Privacy policy
RainCue · version 8,
The short version
- There are no accounts. No email, no phone number, no name. No sign-up.
- The app does not follow you. It never asks for background location: it watches fixed areas that you choose.
- Your data is not sold to anyone. Ever.
- To make the alert ring, only what is strictly needed leaves your phone: your areas, your routines and the notification identifier.
- From version 1.0.1 there are ads, and those do send data to Google: the advertising identifier, your IP address and your interactions with the ad. They show up rarely -never when rain is coming- and the paid version turns them off entirely. In the European Economic Area you are asked first, and if you say no, no ad is ever requested.
Who is responsible
RainCue is built by an independent developer. The name and contact address appear on the app's Google Play and App Store listings, where they are displayed as a requirement. For privacy matters: magisperez73@gmail.com.
What data is processed, what for, and where it ends up
| Data | What for | Stored |
|---|---|---|
| Coordinates of the areas you choose (approximate or precise, depending on how you pick them), and the name you give them ("Home", "Village"). One area with the free version and up to five with the full one | The core of the service: the server watches the weather at those points so it can warn you | Yes, on the server, for as long as the app stays installed |
| Your routines: days of the week, time window, and the device's time zone | Deciding whether the rain affects you, at your hour, and never messaging you outside that window | Yes, on the server |
| Notification identifier (Firebase Cloud Messaging token) | Delivering the alert to the device. It is the only identity that exists and it is not tied to any personal data about you. On iPhone and iPad, Firebase delivers the alert through Apple's notification service (APNs) | Yes, on the server |
| Settings: language, sensitivity and quiet hours | Making the alert behave the way you want | Yes, on the server, alongside the above |
| The morning summary, if you turn it on (full version): the time you want it | Sending you every morning the day's rain in your areas and which routines get wet. It is written by a language model running on the developer's own server, not a third-party service: it receives only that day's facts -the names of your areas and routines and the rain times-, with no identifier, and does not keep them. If that server does not answer, the summary is written from a template and never leaves our server | The time, yes, on the server. The summary text, no |
| The name you give each routine ("Cycling to work") | Writing it inside the alert, so you know which of your plans is at risk. It is not analysed or indexed: it is only copied into the text of the notification | Yes, on the server |
| Crash reports and usage statistics | — | Not collected today. The app ships neither Crashlytics nor Analytics — verified in the APK that gets published. If they are ever added, it will be announced here with its date before they are switched on |
Location, in detail
You can pick an area by searching for its name, without granting any location permission. If you prefer to use your current position, the app asks for the permission at that moment, with the app open, uses it once to fill in the area, and never reads it again on its own. RainCue does not use background location and cannot know where you are when you are not using it.
The coordinates of the area are stored on the server, because there is no other way to watch that point's sky every few minutes. They are stored on their own, with no name or email attached.
Advertising
Up to version 1.0.0 there were no ads. From 1.0.1 there are, served by Google AdMob, and this is one of the two places in this app where your data reaches a third party; the other is the map, explained right after. It is worth saying exactly what, and what for.
What Google receives when an ad is requested, per its own documentation:
- your phone's advertising identifier (on Android you can delete or restrict it in Settings → Privacy → Ads; on iPhone and iPad it is only read if you allow tracking when the app asks, and you can change that in Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking);
- your IP address, from which an approximate location is inferred -the city, not the street-;
- your interactions with the ad: whether it was seen, whether it was tapped;
- technical diagnostic information about the ad itself.
Google uses these for advertising, measurement and fraud prevention. Their policy: How Google uses data.
Three ways to make none of this happen, all of them yours:
- Say no. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the app shows you a consent form the first time. If you say no, not a single ad is requested, so nothing leaves your phone.
- Buy the full version. It turns ads off completely: the request is not even made.
- Restrict the advertising identifier in Android settings, or do not allow tracking on iPhone and iPad (App Tracking Transparency). It affects every app on your phone, and without it ads still show, just not personalised.
And one thing that is not about privacy but is decided here: the ad never appears when rain is coming. Since version 1.3 it shows at the bottom of the main screen in calm weather, of Routines and of Settings, and at most one video per session after a minute looking at the map; never while an alert is on screen, nor with rain about to arrive. An app that warns you about rain cannot sell space in the second when you have to run.
The map
Since version 1.2.0 the app opens on a radar map if your area has radar (you can change this in Settings → Map → Home screen). To draw the background map, your phone requests the images for the area you are looking at from OpenFreeMap (openfreemap.org), a free map service based on OpenStreetMap. It receives what any website you connect to receives: your IP address and which part of the map is requested -that is, the area around the one you watch, or whichever you are looking at-. It receives no identifier, not your saved area, and nothing linking you to RainCue beyond that request.
The radar images never go from your phone to anyone: our server fetches them from AEMET (Spain), NOAA (US), the Deutscher Wetterdienst (Germany), Environment and Climate Change Canada and, from version 7 of this page, EUMETNET (the OPERA radar, most of Europe), and your phone gets them from our server. Those services receive nothing of yours.
The map shows your watched area, not your position: it does not read GPS to draw you on it.
The model that writes the morning summary is not a third party: it runs on the developer's own server. Apart from ads and the map, the only third party is Google, and only for one technical thing: delivering the notification (Firebase Cloud Messaging). Their policy: Firebase. On iPhone and iPad the final delivery is done by Apple (APNs), as with any notification on that system.
How long it is kept
For as long as you use the app. If you uninstall RainCue, the notification identifier stops being valid and your areas and routines are deleted automatically once the system tells us that identifier no longer exists. On top of that, any device that goes 60 days without a sign of life is removed from the server along with all of its data, with nobody having to ask.
How to delete your RainCue data
Two ways, and neither of them requires writing to anyone:
- In the app: open RainCue, go to Settings and tap Delete my data. You are asked to confirm, and the deletion is immediate.
- By uninstalling: deletion happens on its own, as explained above.
What is deleted, immediately and with no copy kept: your areas (name and coordinates), your routines (name, days, times and sensitivity), your settings (language, time zone, sensitivity, quiet hours and the morning summary time) and your notification identifier.
What is kept: only the record of the full-version purchase — the Google Play purchase and order identifiers or, on iPhone and iPad, the App Store transaction identifier; which product was bought, when, and with what result. It is kept on purpose, for two reasons: it is an accounting fact, and it is the only thing that lets us give you back what you already paid for if you reinstall the app. It carries no name, no email, no address and no payment details: those are handled by Google Play or Apple, never by us.
If you would rather ask in writing, write to magisperez73@gmail.com and it will be done.
Children
RainCue is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their data.
Your rights
If you live in the European Union, the GDPR grants you rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection. Because there are no accounts, we cannot link the stored data to a specific person: that is why deletion is offered directly inside the app, which is the only party that knows its own identifier.
Legal bases, and from version 1.0.1 there are two: areas, routines and the notification identifier are processed to perform the service you asked for -without them there is no alert-; and ads are served on the basis of your consent, which is requested beforehand in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland and which you can withdraw. If you withdraw it, the app stops requesting ads and keeps warning you just the same.
Changes
Any change is published on this page with its date. Changes affecting what data is collected are also announced inside the app before they take effect.