Privacy policy

Who is responsible

Cloudlarm is made by Benek Apps ("we", "us"), the developer named on Cloudlarm's page in Google Play. We are the controller of the personal data described here.

For any question or request about privacy, write to benek.apps.feedback@pm.me.

What stays on your phone

Your places, alarms and settings, and the forecasts the app downloads, are stored on your phone and, if backup is on, in its encrypted backup (see Backups). The app checks your alarms on the phone, so we never learn which alarms you have or when they go off.

If you choose "Use my location", the app asks Android for your approximate location, never your precise one, and at once turns it into a grid cell of 0.05° of latitude by 0.05° of longitude. A cell is a few kilometres across, about 5.5 by 3.5 km in central Europe. Only the cell is kept.

When you search for a place, or when the app shows the name of your area, it asks your phone's geocoding service, which is part of Android and on most phones is provided by Google. The service receives the text you typed or the centre of your grid cell, never your precise location.

What the app sends to our server

To get a forecast, the app sends our server the number of the grid cell and the app's name and version, for example "Cloudlarm/1.0". It sends no name, account, device identifier, precise location or alarm settings.

Like every server on the internet, ours sees the IP address of your connection. We use it only for per-minute limits that protect the service from abuse. They cap how many forecasts, Premium checks and new areas one address can ask for (for IPv6, one network: the first half of the address), and how many forecasts, new areas and Premium checks a wider network can ask for (for IPv4, the addresses that share their first three numbers; for IPv6, those that share their first three groups). An area the server stopped updating counts as new. We do not store the address or write it to our logs.

For each cell someone asked for, our server keeps the latest forecast, the same for everyone who asks for that cell. A cell is not linked to you or to other cells. When nobody has asked for a cell for 2 days, the server stops updating it, and after 7 days it deletes it. Our logs record at most a cell number.

Our server, not your phone, downloads the forecast for the centre of each cell from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway), and the Kp index of geomagnetic activity and its forecast from the Space Weather Prediction Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA SWPC). They receive nothing about you.

Aurora alerts

Aurora alarms have to reach you within minutes when geomagnetic activity rises, so they use Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), Google's push message service. The app registers with FCM only when you turn on your first aurora alarm. Firebase then gives the app an installation ID and a push token. Firebase's libraries also send Google the app's version and, for statistics on the platforms and versions in use, details of your phone such as its Android version, brand and model and the store the app was installed from.

The app subscribes to topics that name only a hemisphere, a 15° band of longitude and a Kp level, for example "northern hemisphere, 15° to 30° east, Kp 5". Our server sends its messages to these topics: it never receives your token and does not know who subscribes. When a message arrives, your phone checks whether its sky is dark and clear enough, and only then alerts you. In the evening, our server also sends these topics NOAA's Kp forecast for the night, in which your phone looks for dark, clear hours the same way.

When no aurora alarm is on any more, for example because you switched off or removed the last one, the app unsubscribes from its topics and deletes the token and the installation ID. While no aurora alarm is on, the app does not contact Firebase.

Backups

If backup is on in your phone's settings, Android saves your places, alarms and settings, the forecasts the app downloaded for your places, and the app's last answer about Premium, to your Google account, so they come back when you reinstall the app or move to a new phone. The app allows only backups that Android encrypts with your screen lock, which Google cannot read; that needs Android 9 or later, so on Android 8 the app is not backed up. When you set up a new phone, Android can also copy the same data straight from the old one. Firebase identifiers and aurora subscriptions are never backed up.

Premium

Premium is sold through Google Play. Google handles the payment under its own terms and privacy policy, and we never see your payment details.

To confirm a purchase, the app sends our server the purchase token that Google Play gave it, when you buy and from time to time while Premium lasts. Our server checks the token with Google Play, which also tells our server when a subscription renews or a purchase is cancelled or refunded. The server does not keep the token itself, only a fingerprint of it (a SHA-256 hash) with the purchase's state, such as active, cancelled or expired, and when the paid period ends. Google Play requires the server to acknowledge each new purchase within three days; until Google Play has accepted the acknowledgement, the server also keeps when it first tried to send it. It deletes them 30 days after the paid period ended, or 30 days after the last check of the token if that was later. They are not linked to your grid cells or to push identifiers.

The app keeps the server's last answer on your phone, the purchase's state and when the paid period ends, with a fingerprint of the token, so Premium also works offline. When Google Play lists no purchase, for example after you switch to another Google account in Google Play, the app also notes when that first happened and keeps Premium for 6 hours from then.

Our server keeps no order details. Google Play keeps the record of each order and shows it to us in Play Console and its reports: the order number, the date and time, the product, the price and taxes, the model of the phone used to buy it, and the buyer's country, in some countries also the region, city or postal code. We use these records only for our accounts and taxes.

Feedback, ratings and updates

If you choose "Send feedback" in the app's settings, your email app opens a message to benek.apps.feedback@pm.me with the app's version, your Android version and your phone's model, which help us find problems. You see the message before you send it and can change or delete anything in it. We use what you send us, your email address included, only to answer you, and delete it when the matter is settled, at the latest 2 years after your last message.

After you have opened a few alerts, the app may ask you once to rate it. The rating window comes from Google Play, which handles your rating and review under its own terms. It publishes them on the app's store page, or shows them only to us if you take part in a closed test. The app itself learns nothing about your rating, not even whether you gave one.

Each time you open the app, it asks Google Play on your phone whether a newer version is available. For that, Google Play uses details of your phone, the app's version and its installed parts, under its own terms. When a version fixes a serious fault, the app may then show Google Play's update screen. The app sends nothing about this to our server.

Permissions

The main permissions the app uses, and what for:

• Approximate location, only if you choose "Use my location". You can search for a place instead.
• Notifications, to show your alarms.
• Alarms & reminders, to check the forecast at the times you choose.
• Run at startup, to schedule the checks again after your phone restarts.
• Set an alarm, only so that a tap on the clock widget's time can open your clock app. Cloudlarm sets no alarms in it.
• Network access, to download forecasts and receive aurora alerts.

What we don't do

We don't sell or share your data, show ads, use analytics or tracking tools, or build profiles. The app has no accounts.

Legal bases

Where the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or similar laws apply, we process data:

• to provide the app and the features you turn on, such as forecasts, aurora alerts and Premium (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, performance of a contract);
• to protect our server from abuse with the per-minute limits for IP addresses (Article 6(1)(f), legitimate interests);
• to answer your messages (Article 6(1)(f), legitimate interests);
• to deliver this website and protect it from attacks, for which Cloudflare processes the data of each visit, such as your IP address (Article 6(1)(f), legitimate interests);
• to use Google Play's order records for our accounts and taxes (Article 6(1)(c), legal obligation).

You can object to the uses based on legitimate interests: see Your right to object.

Service providers

• Cloudflare runs our server and this website. It processes data on our behalf, including IP addresses, to deliver and protect them.
• Google delivers aurora alerts on our behalf through Firebase Cloud Messaging, and Google Play's notifications about purchases through Cloud Pub/Sub.
• Proton hosts our mailbox.
• Google Play distributes the app and its updates and handles payments and ratings, and Android backup keeps your backups. Google provides these services to you directly, under its own privacy policy.

Cloudflare and Google may process data outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Such transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, under which both companies are certified, or on the European Commission's standard contractual clauses. Proton keeps our mailbox in Switzerland, Germany or Norway, and the European Commission has found that Switzerland protects personal data adequately.

How we protect your data

The app connects to our server, and your browser to this website, only over encrypted HTTPS connections. The app's connections to Firebase and Google Play are encrypted too.

We keep as little data as we can, so that there is little to lose: our server stores no IP addresses, no accounts and no exact locations, only grid cells, and of each purchase token only a fingerprint from which the token cannot be recovered. The app allows only backups that Android encrypts with your screen lock.

Secret keys, such as those our server uses with Google Play and Firebase, are never part of the app or its source code: we keep them in the encrypted secret stores of Cloudflare and GitHub, and replace any that may have leaked. Our accounts at Google, Cloudflare, GitHub and Proton, which we use to publish and run Cloudlarm, are protected with two-step verification. If a breach puts personal data at risk, we notify Datatilsynet, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, within 72 hours, and if it puts your rights and freedoms at high risk, we also tell you without undue delay. To report a security problem, see Security.

How long we keep data

• Forecasts and grid cells on our server: until 7 days after the last request for the cell.
• Our server's logs, which record at most a cell number: 7 days.
• IP addresses: not stored.
• Push token and Firebase installation ID: until no aurora alarm is on. Firebase then deletes them within 180 days, also from its backups. If you uninstall the app first, Firebase deletes the push token and the installation ID after 270 days without activity (see Firebase's documentation).
• Fingerprints of purchase tokens, with the purchase's state: until 30 days after the paid period ended, or 30 days after the last check of the token if that was later. The tokens themselves are not stored.
• Backups: Cloudflare can restore our server's database to any moment in the past 30 days, so forecasts, grid cells and fingerprints we delete stay in its backups for up to 30 days longer.
• Order records: Google Play keeps them under its own terms, and our server stores none. Of Play Console's reports, we download for our accounts only those that accounting and tax law requires us to keep, and keep them as long as it requires.
• Messages you send us: until the matter is settled, at the latest 2 years after your last message.
• Everything on your phone: until you delete it or uninstall the app.

Your rights

You have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, and to data portability. You can also complain to a data protection authority, for example where you live or work: in Poland the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), in Norway Datatilsynet.

We don't know who you are, so we usually cannot find data about you (Article 11 GDPR). If you send us something that lets us find it, such as the order number of a purchase, we will help. You can also remove your data yourself: uninstall the app, and our server forgets your area after 7 days.

Children

Cloudlarm is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly process their data.

This website

We set no cookies and use no scripts, analytics or content from other sites. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, processes your IP address and the other data of each request, such as the page you open and your browser's name, to deliver the pages and protect the site from attacks, and may set a security cookie for that purpose. This rests on our legitimate interest in a website that works and is safe (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). We keep no logs of visits.

Changes

When we change this policy, we update this page and the date at the top. We announce important changes in the app's release notes too.