BEACON is the trademarked name of a scoring software program. It uses the information displayed in an Equifax credit file. (Think Kleenex vs. tissue paper) There are many different versions of BEACON programs. Some of these are BEACON 96, BEACON 5.0 and BEACON Auto Enhanced. A score requested with each program would yield a different number, even though the data in your credit report was the same.
All scoring programs originate with the Fair Isaac Company, headquartered in California (FICO). They lease FICO software to Experian (formerly TRW). EMPIRICA is leased by TransUnion. Consumers may also get their own version of a score from certain companies.