Privacy Policy

Information We Collect

• Location Data. With your permission, the app accesses your device's precise or approximate location (via ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION / ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION) to show weather, air quality, and radar data for your current location, and to let you save additional locations as favorites. Location is also used in the background on a periodic schedule to refresh weather data and generate alert notifications for your current location and saved favorites, even when the app is not open — you can disable this in the app's Settings or by revoking location/notification permissions in your device settings at any time.
• Locations and Preferences You Provide. Cities you search for or save as favorites, recent searches, and app preferences (temperature unit, wind speed unit, theme, notification settings) are stored locally on your device only. We do not operate a server that stores this information, and it is not tied to any account — the app does not require or support sign‑in.
• Cached Weather Data. To let the app work offline and load quickly, recent weather and air-quality results are cached locally on your device.
• Advertising Data. The app displays banner and interstitial (full‑screen) ads served by Google AdMob. Where required (e.g. the EEA/UK), ads, analytics, and crash reporting run only after you consent, and are non‑personalized where you opt out. Google (and its advertising partners) may collect device identifiers (such as the advertising ID), approximate location, and other data to serve and measure ads, in accordance with Google's own privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can review or limit ad personalization through your device's Settings > Google > Ads (or Privacy & security > Ads, depending on Android version).

Information We Do Not Collect

The app does not access your microphone, camera, contacts, photos, or files. It does not require or support account creation, and we do not collect your name, email address, or payment information.

Third‑Party Services Used by This App

• Open‑Meteo — provides weather forecasts, air quality, and city search/geocoding. Your location coordinates (or search text) are relayed through our gateway to retrieve this data. See https://open-meteo.com/en/terms
• MET Norway (Norwegian Meteorological Institute) — weather forecasts, relayed through our gateway.
• Tomorrow.io — weather forecasts, relayed through our gateway. See https://www.tomorrow.io/privacy-policy/
• Apple Weather (Apple WeatherKit) — weather forecasts, where used, relayed through our gateway. Apple Weather aggregates from further public sources listed at https://developer.apple.com/weatherkit/data-source-attribution/. “Apple Weather” and “Weather” are trademarks of Apple Inc.
• OpenWeatherMap — an alternate weather data source that may be enabled in some builds of the app; if active, the same location data is sent to OpenWeatherMap instead of or alongside Open-Meteo. See https://openweathermap.org/privacy-policy
• LibreWXR — provides radar map tile imagery for the Radar screen, relayed through our gateway. Radar data is aggregated from public meteorological sources and released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license; see https://librewxr.net/terms.html
• National Weather Service (weather.gov) — provides official government weather alerts for US locations. Your location coordinates are sent to retrieve alerts for your area.
• Aviation Weather Center (aviationweather.gov) — provides station-based (METAR) weather observations; your location coordinates are used to find the nearest reporting airport station and retrieve its current conditions.
• OpenStreetMap / MapTiler — provide the base map imagery shown behind radar data.
• Google AdMob and Google Play Services — used to serve ads and to access device location via the Google Play Services Location APIs. See https://policies.google.com/privacy
• Google Firebase Analytics & Crashlytics — usage analytics and crash reporting (consent‑gated).
• Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (for delivering push notifications)
• Google Play Integrity (to verify requests to our server come from a genuine app install).

Data Sharing

We do not sell your data. We do not share your data with anyone except the third‑party services listed above, and only as needed for those services to function (e.g., sending your coordinates to a weather API to get a forecast, or to Google for ad serving).

Data Storage and Retention

Your favorites, search history, cached weather, and preferences are stored only on your device, using local app storage. This data is removed when you clear the app's storage/cache or uninstall the app. Server‑side, when notifications are enabled, our gateway stores the approximate coordinates of the locations you have alerts for together with a notification (FCM) token for your device; these are kept only while notifications are enabled, are deleted on your request, and inactive tokens are purged automatically. Analytics and crash data are retained per Google's standard retention.

Notifications

If you grant notification permission, we send you notifications about weather alerts (e.g., heavy rain, thunderstorms, extreme temperatures, poor air quality) for your current location and saved favorites. These may be delivered from our server via Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (see “Weather‑alert subscriptions” below). You can disable notifications at any time in the app's Settings or your device's notification settings.

Consent (GDPR / LGPD / CCPA)

Where required (e.g. the EEA/UK), we ask for your consent before analytics, crash reporting, or personalized ads run, using Google's consent flow (UMP). You can change or withdraw your consent at any time via Settings → Privacy options. If you withdraw consent, related processing stops and your notification token is removed from our servers.

Analytics and Crash Reports

With your consent, the app uses Google Firebase Analytics (usage and diagnostics) and Firebase Crashlytics (crash reports) to understand how the app is used and to fix problems. You can change or withdraw this consent anytime via Settings → Privacy options.

Children's Privacy

WeatherPal – Weather Alerts is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with information through the app, please contact us at the address below so we can address it.

Your Choices

You can:

• revoke location or notification permissions at any time in your device's app settings;
• clear the app's locally stored data via Android Settings > Apps > WeatherPal – Weather Alerts > Storage;
• limit ad personalization via your device's ad settings.

Revoking location permission will limit the app to manual city search instead of current‑location weather. You can also export a copy of the data we hold for your device via Settings → Export my data, and delete your notification token and alert subscriptions from our servers via Settings → Delete my data (turning notifications off also unregisters your device).

Weather‑alert subscriptions and push notifications

When you view or enable alerts for a location, WeatherPal registers an alert subscription for that location on our gateway server. Each subscription stores the location's approximate coordinates and a Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) push token that identifies your device. We use these to send you weather‑alert and app notifications via Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging service. You can stop this at any time by turning off notifications in the app's Settings or your device settings; doing so stops new alerts being sent to your device.

Security

We take reasonable measures to protect data within the app, but no method of electronic storage or transmission is 100% secure. Your favorites, recent searches, cached data, and settings are stored locally on your device. In addition, when notifications are enabled, our server stores the approximate coordinates of the locations you have alerts for, together with a notification token for your device, so we can send you proactive weather alerts.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Last updated” date.

International Transfers

Our processors (including Google and the weather providers listed above) may process data on servers outside your country, including the United States, under appropriate safeguards (e.g., Standard Contractual Clauses).

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at: feedback@weatherpal.app