Privacy Policy for AeroCast Live Weather & Radar
# Privacy Policy
## 1. Introduction
Welcome to AeroCast ("we," "our," or "us"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring you have a positive experience while using our application. This Privacy Policy explains our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of information when you use the AeroCast mobile application.
## 2. Information We Collect
AeroCast is designed with privacy in mind. We minimize the data we collect to strictly what is necessary to provide weather and radar services.
**Data Collected Automatically via Third-Party SDKs:**
- **Device & Usage Information:** IP address, device identifiers (such as Android Advertising ID), device model, OS version, and crash reports. This data is collected automatically by Google AdMob to provide personalized advertising.
**Data Stored Locally (Not Transmitted to Us):**
- **Saved Cities & Preferences:** City names, coordinates you choose to save, temperature units, and notification settings are stored locally on your device using an encrypted local database (Room/DataStore). This data never leaves your device and is not transmitted to our servers.
- **Location Data:** If you grant location permissions, we process your real-time GPS coordinates to fetch local weather data from third-party APIs. This data is processed ephemerally and is **never** stored on our servers.
**Data NOT Collected:**
- We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, or passwords. There is no user account registration required to use AeroCast.
## 3. Permissions Used
To function correctly, AeroCast requests the following Android permissions:
- **INTERNET & ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE:** Required to fetch weather data, radar map tiles, and serve advertisements.
- **ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION & ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION:** (Optional) Required only if you use the "Auto-detect location" feature to fetch local weather. You can deny this and search for cities manually.
- **POST_NOTIFICATIONS:** (Optional) Required to send you local alerts regarding severe weather and daily rain probability forecasts.
- **RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED:** Required to reschedule local background tasks (like weather syncing for notifications) after your device restarts.
## 4. Third-Party Services
AeroCast integrates the following third-party Software Development Kits (SDKs) and APIs:
- **Google AdMob:** Used to display advertisements. AdMob collects device identifiers and usage data. [Google Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy)
- **Google User Messaging Platform (UMP):** Used to manage user consent for personalized advertising, ensuring compliance with GDPR and CCPA regulations.
- **Open-Meteo API:** We send latitude/longitude coordinates to this open-source API to retrieve weather forecast data. No personal identifiable information is transmitted.
- **RainViewer API:** Used to retrieve map tiles for the interactive weather radar. No personal data is transmitted.
- **Osmdroid:** An open-source map library used to render the radar map interface locally.
## 5. Data Retention
- **Local Data:** Saved cities and preferences persist on your device until you uninstall the app or clear the app's data in your device settings.
- **SDK Data:** Data collected by third-party advertising SDKs is retained according to their respective privacy policies.
## 6. Data Sharing
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal data with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes. Data is only shared with the third-party service providers listed in Section 4 strictly to provide the app's core functionality (weather APIs) and display advertisements (AdMob).
## 7. User Rights & Control
You have the right to control your data:
- **Revoke Permissions:** You can revoke location or notification permissions at any time via your device's Settings menu.
- **Clear Data:** You can delete all your saved cities and preferences by clearing the app's storage in your device settings.
- **Manage Ads:** You can manage personalized advertising preferences via your device's Google Settings, or through the consent form provided within the app (if applicable in your region).
## 8. Children's Privacy
AeroCast is directed at a general audience and is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can take necessary actions.
## 9. Account Deletion
AeroCast operates entirely without user accounts. Because we do not require account registration and do not store your data on our servers, there is no account to delete. Simply uninstalling the app will remove all associated local data from your device.
## 10. Security
We value your trust in providing us with access to your location and device data. Network requests to fetch weather data are encrypted using HTTPS. However, remember that no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure and reliable, and we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
## 11. Changes to This Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Thus, you are advised to review this page periodically for any changes. We will notify you of any changes by updating the "Effective Date" at the top of this policy.
## 12. Contact Us
If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at:
📧 [watiindiah@gmail.com]