Privacy Policy | Auroracast

Who we are

Auroracast (auroracast.co.uk) is a free aurora forecasting service for the UK, providing real-time space weather data, viewing condition forecasts, and community aurora sightings. The site is operated by a private individual, not a company.

What data we collect

Push notification subscriptions

If you enable aurora alerts, your browser generates a push subscription — a unique endpoint URL and encryption keys. We store this on our server to deliver notifications. We do not link this to your name, email, or any other identity. You can unsubscribe at any time from the alerts panel on the homepage, which deletes your subscription from our database immediately.

Location data

The viewing conditions section may request your device's GPS location via the browser Geolocation API. This is used only to fetch local weather and cloud cover data. Your coordinates are sent to our server for this weather lookup and are cached for 30 minutes to reduce API calls. We do not store your location permanently or associate it with any identifier.

Aurora sightings

If you submit a sighting report, we store: your optional display name, coordinates of the sighting, your description, intensity rating, the time of the sighting, and any photo you upload. Sightings are public and visible to all site visitors. Do not include personal information in your description or name that you would not wish to be public.

Server logs

Our web server records standard access logs (IP address, browser type, pages visited, timestamps). These are used solely for diagnosing errors and are retained for a maximum of 30 days.

What we do not collect

We do not use any advertising or tracking cookies
We do not use Google Analytics or any third-party analytics service
We do not create user accounts or require registration
We do not sell or share any data with third parties

Third-party services

Auroracast fetches data from the following external services. By using the site, your browser may indirectly interact with them:

NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center — space weather data (server-side only, no browser contact)
Open-Meteo — weather and cloud cover data (server-side only)
Esri / ArcGIS Online — satellite map tiles loaded in your browser for the aurora globe
Open Notify — ISS pass data (server-side only)

Data retention

Push subscriptions: retained until you unsubscribe or the subscription expires (browser-managed)
Sighting reports: retained indefinitely as part of the community record; contact us to request removal
Weather cache: purged automatically after 30 minutes
Server logs: purged after 30 days

Your rights

You have the right to request deletion of any data we hold about you. For sighting reports, contact us with the sighting ID or description and we will remove it. For push subscriptions, use the Disable button on the site — this removes your data immediately.

Contact

For privacy questions, email: admin@auroracast.co.uk