SmokeCast privacy
Effective September 7, 2026 · applies to the SmokeCast app and smokecast.org
SmokeCast has no accounts, no ads, and no tracking.
Your location
Using your location is optional. The app works fine if you just search a city or ZIP. If you tap “Use my exact location,” your phone gives the app your coordinates and the app uses them on your device to position the map and show the air where you are. Your coordinates are not sent to us, stored by us, or shared with anyone.
What our servers see
When the app or the website opens without a saved place, it asks our own server for a starting-city guess. That guess is derived from your connection, the request carries no name, account, or identifier, and nothing about it is stored. Beyond that, the app sends nothing automatically unless you turn on smoke alerts, described below. The website keeps one anonymous tally: a counter that goes up when someone opens it. To count a returning browser once per day it keeps a random token that changes daily; the token carries no name, no account, and no location, and it is never used to identify anyone. Like every online service, the hosting that delivers the app (Netlify for the app, Cloudflare for forecast data) briefly processes network addresses to answer requests; we do not use them to identify anyone.
What stays on your phone
Your saved places, dropped pins, and settings live in your phone’s own storage. Deleting the app deletes them.
If you report a problem
The report form sends only what you type, an email address if you choose to give one, and the diagnostic text the form shows you before you send it. Reports are delivered through Netlify’s form service, are read by the developer, are used to fix the problem and for nothing else, and are deleted once the problem is resolved. To have a report deleted sooner, send another report saying so, or ask by email if you included one.
Smoke alerts
If you turn on smoke alerts, on the website or in the app, we store what the alert server needs to watch the air for you: a delivery address for notifications (a browser subscription, or an Apple push token in the app), the places you chose to watch, each with its name, map coordinates and your alert settings for it, and a note of which alerts have already been sent so you are not told twice. None of it carries your name, email, account or your phone's location. Turning alerts off deletes all of it, and a delivery address that stops working is deleted on its own.
The data behind the forecast
Forecasts and readings are built from public feeds: NOAA’s smoke model, EPA air monitors via AirNow, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. None of them receive anything about you from us.
Questions, or want something deleted? Use “Report a problem” inside the app, and say it is a privacy question. This policy changes only when the app’s behavior changes, and the date above will say so.