Privacy Policy - FloodShield

FloodShield gives you flood, disaster and weather alerts, and lets you share flooding information with your community. We only collect the data these features need. FloodShield is an independent app. It is not affiliated with, and does not represent, any government agency.

1. Data we collect

Location: used to get the weather forecast, alerts, shelters and posts near you. Your location is sent to the FloodShield server when you open the app, and when the app checks for alerts in the background (if you turned on notifications). We do not keep a history of your locations.
Notifications: if you turn on notifications, the app gives the server a notification token (issued by Google Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android, or the Apple Push Notification service on iPhone), your language and your area rounded to about 10 km, so it can send heavy rain warnings, and morning reminders when rain or strong sun is likely, for that area. The server keeps only your latest area, not a history.
Community posts: the display name, text, water level, photo and location you send with a post. Posts are public: other users can see them. Photos are processed to remove their EXIF information (including the GPS coordinates stored in a photo).
Random device ID: created when you install the app, so you can manage and delete your own posts, and to prevent spam. It is not linked to your identity, your phone number, or your Google or Apple account.

We don't require an account, don't show ads and don't sell data.

2. Third parties

The FloodShield server gets data from Open-Meteo (weather, GloFAS/Copernicus), GDACS (disasters) and OpenStreetMap (place names, shelters), using rounded coordinates. The app also sends rounded coordinates directly to two of these services: to Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) for the weather forecast (about 1 km) and the river flood forecast (about 10 km), and to OpenStreetMap's Overpass servers (overpass-api.de, with maps.mail.ru as backup, about 2 km) to find shelters near you. The app can open Google Maps when you ask for directions. Warnings and reminders sent as notifications are delivered by Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android) or the Apple Push Notification service (iPhone); these services receive their text and the notification token.

3. Storing and deleting data

Posts are shown for 7 days and may be stored for up to 90 days. You can delete each of your posts, or delete all of your data in Settings → Delete my data. Posts that break the community rules may be hidden or removed; the device ID of someone who breaks them may then be kept, to block it from posting. The notification token and area are deleted when you turn notifications off, when you delete your data, or after 60 days without the app contacting the server.

4. Contact

Email: phungquangthanggv2008@gmail.com