Privacy Policy
The short version
- There are no accounts. You never give us a name, email, or password.
- There is no analytics, advertising, or tracking of any kind, and no third-party SDKs.
- Your location is used to fetch your local forecast and to place maps. It is sent to the weather providers to answer that request — it is never sent to our own servers.
- The only thing our server stores is an anonymous Apple push token, so earthquake alerts can reach your phone.
- Your saved cities, alert settings, and alert history never leave your device.
- We do not sell or share your data.
1. Who this covers
This policy applies to the Quakestorm PH iOS app, published by Iric Midel ("we", "us"). It explains what the app handles, where that information goes, and what control you have over it.
2. What the app handles
Location
With your permission, the app reads your device's location while you are using it. It is requested at approximately one-kilometre accuracy — enough to identify your city, not your street address. It is used to:
- fetch the current conditions and forecast for where you are;
- look up the name of your city, so the app can label the forecast;
- decide when to send you rain and thunderstorm alerts;
- frame the earthquake map so you can see how far an event was from you.
To answer a forecast request, your coordinates are sent to the weather provider (see section 4). Your most recent location is also saved on your device so the app can check the weather in the background without waking up the GPS. Your location is never transmitted to Quakestorm's own servers.
You can refuse or revoke location access at any time in iOS Settings. The app will still show Philippine earthquake activity and any cities you have saved manually; only the "my location" forecast stops working.
Push notification token
If you allow notifications, Apple issues your device an anonymous push token. If earthquake alerts are switched on, the app sends that token to our server, together with which Apple push environment it belongs to and the app's version number. That is the entire contents of the request. The token lets our server deliver an earthquake alert to your device within about a minute of the event being published; it does not identify you, and it cannot be used to read anything from your phone.
Information that stays on your device
The following is stored locally in the app's own storage and is never transmitted anywhere. Deleting the app deletes all of it.
- cities you have saved to the weather list;
- which alert types you have switched on;
- the history shown on the Alerts tab;
- the identifiers of earthquakes you have already been alerted about, so you are not alerted twice;
- your most recent location, as described above.
3. What the app does not do
- No accounts, sign-in, names, email addresses, or phone numbers.
- No analytics, crash-reporting, attribution, or advertising services.
- No third-party SDKs of any kind — the app is built entirely on Apple's own frameworks.
- No tracking across apps or websites, and no App Tracking Transparency prompt, because there is nothing to track.
- No selling, renting, or sharing of personal information.
- No contacts, photos, microphone, camera, health, or calendar access.
4. Third-party services
The app relies on the following services. Each is governed by its own privacy policy.
| Service | Why it is used | What reaches it |
|---|---|---|
| Apple — WeatherKit, Maps, and Push Notification service | Forecasts, city name lookup, city search, maps, and alert delivery | Your coordinates when a forecast or map is requested; your push token for delivery |
| Open-Meteo | Backup forecast provider, used only when Apple's service is unavailable | Your coordinates when a forecast is requested |
| USGS Earthquake Hazards Program | The earthquake feed | Nothing about you — the app only asks for recent events in the Philippines |
| Supabase | Hosts our alert server and its list of push tokens | Your push token, push environment, and app version |
Earthquake information is sourced from the USGS. It is provided for general awareness and may be revised or delayed. It is not an official warning service — for authoritative Philippine earthquake and tsunami information, follow PHIVOLCS and your local authorities.
5. How long things are kept
- Push tokens are kept only while earthquake alerts are on. Turning them off in the app deletes the token from our server. A token is also deleted automatically once Apple reports it as no longer valid — for example after you uninstall the app.
- On-device data stays until you delete the app. The alert history is capped and older entries are discarded automatically, and you can clear it at any time from the Alerts tab.
- Location is not retained by us at all. Only the single most recent position is held on your own device, and it is replaced each time the app updates it.
6. Your choices
- Location — grant, deny, or revoke in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services.
- Notifications — turn off entirely in iOS Settings, or switch individual alert types on and off in the app under Alerts → settings.
- Earthquake alerts — switching these off removes your push token from our server, so nothing can be sent to your device.
- Everything else — deleting the app removes all locally stored data.
7. Children
The app is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from them. Since it has no accounts and collects no personal identifiers, it holds nothing that would identify a child or anyone else.
8. Your rights
We operate from the Philippines and handle information in line with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173). Depending on where you live you may also have rights to access, correct, or erase information held about you, or to object to its processing.
In practice the app holds nothing that can identify you. The only record tied to your device is an anonymous push token, which you can erase yourself at any time by turning earthquake alerts off or deleting the app. If you would like that done manually, or you have any other request, contact us at iric@iricmidel.com.
9. Security
All communication between the app and every service listed above uses encrypted HTTPS connections. No credentials or personal identifiers are stored on your device, because the app does not use any.
10. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new "last updated" date. Significant changes affecting how your information is handled will be noted in the app's release notes.
11. Contact
Questions about this policy or about privacy in Quakestorm PH:
iric@iricmidel.com