RainVoid · privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 22, 2026 · This is the same text that ships inside the RainVoid app. The app and this page are updated together.

This Privacy Policy explains what the RainVoid™ application (“the App”), operated by Appleseed Media LLC, does with information when you use it. The short version: there are no accounts, no advertising trackers, and no analytics SDKs; your settings live on your device; your coordinates are sent only to the mapping and weather services needed to answer your own requests — including our own servers (section 3) — and they are never sold. Places you choose to share with other riders and the optional anonymous usage reports are the only things that leave your phone for good, and both are off until you turn them on (sections 4 and 4A).

1. INFORMATION STORED ON YOUR DEVICE

The App keeps the following on your device only: your ride preferences (rain tolerance, max detour, safety margin, cargo mode, riding mode, units, routing avoidances and other settings); your recent destinations, favorites, and Home/Work slots; stops you have visited, confirmed, or reviewed; the places the wheel has taken you (your Spin Places list); the last place you arrived at, kept for three days so the App can ask you once to rate it; rain reports you have filed; a local ledger of forecast-accuracy checks; a ride log — the date, length and rain of each ride, what the App did (a reroute, a covered stop, an all-clear) and what the radar later showed on the road not taken — from which the ride receipt and the season recap are computed; the roads to your Home and Work and their latest rain check (for the commute chips and the home-screen widget, refreshed on your device); the road back you asked RainVoid to watch, with the time and place you picked; the journey you are on (its legs and their times, the stop to get off at, where you are walking to and the radar’s word on its walks), kept on this phone for its notification and the reminder a minute before your stop until you arrive, end the journey or it expires; the cells the parked-rain alert has already told you about; cached map, radar, and place data (including, for places with no signal, a 24-hour cache of the fuel, coffee and food listings the App fetched along your route and Mapbox map and routing data for the area around your route — kept on the device only and never sent anywhere); and the record that you accepted the riding disclaimer. None of this is uploaded to us, except places you choose to share with other riders and reviews you post (section 4). Uninstalling the App deletes it.

2. LOCATION

The App uses your device’s precise location while you use it, to show your position, plan routes from where you are, evaluate weather around you and along your routes, and guide you during navigation. To do those things, your coordinates (and, for routing, your destination) are transmitted to the services listed below, including — in the United States — our own radar server — that transmission is what fulfils your request. Stop searches also send the search position to our community-places server (section 3) so it can return places other riders have shared nearby. The App does not run a background location history and does not send your location anywhere except to fulfil the features you use. While a Wait-it-out watch is on, the App runs a foreground service on your phone (Android shows its notification the whole time) that fetches radar data every five minutes for up to three hours, and resumes after a phone restart if the watch is still inside those three hours; those fetches are the radar requests described in this policy, and nothing else leaves the device.

3. THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

The App contacts these services, each receiving only what its function needs (typically coordinates, map-tile areas, or search text): Mapbox — map display, routing, turn-by-turn navigation, and the names of nearby places (those requests carry your device’s language so the names come back in it); the U.S. National Weather Service (NOAA) — current conditions and forecast, in the United States only (display-only ambience; public-domain data, no endorsement implied); OpenStreetMap/Overpass — places such as fuel stations and cafés along your route; in bike mode, live shared-ride availability for the public bike- and scooter-share systems of New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston and the Bay Area (data of Lyft Bikes and Scooters, LLC, read by our server under its Data License Agreement about once a minute — the operator receives nothing about you, and opening its app is your own tap); in walking mode, the public-transit stops around you and their next departures — the stops from OpenStreetMap, the schedules and live trip updates of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MassDOT/MBTA), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York subway), the Chicago Transit Authority (its published schedule — scheduled times until its live arrivals are read), the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and 511 SF Bay (the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area agencies), read by our server under their data agreements about once a minute while someone is looking at that area; the agency receives nothing about you; and when you tap Call a ride on a walking plan, your destination is handed to the Uber or Lyft app already on your phone — their apps and their terms take over from there, and we receive nothing back; and when you plan a trip from a transit stop, that stop and the destination you picked go to our server, which answers with the journeys and keeps neither; Foursquare — ratings for suggested stops, and the top-rated places around your map position and along a planned road so good stops can be marked (the area is sent, never anything that identifies you); Google Places — destination search, only when you type a search. In the United States the App also contacts the RainVoid radar server, operated by us: it receives the radar map areas (tile coordinates) you view or plan across and, like any web server, your IP address in standard request logs — kept briefly (up to 14 days, then deleted automatically) for reliability and abuse prevention, never linked to an identity (the App has none to link), never sold, and not used for advertising. That server is a virtual machine we rent from Hetzner Online GmbH in Finland (European Union), which hosts it as our infrastructure provider and processes nothing beyond that hosting. The underlying U.S. radar data is NOAA’s public-domain MRMS feed, which we process on our server; NOAA receives nothing about you. Our website (rainvoid.app) is served from the same rented machine with the same 14-day request log and no trackers, analytics or third-party fonts. Our community-places server (api.rainvoid.app), run by us on the same rented machine, receives the position of your stop searches (to return nearby shared places), in bike mode the position you look around from (to return the shared rides and covered bike parking near it), the rough shape of a road you are planning (to return the covered stops and well-rated stops along it; used for that answer and not kept) and — only if you turn sharing on — the places you submit (section 4). Its request logs follow the same 14-day rule, and the sharing token described in section 4 is never written to them. Each third-party service processes data under its own privacy policy. We do not send them your name, contacts, or any identity information — the App never asks for any.

4. COMMUNITY PLACES (OPTIONAL SHARING)

Sharing is off until you turn it on — in the prompt shown after you add a place, or in Settings. With sharing on, each place or covered stop you add is uploaded to our community-places server and published to all riders: its coordinates, category, cover type, the name and note you typed, the day it was added, and a count of confirmations from other riders. Star reviews: each star you tap on a stop posts that review to all riders, anonymously, and the words above the stars say so every time you see them (the full explanation until your first posted review, a one-line reminder after). What travels is the stars, the detail rows (cover, fuel, coffee, food, ice cream) and the note you typed, with the place’s coordinates and kind and a one-way hash of its map identifier — never the place’s name from the map provider, never your name or your location — so reviews of the same place can be counted together, plus the version number of the words you saw above the stars, so we can show what you were told. Keep private under a review deletes it from our server and keeps it on your phone; Post it posts it again. Settings › Share my reviews, off, stops new reviews from posting; the ones you posted stay published, anonymously, and remain yours to take back one at a time with Keep private or all at once with Remove all my reviews in Settings, which deletes them from our server. We keep posted reviews because they are part of the community map you contributed to (Terms, section 9) and they hold nothing that identifies you. Deletions reach our server as soon as your phone is online. Reviews are stored to be shown to other riders anonymously once enough are in. Nothing that identifies you is attached — no name, account, e-mail, or device identifier. The App generates a random installation token, kept on your phone and sent with your submissions, so that only your phone can remove your own places and so the server can limit abuse; the server stores only a one-way hash of it. The token identifies the installation, not a person: anything sent from your phone counts as yours, and we have no way to tell who was holding it. Other riders can confirm or report your places, and we can hide or remove any submission. Do not share private property, your home, or anything containing personal information; the App refuses to upload places within about 300 metres of your saved Home or Work. You can remove a place you shared from its card: it leaves the public list immediately, and copies may persist in our backups for up to 14 days. Turning place sharing off stops future uploads but does not remove places already shared — remove places one at a time from their card, or all at once with Remove all my places in Settings. Reviews come back with Keep private or Remove all my reviews, as above, which also work behind the subscription screen (Your data); you can also ask us through the contact channel (section 15).

How to take back what you shared — every step works in the App, nothing to write to us for: (1) One review: open the stop’s card (the arrival card, the ride receipt, Spin Places or Saved stops on the search page) and tap Keep private under the stars; that review is deleted from our server as soon as your phone is online and stays on your phone, and Post it puts it back. (2) All your reviews: Settings › Remove all my reviews, then Remove all on the confirmation; every review this phone posted is deleted from our server, they stay on your phone, and any one can be posted again from its card. (3) One place or covered stop you shared: open it from its card and tap Remove; it leaves the public list immediately, and copies may persist in our backups for up to 14 days. (4) All your places: Settings › Remove all my places, then Remove all on the confirmation; every place and covered stop this phone shared is deleted from our server, your own stops stay on your phone, and they are not shared again unless you add them again. (5) If your subscription has ended: the subscription screen’s Your data link opens the same Settings page, so steps 2 and 4 work there too. (6) Usage reports: Settings › Send anonymous usage reports, off; this phone is detached from every report it sent, and they can no longer be tied to it. (7) A diagnostic report: Settings › Report a problem lists the ids of the reports you sent, each with Delete, which removes that report from our server; every report is deleted on its own after 30 days anyway. (8) After uninstalling: the random token leaves with the App, so what you shared can no longer be taken back from a new installation; it stays, anonymous, and we will still remove a place or a review you describe to us through the contact channel (section 15). Because shared places and reviews are public and anonymous, we cannot tell which places or reviews came from you once the token on your phone is gone (for example after uninstalling): they stay, anonymous, and can no longer be taken back from a new installation; we will still remove a place or a review you tell us about through the contact channel.

4A. USAGE REPORTS (OPTIONAL)

Usage reports are off until you turn them on — in the question the App asks once after the disclaimer, or in Settings. With them on, the App sends our server a short anonymous report when you decide on a planned trip and when a ride ends. A trip report contains: the rain verdict the plan page gave (dry, rain possible, wet or unknown) and the class of the road beyond the forecast window; the radar region (for example the Gulf Coast); the forecast reach in minutes at the time; the length of the ride in minutes, rounded to five; your rain tolerance, safety margin, detour cap, cargo setting and riding mode (vehicle, bicycle or walking); which row the App recommended and which you picked; how long the plan took to build; the App version; the time, rounded to ten minutes; the first minute the forecast expected rain on the road, the first minute under a tracked cell’s projection and the first minute inside your safety margin; the departure minute the Wait row named and its best guess; how sure the page was (its certainty band); and the nearest tracked storm cell’s rain band, size, speed, direction relative to your road, distance from the road and system type (for example, part of a squall line). A ride report contains: the minutes ridden, rounded to five; the minutes ridden in rain above your rain tolerance and the first such minute; the heaviest rain met; the number of automatic detours; the riding mode; whether the weather-changed card appeared and which of its choices you tapped; and whether the ride ended at the destination — linked to its trip report by a random id. A wait report, when you used Wait it out, contains: when the watch was armed, rounded to ten minutes; your time-to-get-going setting; the departure minute the page named; whether the heads-up and the all-clear fired and after how many minutes; and how the watch ended (you rode, you stopped it, or it timed out) — linked to the same trip report. No coordinates, no route, no destination, no name, no account and no device identifier are included; the radar region is the finest place in a report. The App generates a separate random installation token, kept on your phone and sent with the reports so that the reports from one phone can be counted together and deleted together; the server stores only a one-way hash of it, and it is never linked to the community-places token. We use the reports to improve the accuracy of the App’s forecasts and routing. We may also publish totals and shares computed from everyone’s reports together — for example, how many shared rides stayed dry when the App said dry — on our website and store listing; never anything about one phone. The reports are never sold, never shared with anyone else, and never used to advertise to you. Turning reports off detaches your token from the reports this phone sent — the server replaces it with a marker that identifies no one — and discards the token, so nothing can be tied to this phone again; what remains is anonymous and stays in our counts. Uninstalling the App discards the token too, after which we can no longer tell which reports were yours. Raw reports are kept for up to 90 days, then folded into counts and averages that contain no token, which we keep.

4B. DIAGNOSTIC REPORTS (OPTIONAL)

When the App notices that something did not work — the radar could not be fetched, a plan page could not be built, a route could not be scored, the Wait-it-out watch could not fetch, or the App closed unexpectedly — it may ask you once, on the idle screen and at most once an hour, whether to send us a diagnostic report; you can also send one yourself from Settings › Report a problem. Nothing is sent unless you tap Send on a page that lists what the report contains. A diagnostic report contains: the App’s state at that moment — the current plan and its route (the road’s coordinates, with the radar values the App used at each point), the alternates it considered, the tracked storm cells, the ride’s reroutes and cards, your ride preferences, the radar source, its generation time and the forecast reach; the App’s own recent log lines (never other apps’ or the system’s); the problems the App noticed and when; the saved crash trace, if the App closed unexpectedly; your phone model, Android version and the App version; and the note you type. Because it carries the route, a diagnostic report is location data for that trip; it never carries your name, an account, contacts, photos, or any other app’s data. The App generates a separate random token for these reports, sent with each one and stored only as a one-way hash, never linked to the usage-reports or community-places tokens. Each report has an id (for example RV-7F3K2) shown to you after sending; Settings › Report a problem lists the ids you sent, each with Delete, which removes that report from our server. Reports go to our own server, are read by a person for one purpose — finding and fixing faults in the App — and are deleted after 30 days. Legal basis: your consent, given by the Send tap and withdrawn by asking us to delete the report.

5. LEGAL BASES, SERVICE PROVIDERS AND INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

Where data-protection law (including the EU and UK GDPR) requires a legal basis, ours are: performing the service you asked for — routing, weather evaluation and navigation need your coordinates and destination (GDPR Article 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in keeping the service reliable and preventing abuse — the short-lived server request logs and the in-memory abuse counters (Article 6(1)(f)); and your consent for community sharing (section 4) and for usage reports (section 4A), and diagnostic reports you choose to send when something did not work (section 4B) (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time in Settings. The controller is Appleseed Media LLC, established in the United States. Providers that process data on our behalf or receive it to answer your requests: Hetzner Online GmbH (server hosting, Finland, EU); Mapbox Inc. (maps, routing, navigation; United States); the U.S. National Weather Service (forecast; United States); OpenStreetMap contributors via public Overpass servers (places; EU); Foursquare Labs Inc. (ratings; United States); Google LLC (place search, only when you type a search; United States). Data sent to United States providers leaves the EEA and UK; where a provider is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework we rely on that certification, and otherwise on the provider’s data-processing terms, which incorporate the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses where the provider offers them. Our own servers are in Finland.

6. WHAT WE DO NOT DO

No user accounts. No sign-in. No advertising identifiers. No third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs; the optional usage reports of section 4A go to our own server and to no one else. No sale, rental, or sharing of personal information for marketing. Any promotional rows inside the App are our own static content and involve no tracking.

7. PERMISSIONS

Location (precise, while in use): positioning, routing, weather evaluation, navigation — the App’s core purpose. Notifications: guidance alerts, rain warnings, and departure-window alerts you request. You can revoke either in system settings; related features stop working accordingly.

8. DATA RETENTION AND DELETION

Because your data lives on your device, you control it: clear individual items in the App (for example, remove favorites or recents), clear the App’s storage in system settings, or uninstall the App to remove everything. Cached weather and map tiles expire and are overwritten routinely. Places you shared with other riders stay published until you remove them from their card or we remove them, and reviews you posted stay on our server until you take them back (Keep private, or Remove all my reviews) or we remove them; server backups are kept for up to 14 days, so a removed place can persist in a backup for that long. Usage reports, if you turned them on, are folded into anonymous counts within 90 days; turning them off detaches your phone from them at once (section 4A).

9. SECURITY

Connections to the services above use encrypted transport (HTTPS). No transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but the App’s design keeps the sensitive surface small: no account credentials; our servers serve data only over encrypted connections and store no personal data beyond the short-lived request logs described in section 3 (deleted automatically within 14 days) and, if you turn them on, the anonymous places described in section 4 and the anonymous usage reports described in section 4A.

10. CHILDREN

The App is a road-travel tool and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect information from children; there is no mechanism in the App to submit personal information at all.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

Depending on where you live, you may have legal rights over personal data (access, rectification, deletion, restriction, portability, objection, and withdrawal of consent). Because the App stores personal data only on your device, and the only things we hold are the short-lived server request log described in section 3 (not linked to you, deleted automatically within 14 days), any places you chose to share (section 4 — anonymous, removable from their card) and any usage reports you chose to send (section 4A — anonymous, detached from your phone by the switch), most rights are exercised directly: the data is in your hands, and deleting it is always available to you. For anything else, write to support@rainvoid.app.

12. PURCHASES

Where the App is sold as a subscription, Google Play processes the purchase: your card or bank details go to Google, never to us, and we never see them. Google Play tells the App whether a RainVoid plan is active on your Google account, as a purchase token (a random identifier of the purchase, not your identity); the App keeps that answer on your device for up to three days so it can open without a connection, and asks Google Play again whenever it opens. Nothing about your purchase is sent to us or stored on our servers. Google’s own privacy policy governs the purchase itself; you can see, change or cancel your plan under Google Play › Subscriptions.

13. REGIONAL NOTICES

European Economic Area and United Kingdom: you have the rights in section 11 and the right to lodge a complaint with your national data-protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office). We make no automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. Location is necessary for the service: without it the App cannot route or evaluate weather for you.

United States (California and other states with privacy laws): we do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising; precise location is used only for the service you ask for. You may request access to or deletion of data we hold — which, for this App, is limited to what sections 3, 4 and 4A describe — through the contact channel in section 14, and you will not be treated differently for exercising your rights.

Canada: we collect, use and disclose personal information only with your knowledge and consent and only for the purposes described here; you may withdraw consent for community sharing or usage reports at any time in Settings, subject to legal or contractual restrictions; you may access your information and challenge our compliance through the contact channel in section 14. In Quebec this policy applies in the same way, and the App will be offered in French once that translation is complete.

Taiwan: under the Personal Data Protection Act, the purposes, categories, period, region, recipients and methods of use are those described in sections 1 to 5 and 8; you may exercise the rights in section 11; you are not required to provide personal data, but the App cannot route or evaluate weather without location.

14. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

If we change this policy, the updated text ships inside the App with a new “last updated” date. Material changes will be highlighted in the App’s release notes.

15. CONTACT

Privacy questions can be sent to support@rainvoid.app, also the contact channel listed on the App’s store listing.