Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 14, 2026
Summary
Heliora is a client-side application. There is no Heliora server that receives your location — the sun, eclipse and horizon calculations all run in your browser. Your browser does fetch map, elevation and weather data for the area you are looking at directly from the third-party services listed below. Heliora never requires an account: the one optional exception is the Save button, which stores spots you choose to save on a Heliora sync server after you sign in with Google (see "Saved Spots" below). We do not sell data to anyone.
What Data We Collect
Analytics: We use Google Analytics (GA4) to collect anonymous usage statistics such as page views, approximate geographic region, device type, and referral source. This data is aggregated and cannot identify you personally. Google Analytics uses cookies — you can opt out via your browser settings or a Google Analytics opt-out extension.
Location coordinates: When you place a pin on the map, those coordinates are used locally in your browser to compute sun positions. Your browser also sends them to the third-party services listed below — to fetch map tiles and elevation tiles for the area around the pin, to look up historical cloud-cover statistics for that spot, and, when the app shows a place name for a pin you dropped, to a reverse-geocoding service. Pins themselves are not sent to or stored on any Heliora server — the one exception is a spot you deliberately save while signed in, which is stored as described under "Saved Spots" below.
Search queries: What you type into the search box is sent to a third-party geocoding service to turn it into coordinates. Searches for towns and cities in the onboarding and embed pickers are usually answered from a place list downloaded into your browser, and only reach the geocoding service when that list has no match.
Accounts are optional and exist only for saving spots: everything else in Heliora works without one, and no other feature ever asks you to sign in. If you never tap Save, we collect no names, no email addresses, and no personally identifiable information.
Saved Spots (Optional Sign-In)
Tapping Save asks you to sign in with Google, and stores your saved spots on a Heliora sync server so they are available when you sign in again, including on another device. This is the only Heliora feature that stores anything about you on our side. What is stored:
- Your saved spots — the name, coordinates, and optionally the date and time you chose for each spot you saved.
- Your Google account email address — taken from the verified sign-in, so your spots are tied to your account. We may occasionally use it for Heliora service updates, never for anything else, and you can opt out at any time. We do not store your name or profile photo.
Where and on what basis: the data is stored in Cloudflare Workers KV (Cloudflare acts as our processor under its standard data processing terms; data may be replicated across Cloudflare's global network). The lawful basis is the contract you enter by asking Heliora to save your spots. Sign-in itself is handled by Google Identity Services — we never see your password.
Your rights, self-service: the Export button in "My spots" downloads everything we store about you (your access right); "Delete synced data" deletes it all from our server immediately (your erasure right). Both work without contacting us — though [email protected] works too.
Third-Party Services
Heliora relies on the following third-party services that may process data according to their own privacy policies:
- OpenFreeMap — map tiles for the basemap, and the mountain-peak names shown on the sky horizon. Receives the map area you are looking at. OpenFreeMap
- Photon (Komoot) — place search and reverse geocoding. Receives what you type into the search box, and — when the app looks up the name of a place for a pin — the approximate coordinates of that pin. Photon
- AWS Terrain Tiles (Terrarium) — elevation data used to build the horizon profile and the 3D terrain. Receives the map tiles requested around your pin. AWS Terrain Tiles
- OpenStreetMap — map tiles on the simplified fallback map, used on devices whose graphics hardware cannot run the 3D map. Receives the map area you are looking at. OSM Foundation Privacy Policy
- Open-Meteo — historical cloud-cover statistics (the clear-sky odds shown for a date and hour). Receives the coordinates of your pin. Open-Meteo Terms
- Google Identity Services — the optional "Sign in with Google" used only by the Save feature. Loaded only after you tap Save (or the sign-in row in "My spots"), never on page load. Google Privacy Policy
- Google Analytics — anonymous usage analytics. Google Privacy Policy
- Google Fonts — web fonts loaded from Google servers. Google Fonts Privacy
- Cloudflare — serves and caches heliora.app, and hosts the saved-spots sync server (Workers KV, see "Saved Spots" above). Sees the usual request data, including your IP address. Cloudflare Privacy Policy
Android App
The Heliora Android app is a thin wrapper around the same web application. It may request location permission to center the map on your current position. Location data is used only locally on your device and is not transmitted to any Heliora server.
Data Storage
Heliora stores your settings — such as whether you have seen the intro, whether peak labels or 3D buildings are on, and your AR lens calibration — in your browser's local storage. The pin you drop is not stored there: it lives in the page URL, which is what makes a Heliora link shareable.
One exception: if you use AR mode and confirm you are standing at the pin, Heliora remembers that spot — rounded to about 110 metres, for 24 hours — so it does not ask you again every time you reopen the page. It is used only to decide whether to show that question again, it is deleted automatically after 24 hours, and clearing your browser's site data removes it immediately.
If you use the Save feature, your browser also keeps a local copy of your saved-spots list (so it displays instantly) and, briefly, a spot you were mid-way through saving when sign-in interrupted. The list itself lives on the sync server as described under "Saved Spots"; the local copy is just a cache, and clearing your browser's site data removes it without touching the server copy.
Heliora also keeps a cache of downloaded map and elevation tiles (up to roughly 50 MB) in your browser's IndexedDB storage, so revisiting the same area does not re-download them. All of this stays on your device and is never transmitted; clearing your browser's site data removes it.
Children's Privacy
Heliora is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy as the app evolves. The "last updated" date at the top will reflect any changes.
Contact
Questions about this policy? Reach us at [email protected].