal information to us. The only places where you can choose to send us information are the donation widget, the feedback form, and check-ins, described below.
Family Emergency Plan. Our Prep page includes a Family Emergency Plan tool where you can enter household members, emergency contacts, and a meeting place. Everything you type there stays in your browser. It is not sent to StayReadySoCal or anyone else, and the site does not save it; reloading or closing the page clears it. If you print the plan or save it as a PDF, that happens through your browser's own print function, and the copy is yours. Depending on your settings, your browser's autofill feature may remember what you type; that is controlled by your browser, not by us.
Donations. If you choose to donate, that happens through an embedded Ko-fi widget. Ko-fi (and its payment processors, such as PayPal or Stripe) handle and store your payment information directly; we do not receive or store your card number, PayPal account, or other payment details. Depending on what you enter (display name, message), Ko-fi may collect and store that information under its own privacy policy, which we encourage you to review at more.ko-fi.com/privacy (opens in new tab). We receive a notification and the information Ko-fi's dashboard provides to us as the account holder, which may include the donation amount, your name, your email address, and any message you chose to include.
Feedback form. Our feedback form is a Google Form embedded on this site. It collects whatever you choose to enter, which may include your name and contact information such as your email address. Responses are stored in Google Sheets under our Google Workspace account and are also subject to Google's privacy policy (see policies.google.com/privacy (opens in new tab)). Because the form is embedded directly on our page, Google may set its own cookies and collect technical information when the form loads, under its own policies. We use your submission only to respond to you or act on your suggestion, never for marketing, and we do not share it beyond what is needed to act on your request. If we add a separate volunteer sign-up form in the future, we will update this policy first.
Check-ins. If you check in, we record only the city or neighborhood you choose and the month, as an anonymous count. We don't record your name, contact information, or exact location, and the count is never linked to you. We show check-ins publicly only as ranges (for example, "100+"), not exact numbers. Check-in counts and the temporary hashed IP address are stored with Upstash, a database service, on our behalf.
Information collected automatically
Like virtually every website, our hosting provider (Vercel) automatically logs basic technical information when you visit: your IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, and timestamps. This is standard web server log data used for security, debugging, and keeping the site running; it is not used to build an advertising profile of you, and we do not sell it.
To limit repeat check-ins, we briefly keep a one-way, scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address. It is stored separately from check-in counts, can't be used to look up your check-in, and is deleted automatically within 24 hours.
Fonts, images, and videos on this site are served from our own domain, so loading our pages does not send your information to font or media providers. The only third-party content that loads on its own is the Ko-fi donation widget and the Google feedback form described above, and only on the page where they appear.
Analytics. As of this writing, StayReadySoCal does not run Google Analytics or any similar behavioral/cross-site tracking or advertising service. If that changes (for example, if we add a privacy-focused analytics tool to understand which pages are useful), we will update this policy first and note it here, including whether it uses cookies.
Cookies
We do not set our own cookies, and the site does not store anything else in your browser. The embedded Ko-fi donation widget and the embedded Google feedback form may set their own cookies and collect information about your visit under their own policies, which we do not control. If we later add analytics, we will disclose exactly what it sets here.
Do Not Track signals
Some browsers can send a "Do Not Track" signal. Because StayReadySoCal does not track visitors across other websites, our own site does not change its behavior in response to this signal. The third-party services embedded on our site (Ko-fi and Google) may collect information about your online activity under their own policies, and they decide whether to honor these signals.
How we use information
We use the limited information described above only to: operate and secure the site, respond to feedback form submissions, count check-ins by area and show them publicly as ranges, limit repeat check-ins, and process donations through Ko-fi. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own advertising or marketing purposes.
Third-party links and services
Almost everything StayReadySoCal points you to is run by someone else: hazard-lookup tools (USGS, Cal OES, NOAA), county alert sign-up pages, sandbag location pages, volunteer/mutual-aid organizations, and legal-aid organizations. Once you leave stayreadysocal.com, that organization's own privacy policy applies, not this one. We encourage you to review the privacy practices of any site you visit through our links, especially before entering personal information into their forms.
Children's privacy
StayReadySoCal is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us at info@stayreadysocal.com and we will delete it.
California residents
Because StayReadySoCal collects very little personal information and does not sell personal information, most obligations under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA) are unlikely to be triggered by our current data practices. That said, if you are a California resident and have questions about what information (if any) we hold about you, or want it deleted, contact us at info@stayreadysocal.com and we will respond.
Data retention
We retain automatically-collected server log data only as long as needed for security and operational purposes, consistent with our hosting provider's standard practices. We keep feedback form responses only as long as we need to respond to or act on them, and delete them no later than 12 months after we receive them. Donation records are retained by Ko-fi under its own policy. Check-in counts are kept indefinitely as anonymous totals. The hashed IP address used to limit repeat check-ins is deleted automatically within 24 hours.
Security
We take reasonable measures to protect the limited information associated with this site, but no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the site changes, for example, when a new feature (like a volunteer form or analytics tool) is added. We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do. Material changes affecting how previously-collected information is used will be called out clearly, not just buried in a date change.
Contact us
Questions about this policy or your information: info@stayreadysocal.com