The disclosure provides for a method and a system for tracking an optical communication beam based on polarization modulation of the optical communication beam. The method includes polarizing, at a first communication device, an optical communication beam in a polarization pattern. The optical communication beam carries an optical signal. The polarization pattern encodes information by varying between a first polarization direction and at least one second polarization direction. The polarized optical communication beam is then transmitted from the first communication device to a second communication device. At the second communication device, the polarized optical communication beam is processed to extract the encoded information, and the encoded information is used at the second communication device to track the optical communication beam.