BacCatTerms of service and privacy notice
What we keep
A prepared copy of your capture. Before analysis everything is removed from the capture except building-automation traffic (BACnet on every transport, and LON/IP, also called IP-852) and basic network housekeeping: address resolution (ARP), reachability (ICMP), multicast membership (IGMP), switch and gateway topology (LLDP, CDP, STP, VRRP, HSRP), port authentication (EAPOL) and clock synchronisation (NTP). Web, email, file, DNS, DHCP and every other kind of traffic is removed and is not part of the prepared copy. We keep the prepared copy and the reports made from it until you delete them or, once your access has ended (below), until we remove them. Each capture's page shows exactly what was kept from it.
When an upload holds several interfaces, we also keep one file per link, cut from the prepared copy; these hold nothing the prepared copy does not. With each capture we keep its file name, your description of it, the name of the project you put it in, what BacCat Desktop recorded about how it was taken (the serial port or network adapter, the baud rate and the program's version), and the notes and error messages from its analysis.
The file as you uploaded it is deleted as soon as it has been processed. If we cannot process a file, we keep it for up to 30 days (at most 90 if we are still working on the problem), visible only to Strong Technology staff, to diagnose the problem; it is then deleted. If a file is rejected outright (it is not a packet capture, it is too large, or it holds no building-automation traffic), nothing is kept.
If the prepared copy could be made but its analysis failed, the prepared copy is kept like any other so that we can find and fix the fault, and you are told by email if a later version of BacCat can analyse it.
Archiving or removing a capture or a report on the site changes what your organisation sees; it does not delete the prepared copy we hold. Archiving takes a capture out of your list and keeps its links working. Removing a capture hides it and its reports from your organisation for good, including links already sent by email. Only Delete, below, erases anything.
For each computer signed in with BacCat Desktop we keep its name, the version of BacCat Desktop it runs, when it was signed in, and when and from which internet address it last used the service, until it is signed out.
When a plan ends
When your organisation's plan ends there is a grace period, whose length is part of the plan (90 days on the free beta). During it your captures are read-only: members can open, download, archive, remove and delete them, but cannot upload, make new reports or edit descriptions. The date it ends is shown on the site. After that date captures and reports can no longer be opened, and we make no commitment to keep them, so download anything you need before then. An administrator of your organisation can still see what we hold and delete it.
Deleting your data
Delete erases a capture from our systems: the prepared copy, any per-link files, any raw upload, every report, and with them the capture's file name, your description of it, the name of the project you put it in, what BacCat Desktop recorded about how it was taken (the serial port or network adapter, the baud rate and the program's version), and the notes and error messages from its analysis. It cannot be undone, by you or by us. The person who uploaded a capture, or an administrator of the organisation, can delete it from its page; you may also ask us to. An administrator can see at any time what we hold for the organisation and delete all of it at once, including after the grace period. Accounts and the organisation itself are not affected.
Live systems are erased at once. Copies in our backups, and any copy our engineers made to investigate a problem, are gone within 30 days; the same applies to a raw upload once its date has passed.
What stays: a line saying that a capture was uploaded and deleted, when and by whom, with measurements of it (its sizes, how many frames it held and how many BacCat kept, how long it ran, how many interfaces), the filter BacCat applied, and a fingerprint of each erased file, which cannot be turned back into the file and lets us find and remove stray copies. It carries no file name, no description, no addresses or device names, and none of the capture's traffic. An upload still counts against the day it was made.
How it is used
Retained prepared captures are used by Strong Technology to provide your reports, to make new reports for you when BacCat improves, and for product development, for example to test analyses against real traffic. Data is hosted in the EU, including our backups and any copy our engineers make to investigate a problem.
What is whose
Your capture and the prepared copy remain yours. You give Strong Technology permission to keep and process them as this notice describes.
Strong Technology owns the report format and analysis; you may keep, copy and share the reports made for your organisation without limit.
BacCat, BacCat Desktop and this website are Strong Technology's and are licensed, not sold; nothing here grants a right to copy them or to build a service on them.
Third-party software in BacCat Desktop and on this site is listed, with its licences, at /third-party/.
Access
Your organisation's first upload starts a free trial; the upload page says how long it lasts. The length is subject to change, but was 30 days as of this writing. After the trial, continued access is by a plan agreed with Strong Technology.