Privacy by Design: How Boomeraang Protects Your Family
There's an obvious tension at the heart of any lost-and-found service: to return an item, someone has to be able to reach the owner. Do that carelessly and you've built a way for strangers to look up children and home addresses. We designed Boomeraang so that never happens. Privacy isn't a setting you switch on — it's how the system works by default.
What a finder actually sees
When someone scans one of your tags, they reach a simple "found it" page for that item. They can send a message, share their location, and leave a way to reach them. What they cannot see is just as important:
- Not your home address
- Not your child's name
- Not your phone number or email
They see only enough to know the item is registered and to start it on its way home. The owner stays anonymous unless you choose to respond.
A stranger who finds your child's backpack should be able to help return it — and learn nothing about your child in the process. That's the line Boomeraang won't cross.
You control what you share with schools
Linking your child to a school is opt-in, and even then you decide what's shared. On the sharing preferences screen you choose the details that help staff match an item to your child — typically grade and teacher — and you can change or remove them anytime.
And schools have their own guardrail: an organization setting controls whether staff can see a linked child's name at all. Sharing is always between you and verified staff at an organization you chose — never the public.
Notifications go to you, not outward
When a tag is scanned, the alert flows to the owner. The finder doesn't get your details in return. You decide how to respond — reply through the contact info they left, or coordinate a return through the school. At every step, the direction of information is inward, toward you.
Privacy that survives a returned item
Even the reward flow is built this way. You can thank a finder without exposing your identity, and payments are handled by a trusted processor — Boomeraang takes no platform fee and never turns your gratitude into a data trail.
The bottom line
A lost-and-found network is only as good as the trust behind it. By making the private path the default path, Boomeraang lets kindness happen — a stranger returning a lost jacket — without asking you to give up your family's privacy to get it.
Want the details? Read what happens when your tag is scanned, or get started for free.