Privacy Policy

This policy covers Aurora Tonight on iOS and Android and its support website. No account or login is required. The app still processes information such as location, installation identifiers and content you choose to submit; accountless does not mean anonymous.

Who is responsible

The app is provided by Martin Ansong (Aurora Tonight), United States. This is the organisation or individual responsible for your information; the privacy contact is below.

Location and local forecasts

You can choose a region or search for a place without granting location permission. If you allow device location, automatic location queries sent to our API are rounded to two decimal places. This is roughly a kilometre of latitude; the east-west distance varies with latitude. A chosen region or viewing spot uses that place's coordinates. A place you find by search is rounded the same way on your device before it is saved or sent. Rounding reduces precision but does not guarantee that a place or person cannot be identified.

We use these coordinates for viewing conditions, darkness, cloud forecasts, nearby spots and sightings. Location-based weather results are cached on our server using rounded coordinates and forecast times. This shared weather cache is not linked to a device or user record. Alert rules can separately retain the place they watch and its time zone.

Apple or Google mapping and place-name services may receive device location when providing their services, subject to your device permissions and their policies. The rounding described above concerns requests to our API, not all processing by the operating system or map provider.

When you submit a place search, the text you typed goes to Apple's place search on iOS, or to your device's geocoding service on Android (usually provided by Google). It is not sent to our server.

Identifiers, alerts and saved settings

The app creates an installation identifier for functions such as recognising your sightings and content reports. It is not an advertising identifier. The app keeps it on this device until you use Delete my data from the server in Settings, which replaces it with a new one. A new one is also created when the app is set up on another device, including from a backup, and on Android when the app is reinstalled or its data is cleared. Where remote alerts are available and enabled, we store the push token supplied by Apple or Google, device platform, notification language, alert rules, watched places, time zones and delivery preferences. Notification registration and sighting-alert settings may associate the installation identifier with this notification record. iOS Live Activities also use an activity identifier and push token.

Local preferences, cached readings, learning progress and other on-device state support the app experience. Android remote alerts are not available in the current release configuration; we do not obtain an FCM token while that capability is disabled.

Community sightings and reports

If you submit a sighting, the app sends its position, intensity, nickname and any note or place label you provide. The server records when you submit it. The app rounds the position on your device to two decimal places before sending it, as it does for automatic queries, on both iOS and Android. The nickname, note, observation details and approximate place are visible to other users. Avoid including your home address, contact details or other information you do not want made public.

Public sightings include a separate random author reference so blocking can follow the same installation when a nickname changes. The private installation ownership identifier is not published. While the author reference is kept, it stays linked to your installation after you delete individual posts, so deleting posts or changing your nickname does not undo another user's choice to hide your posts. It is kept only until your installation has no remaining sightings and has not posted for more than 30 days, when it is scheduled for deletion, and it is deleted at once when you use Delete my data from the server. Posts made after it is deleted carry a new, unconnected author reference, so another user's earlier choice to hide your posts may no longer apply to them.

We store an installation identifier to establish ownership and prevent abuse. Reporting content sends the report and your installation identifier for moderation; these report details are not part of the public sighting. Hiding a person's posts is a local preference. Photo attachments are disabled in the current app release and are not offered as a collection feature covered by this release.

Ask Aurora

Before the first question, the app asks for your permission to share it with the AI provider. When you send a question, our server sends the question and available fresh KP and Bz readings to Anthropic to generate an answer. The app does not automatically include your coordinates or location name in this request. Anything you type into the question, including personal information or a place, is included. Do not enter sensitive personal information.

Ordinary questions and answers are processed to provide the reply and are not saved as a conversation history in our application database. If you report an answer, we store the reported text, your optional note and installation identifier to investigate it. Anthropic's processing and retention also depend on its applicable service terms and our provider agreement.

Purchases and support

Where a paid plan is offered, Apple or Google handles payment. The app reads purchase and subscription status to provide access and restore purchases. We do not receive your payment-card details through the app. Store transaction records are governed by the store's arrangements.

If you email support, we receive your email address, message and anything you attach. The app's feedback email can include app version, build, device model and operating-system version to help diagnose a problem. You can review the message before sending it.

Security, operational data and this website

Our production API uses HTTPS. We process IP addresses for rate limiting and abuse prevention, and operational records such as request method, route, status, timing and software information to keep the service working. Application request logs redact sensitive token and coordinate query fields; weather diagnostics may contain rounded location keys. Hosting providers also process connection information needed to serve requests.

Server error reporting can use Sentry when enabled. It is configured for error diagnostics, with request bodies, cookies and identifying request fields removed, rather than advertising or behavioural analytics. We do not use advertising identifiers or advertising trackers in the apps. We do not sell personal data.

The static support website contains no advertising or analytics scripts. Its host may keep ordinary connection and security logs. Following an external link takes you to a service with its own privacy practices.

Services that receive information

• Apple and Google: maps, place search and place-name lookup, app distribution, payments and push delivery where those features are used.
• Open-Meteo: coordinates for cloud and weather forecast requests. Public space-weather sources such as NOAA supply the readings used by the app.
• Anthropic: questions and the KP/Bz context described above.
• Hosting, database and operational providers: the information needed to run the API, website, storage and support; Sentry where error reporting is enabled.
• Other users: the community sighting content you choose to publish. Opening an external webcam or directions service connects you to its operator.

Retention

• Alert firing records: scheduled for deletion once more than 90 days old. Clearing history removes rule firings from the displayed history immediately; underlying records may remain temporarily for alert cooldown checks until scheduled deletion.
• Alert evaluation records: scheduled for deletion once more than 14 days old.
• Shared weather-cache rows: scheduled for deletion after their forecast time is more than two days in the past. Cleanup jobs run periodically, not at an exact expiry second.
• Notification registrations: a registration that has been inactive for more than 180 days is scheduled for deletion, together with its alert rules, alert history, delivery preferences and the Live Activity records linked to it. A registration becomes inactive when you turn notifications off in the app or when Apple or Google rejects a push to it, for example after the app was uninstalled. Registrations that stay active are kept, and uninstalling the app does not by itself erase server records.
• Live Activity records: deleted automatically within 2 days of being created, whether or not they are linked to a notification registration.
• Public author references: scheduled for deletion once the installation has no remaining sightings and has not posted for more than 30 days.
• Erasure markers: when you use Delete my data from the server, we keep a one-way hash of the replaced installation identifier, not the identifier itself, so that a sighting still being sent under it is refused rather than stored. It is scheduled for deletion once more than 24 hours old.
• Sightings and moderation reports: there is no automatic age-based expiry. Sightings remain until deleted or removed; hiding content from the feed is different from deleting its stored record.
• Support correspondence: kept while we handle your request and for up to 12 months afterwards, so we can follow up on the same issue, then deleted.
• Infrastructure logs and backups: request and error logs are kept by our hosting provider for a limited period under its standard log retention and then deleted; we use them only to operate and secure the service. Database backups, where the provider keeps them, are replaced on its rolling schedule.
• Information held by service providers: kept under each provider's own terms; the providers are listed under Legal bases and international processing.

Your choices and deletion requests

You can change location and notification permissions in device settings, use a manually selected region, change or delete alert rules, clear displayed alert history, and delete sightings owned by your installation. Disabling notifications stops or restricts delivery; it is not a request to erase all information.

Delete my data from the server in the app's Settings deletes, from our application database, the sightings your installation posted and their photos, the content reports and reported Ask Aurora answers it sent, its public author reference, the notification registrations it can identify, with their alert rules, alert history and Live Activity records, and the records of the Live Activities still on your iPhone. The app then removes your alert rules from the device, ends those Live Activities and starts a new installation identifier. A sighting still on its way under the old identifier is refused rather than stored (see Erasure markers under Retention). A Live Activity record that was still being registered at that moment is removed by the 2-day rule under Retention. This cannot be undone.

A notification registration is identified by the push token the app holds when you use the control, or by the installation identifier where the app has linked it to that registration. A registration the control cannot identify is not deleted by it. This can happen after notifications were turned off in the app, because the app may then no longer hold the push token; such a registration is inactive and is deleted under the 180-day rule described under Retention, with its alert rules and history. The control likewise reaches only records linked to the identifiers the app holds when you use it, so records from an earlier installation whose identifier the app no longer has are not covered. It does not reach infrastructure logs, backups or information held by service providers. If the app reports that deletion failed, the deletion may not have completed, or may have completed only in part; try again when connected. Repeating it is safe.

For other access, correction or deletion requests, contact aurora.support@mail.instinct.com. Tell us which feature and information your request concerns. We may need proportionate information to locate the record and verify ownership. Because there is no user account, an email address alone may not identify your installation, particularly after reinstalling. Do not email push tokens, passwords, payment details or precise location.

Where applicable law provides them, your rights include access, correction, erasure, restriction, objection, portability and withdrawal of consent. Withdrawal does not change the lawfulness of earlier processing. You may complain to your local data-protection authority. Copies of public content made by other people or external services may remain outside our control.

Legal bases and international processing

We operate the app from the United States. Where the GDPR or the UK GDPR applies, for example when you use the app in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on:

• Providing the service you ask for (contract): forecasts and conditions for your area or chosen region, alert rules and their delivery, Live Activities, restoring purchases, and deleting your information when you ask.
• Your consent: publishing a community sighting and sending a question to Ask Aurora. You can withdraw it at any time by no longer using the feature and by deleting your sightings or your data as described above.
• Our legitimate interests in keeping the service safe, reliable and lawful: moderating and reporting content, preventing abuse and spam, rate limiting, security and operational logs. You can object to this processing by contacting us.

Device permissions, such as location and notifications, control what the app can do on your device; they are not themselves our legal basis.

Our server is hosted by Railway in its EU West region, with its database and cache at the same provider. Some providers process information outside the EEA and UK: Railway and the push services of Apple and Google may process it in the United States; Ask Aurora questions are processed by Anthropic in the United States; rounded forecast coordinates are sent to Open-Meteo to fetch cloud and weather forecasts; and support email is handled by our email providers.

Where EEA or UK data protection law applies to information sent to the United States or another country, we rely on the safeguards in the provider's data processing terms, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum, or on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension where the provider is certified. Contact us for more information about these safeguards.

Children and policy changes

The app is not directed at children under 13, and community sightings and Ask Aurora are not for anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has submitted personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

We will update the date when this policy changes and provide appropriate notice of material changes. Where required, we will obtain consent before using information for a new purpose.

Privacy contact

aurora.support@mail.instinct.com