Solwind
Privacy Policy
Effective October 5, 2026
Solwind is an aurora forecast app for iPhone and Apple Watch, made by Berke Düzgün, an independent developer ("we", "us"). This policy explains what the app and this website collect, why, and what you can do about it.
- No account, no name, no email address needed to use Solwind.
- Your places are rounded to a quarter-degree grid on your phone before they leave it.
- No advertising, no third-party analytics or tracking, and we never sell data.
- You can ask us to delete everything linked to your app at any time.
What we collect and why
A random app ID
On first launch the app creates a random identifier on your device. It is not your Apple ID, your device's advertising identifier or anything that names you. We use it to keep your places and alert settings together on our server and to know whether your subscription is active.
Approximate location
To forecast your sky, Solwind needs to know roughly where you are. The places you save, and your current location if you allow location access, are snapped on your phone to the centre of a quarter-degree grid cell (about 28 km north to south) before they are sent to our server. We store these rounded coordinates with the name you give each place (for example "Home"). We do not collect your precise location or a location history, and the app does not use location in the background.
Alert settings and notification tokens
We store which alerts you want, your sensitivity and quiet hours, your time zone and language, and the tokens Apple gives us to deliver push notifications and Live Activity updates. We keep a short log of the alerts we sent so you don't get the same one twice.
Sighting reports
When you report that you can see the aurora, we store the time, the strength you chose, whether it was only visible on camera, and your location rounded to 0.1° (about 11 km). Reports appear anonymously on other people's maps and are used to alert people nearby. If you report or block a sighting, we store that too, so we can hide abuse.
Purchases
Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple; we never see your name or payment details. We use RevenueCat to check whether a subscription is active. RevenueCat receives your random app ID and the purchase information from Apple, and tells our server when your subscription starts, renews or ends. See RevenueCat's privacy policy.
Support messages
If you contact us through the support form, we store your email address, the topic and your message so we can reply. When you open the form from the app's Settings, it also includes your random app ID so we can find your data if you ask about it.
Technical logs
Like any internet service, our server sees your IP address and the address it was asked for. We use this briefly for security and to limit abuse. Logs are rotated automatically and are not used to build profiles.
What we don't do
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- No third-party analytics, crash reporting or tracking SDKs.
- No tracking across other companies' apps and websites.
- No selling or renting of data, ever.
Who else is involved
| Service | What it receives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | Notification tokens; purchases | Push notifications, Live Activities, App Store billing |
| RevenueCat | Random app ID, purchase information | Subscription status |
| Our hosting provider | Everything our server stores, on our behalf | Running the service |
| MET Norway | Grid-cell coordinates, sent by our server | Cloud forecasts. It never receives your app ID or IP address. |
| OpenFreeMap, NOAA nowCOAST | Your IP address when the map loads tiles | Map tiles and satellite cloud imagery, loaded directly by the app |
How long we keep it
- Sighting reports: deleted after 7 days.
- Live Activity tokens: deleted after 24 hours.
- Sent-alert log: deleted after 30 days.
- Support messages: deleted after 12 months at the latest.
- Places and alert settings: kept while you use them. Removing a place in the app removes it from our server. Ask us and we delete everything linked to your app ID.
Your choices and rights
You can turn off location access and notifications at any time in iOS Settings; Solwind keeps working with places you add by hand. Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, or the CCPA in California), you can ask for a copy of your data, its correction or deletion, or object to how we use it. To do so, open Settings → Contact in the app and choose "Privacy", so your request carries your app ID. Deleting the app removes the app ID from your phone; we can then no longer link the remaining data to you, and you can still ask us to delete it.
We rely on these legal bases: providing the service you asked for (forecasts, alerts, subscriptions), your consent through iOS permission prompts (location and notifications), and our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and free of abuse. If you are in the EU or UK, you may also complain to your local data protection authority.
Children
Solwind is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.
Where data is processed
Our server and the services above may process data outside your country, including in the European Union and the United States. We only use providers that protect data in line with this policy.
This website
This site uses no cookies, no analytics and no third-party resources. Our web server sees your IP address while serving pages, as described under technical logs.
Changes
If we change this policy, we will update this page and the date at the top. For significant changes we will also let you know in the app.
Contact
Questions or requests: use the support form, or Settings → Contact in the app.