Legal

Privacy Policy — Aurora Atlas (formerly Aurora Tromsø Northern Lights)

Last updated: 16 October 2026

Who we are

Aurora Atlas helps you decide where and when to look for the northern lights, in Tromsø and at aurora destinations around the world. It is version 2.0 and later of the app that was called Aurora Tromsø Northern Lights (same App Store listing). It is made and operated by Max Roness Hovding, a private individual based in Tromsø. He is the data controller for any personal data described here. Contact: max@hovding.no.

The short version

• Aurora Atlas 2.0 and later has no accounts and no login. You can use everything without telling us who you are.
• There are no analytics, no ads, no advertising identifiers and no tracking. The app contains no analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or social software.
• What you tell the app (your base, how far you will drive, your trip dates, your language) is kept on your phone.
• If you let the app use your location, it is used on your phone only. It is never sent to us or to anyone else, and it is never stored.
• The app asks our server for the forecast of the destination you chose. That request names the destination, not you.
• If you still use version 1.x (the Tromsø-only app), older rules apply to that version. See Older versions.

What Aurora Atlas (version 2.0 and later) does

What stays on your phone

The app keeps these in its own storage on your phone. We never receive them:

• your base (the aurora destination you chose), how far you will drive, whether you are visiting, planning or live there, and your trip dates;
• your answers while you set the app up, so you can pick up where you left off;
• your language choice, and whether you have seen the intro, the map key and the tips;
• whether “Drive times from where I am” is switched on (one on/off setting);
• whether you said you would like alerts (alerts are not available yet, see Alerts);
• the last forecasts the app loaded (at most four destinations, none older than 48 hours), so it can still show something without a network;
• for the rating prompt: how many times and on how many days you have opened the app, and whether it has already asked you. If you rate the app, the rating goes to Apple, not to us;
• whether you have seen the “What’s new” note, and that settings from version 1.x have been carried over.

If you used version 1.x, its settings stay in the app’s storage on your phone after the update. Version 2.0 reads them on the phone, once, to carry over your setup and language; nothing is sent anywhere.

Remove all of this with Settings → Start over, or by deleting the app (deleting the app also removes the 1.x settings). The app has no analytics, so there is no usage history on your phone either.

What our server receives

The app asks our server for public forecast data. Every request is a plain read of public data and is limited to:

• the public name (id) of a destination or spot, for example tromso;
• the app's language (for the written summary), for example nb;
• one of four drive-range choices (45 minutes, 1 h 30, 3 hours, any), when the app asks for spots around a destination;
• in Trip Mode and in the night planner, the dates of your trip's first and last night, or the date the planner starts from.

There is no account, user id, device id or advertising id in any request, and nothing is sent in a request body. Your location is not in any request.

Where your location is used

You can let the app use your phone's location. It is off until you ask for it, the app never uses it in the background, and the app works the same if you say no (you then choose your destination from a list). The app reads your position in three places, always on the phone:

1. “Use my location” when you choose or change your base: finds the aurora destination you are in, or the nearest ones if you are outside all of them.
2. “Show my location” on the map: draws a “you are here” dot while the map is open.
3. “Drive times from where I am” (“Measure drives from where you are”): measures the drive from where you are to each viewing spot and re-ranks the spots on your phone. While this is on, the app checks your position again when you open the app or one of those screens, never in the background and never continuously. When you are near the edge of a destination, it may suggest the neighbouring destination.

Your phone asks for permission (“while using the app” only) right after you tap one of these. The app takes one position at a time. The position stays in the app's memory, is replaced by the next one, and is gone when you turn the setting off or close the app. It is not written to storage, not put in a web address or a request, and not logged. The app does not look up addresses from your position and uses no geocoding service. To withdraw permission, turn location off for Aurora Atlas in your phone's settings (iPhone: Settings → Aurora Atlas → Location; Android: Settings → Apps → Aurora Atlas → Permissions), or in your browser's site settings for the web version. Nothing needs deleting, because nothing is kept.

When the app needs the spots around you it asks our server for destinations by name (for example tromso, and near an edge up to a few neighbouring destinations, each about 100 to 300 km across). That tells our server which destinations' forecasts were wanted, not where you are. The server log keeps only each request's path and response code (see below).

No analytics, no ads, no tracking

Version 2.0 and later has no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising software and no tracking across apps or websites. It does not use advertising identifiers. Steps you take while setting up the app are counted only in the phone's memory and are never sent anywhere.

Our server and its logs

Like every service on the internet, our server sees the internet (IP) address your request comes from while it answers it. Our server does not log IP addresses. Its log keeps only the kind of request (for example GET), the path, and the response code. The part of the address after a question mark is dropped, so trip dates are not logged either. Fly.io hosts the server (see below).

Photos and camera images

Photographs of viewing spots and live camera stills are loaded through our server. Our server fetches each picture without anything about you (no IP address, no device details), keeps it briefly, and serves it to everyone, so the photo hosts (for example Wikimedia Commons) and the camera owners never see your device or IP address. We do not log these requests. Tapping a source, credit or licence link opens that site in your browser, an ordinary link you choose to follow. Tapping Navigate hands the spot's coordinates (not yours) to your phone's maps app or opens Google Maps in the browser.

The written forecast summary (AI)

The short written summary of tonight and the coming nights is written with the help of AI. Anthropic (the Claude API) receives only public forecast facts about a destination: its name, tonight's chance, cloud, aurora activity and moon, and the next nights' ratings, plus the language. It never receives anything about you or your device: no IP address, no identifier, no location, no trip dates. Our server makes the request, not your phone, and only when someone opens a summary and no current one exists, at most once every 3 hours per destination and language, so Anthropic cannot tell who asked. We keep only the latest text per destination and language. Because no personal data reaches Anthropic, we do not treat it as a processor of personal data.

Alerts

Aurora Atlas has no alerts yet. The app does not ask for notification permission and contains no push-notification software. If a later version adds alerts, the app will ask you first and this policy will be updated before that version is released. If you tell the app you would like alerts, only that wish is remembered on your phone.

Who processes data for us

• Fly.io (server in Stockholm, Sweden, inside the EEA) hosts our server. It is our hosting processor under a signed data processing agreement. It sees the requests above, including the IP address they come from, while answering them. We do not enable IP logging at Fly.io's edge either.
• Anthropic receives no personal data (see above).

Our server also fetches public weather, space-weather and road data from MET Norway, NOAA, Statens vegvesen and others. Your phone does not contact those directly.

Our websites

Our websites, auroraatlas.app and tromso-aurora.app, have no cookies, no analytics, no trackers and load nothing from other websites. Cloudflare (Cloudflare Pages) hosts them. Like any web host it sees the IP address and browser details of each visit while serving the page; it is our hosting processor under its data processing agreement. We do not receive or keep visitor logs.

Older versions (1.x)

Versions 1.x of Aurora Tromsø Northern Lights have different rules, described here for people who have not updated. Version 2.0 removes all of this: it contains no anonymous insights, no personal analytics and no PostHog software. Updating stops all further sending from that phone. The app also deletes the analytics software's local files on the phone.

What happens to data already collected

Personal analytics is deleted when 2.0 is released. On the day version 2.0 is released on the App Store, we delete our PostHog project with all personal-analytics data in it and stop using PostHog. Events that a 1.x app might still send after that are not received or stored.

Until then, you can ask us to give you a copy of or delete the data tied to your installation's identifier at PostHog. Write to max@hovding.no and we will do it through PostHog for you. The anonymous insights counts contain nothing that points to a person, so there is nothing we can look up or remove for one person. They are deleted after 180 days.

Where your location was used in 1.x

The older app read your phone's position, always on the phone and only with your permission, on the Map screen, in Trip Mode, to sort Nearby spots on Tonight and Spots, and, if you had turned anonymous insights on, to work out which named spot or rough area you were in. Coordinates were never sent. Only that result was sent, and only with anonymous insights on.

Anonymous insights (optional, 1.x)

What it was for. To learn which viewing spots people look at, drive to and visit, and when, so the app could highlight the right spots and so that Tromsø municipality (Tromsø kommune) could see, as summary numbers, which areas get the most visitors. Off until you switched it on.

What was sent, and nothing else:

• Usage counts. When you viewed a spot, tapped Navigate or shared a spot: the kind of action and the spot's id.
• Spot presence. When your phone was at one of the named spots: the spot's id and the current hour (UTC), and a second event after 20 minutes or more.
• Visit summary. When a visit ended: the spot's id, the hour you arrived and how long you stayed as a bracket.
• Recommendation outcome. If the app recommended a spot and you later arrived at it: the spot's id, which recommendation it was and the hour.
• New-area discovery. If you stayed 15 minutes or more somewhere that is not a named spot, outside the Tromsø town area, during dark hours: a map-cell id covering roughly 5 km², the hour and the duration bracket, at most once per cell per night.

What was never sent: your coordinates, your route, any device or account identifier, whether Trip Mode was on, or anything while insights was off.

How it is stored. The old server (project-aurora.fly.dev, hosted by Fly.io) adds each event to a count per spot or cell per hour and does not keep the individual event. Counts older than 180 days are deleted. It does not store or log IP addresses. Legal basis: your consent (GDPR Article 6(1)(a)). Only summary counts, never individual events, may be shared with Tromsø kommune; if the location-based counts are ever included, this policy will say so before any sharing starts.

Turning it off. In 1.x: Settings > Privacy & data > Anonymous insights. In 2.0 and later there is nothing to turn off. If you stay on 1.x and want to withdraw, use that setting or update the app.

Personal analytics (optional, off by default, 1.x)

What it was for. To see how the app is used over time: whether people come back, where they stop in common flows, and which features get used.

What was sent. A fixed list of events, each tagged with a random identifier created for your installation of the app (not your name, email or any account) and a timestamp: app opened; screen viewed (the screen's name only); spot viewed, Navigate tapped, spot shared; alerts switched on; language changed; Trip Mode started or ended (only that fact); onboarding steps and visitor/resident and transport choices; whether trip dates were provided (never the dates); trip preferences cleared; transport preference changes and recommended spots opened. The analytics software also attached app version and build, app name and bundle id, operating system and version, device type, manufacturer and model, language, time zone, screen size and the software's version. No location, no advertising identifiers, no session recordings. Your travel radius and exact dates were never sent.

Who processed it. PostHog, on its EU cloud in Frankfurt, Germany, under a data processing agreement with us, only on our instructions. Its servers see your phone's IP address when events arrive, as any internet service does; we turned off location lookup from IP addresses and set the project to discard IP addresses so they are not stored with your events. How long: until version 2.0 is released, when we delete it all (see above). Legal basis: your consent (GDPR Article 6(1)(a)). It was never used for advertising.

Turning it off and deleting. In 1.x: Settings > Privacy & data > App usage analytics. Switching it off stops sending immediately and sends PostHog a request to delete the data tied to your installation's identifier. Deletion takes some time to work through PostHog's systems. Because 2.0 has no setting for this, you can ask us by email instead (max@hovding.no), and we will make the same deletion request for you.

Other services version 1.x talks to

Besides the old server, 1.x contacts, only in the cases the app needs them, the services below, which see your phone's IP address while answering. We add nothing to those requests.

• MET Norway (api.met.no) and NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (services.swpc.noaa.gov): forecast data, fetched by your phone only if our server is unreachable, and always in the web version.
• Apple Maps (iPhone and iPad) and the Google Maps SDK (Android): the map in 1.x. Google states that its software collects device details, crash metrics, IP address and a unique identifier, and may record map interactions. We receive none of it. Version 2.0 does not use either.
• Google Firebase and Apple push: only if you turned alerts on, in versions that included them (a push token held by Google; we never receive it or a subscriber list; notifications carry only public forecast facts). Turning alerts off, turning off notifications in your phone's settings, or uninstalling stops delivery.
• PostHog: only if you turned personal analytics on.
• Camera stills and spot photos came through our server, as in 2.0.

Website launch waitlist (closed)

A signup form for a launch waitlist was briefly on tromso-aurora.app before the app was released on 18 September 2026. Nobody signed up, so we hold no addresses from it, and the form no longer exists.

How long we keep data

Data	Kept for
Aurora Atlas (2.0 and later): anything about you on our side	Nothing. Server logs hold only request type, path and response code. The forecasts we compute are public data, replaced as new ones arrive, and archived by destination, not by user.
Written summary (AI) text	The latest text per destination and language, overwritten on each rewrite
Your base, range, dates, language and settings	On your phone only, until you change them, choose Start over or uninstall
Your position	Phone memory only, gone when you turn the setting off or close the app
1.x anonymous insights counts (per spot or cell, per hour)	180 days, then deleted
1.x personal analytics events at PostHog	Deleted on the day version 2.0 is released
1.x aurora alerts	Nothing on our side; Google holds the push token until you turn alerts off or uninstall

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask for access to, correction of, or deletion of personal data we hold about you, withdraw consent at any time, and complain to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet). Write to max@hovding.no.

For Aurora Atlas 2.0 and later we hold nothing about you, so there is normally nothing to hand over or delete; what the app keeps is on your phone and you can delete it yourself (Settings → Start over, or delete the app). For data collected by version 1.x, see Older versions: we can find and give you a copy of, or delete, the data tied to your installation's identifier at PostHog; the anonymous counts cannot be traced to a person. Our processors are Fly.io (our server), Cloudflare (our websites) and, for version 1.x, Google (Firebase) and, until 2.0 is released, PostHog, each acting only on our instructions under a data processing agreement. We never sell personal data and never share it with anyone else, including Tromsø kommune, which only ever received summary counts.

Children

The app is not aimed at children. Version 2.0 and later collects nothing about its users, so it has no age check.

Changes

We will update this page when the app changes. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change would collect something new, the app asks you before it starts, and this page is updated first.

Language

This policy is published in English only for now.