Privacy
Privacy Policy
Effective October 11, 2026
What the Lightning Alarm web app collects, why, who else handles it, and how to delete it.
Who we are#
BigBalli Consulting ("we", "us") publishes Lightning Alarm. This page explains what the Lightning Alarm web app and its alarm service collect, why, who else handles it, and how long we keep it. It adds to the BigBalli Consulting privacy policy for all our apps. Where the two differ for Lightning Alarm, this page controls.
We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for advertising. We run no ads and no advertising trackers in the web app.
What we collect and why#
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Email address | To sign you in with a one-time link, to send email alerts you turn on, and to contact you about your account. We do not use it for marketing. |
| Places you save: name, latitude and longitude, radius, all-clear time, rule preset, quiet hours, time zone and whether the place is armed | To watch each place. A copy goes into the alarm engine under a random place identifier. The engine copy holds no email address or account number. |
| Mobile phone numbers you add, and the one-time code we text to verify each | To send text alerts and verification codes. The code is stored only as a hash and expires after 10 minutes. |
| Browser alert subscription: the address your browser gives us for notifications, and a label | To send browser alerts you turn on. |
| Who gets each place's alerts | To send each alert to the email, numbers and browsers you chose for that place. |
| Alerts and incidents: when a place was suspended and cleared, closest approach, flash count, and a record of each delivery attempt by channel | To show your incident log and CSV export, to retry failed deliveries and to avoid sending an alert twice. |
| Subscription details: Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, plan, status and period end | To know whether your subscription is active. We receive no card number. |
| Sign-in session: a hashed session identifier, a keyed hash of your IP address, and your browser's user-agent text | To keep you signed in and to detect abuse. |
| Security and abuse records: sign-in and account events, a keyed hash of your IP address, rate-limit counters, and one-way hashes of email addresses and phone numbers | To stop mail bombing, repeated code requests, text abuse and quota evasion, and to honor STOP. |
| Web server logs: IP address, time, page and browser | Standard operation and security of the site. |
We never see your card number. We do not ask for your name. We do not read your contacts, your photos or your device's location. The demo creates no account and saves nothing.
Location#
The places you save are the only locations we hold. You enter them by searching or by moving the map. If you press "Use my location", your browser asks permission first and the coordinates stay in your browser until you save a place. We do not track where you are. The satellite data files your browser downloads are named by map grid cell, so our web server logs show which grid cell your browser asked for, alongside your IP address, as described under server logs below.
Text messages and phone numbers#
We use a number only to send alerts and verification codes for your account. Mobile phone numbers and SMS opt-in consent are not shared with or sold to third parties or affiliates for marketing purposes. Our texting provider, Twilio, handles the number only to deliver our messages. Reply STOP to any text to cancel. The Terms of Service have the full text message program terms.
Who else handles your data#
These providers act for us or serve you directly. We share only what each needs.
- Stripe, through Link: payments. Stripe's Managed Payments makes Stripe the seller of record. It receives your payment details and email address, sends your receipts, handles tax, refunds and disputes, and keeps payment records as the law requires. Its own privacy policy applies to that data.
- Twilio: delivers text messages and codes. It receives the number and the message.
- Google Maps Platform: the map, place search and its suggestions run in your browser. Google receives your IP address, what you type in the search box and the map areas you view. Google's privacy policy applies.
- Google Fonts: your browser loads our typefaces from Google, which sees your IP address.
- Cloudflare: delivers our pages, caches public data and runs the Turnstile check on the sign-in form. It sees your IP address and browser details.
- Your browser's push service (run by Apple, Google or Mozilla): carries a notification trigger for browser alerts. The trigger holds no alert text. The service worker fetches the text from us.
- Email: we send email from our own server straight to your provider. Your provider will see it.
- NOAA and the National Weather Service: public lightning and radar data. Your browser loads radar images directly from the National Weather Service, which sees your IP address. We send them nothing about you or your places.
We may also disclose information when the law requires it, or to protect people or the service. If the business is sold, the data goes with it under this policy.
How long we keep it, and deleting your data#
Delete your account. Open Account, Delete account in the web app. We cancel your subscription first, delete your Stripe customer and, if Stripe cannot confirm that, we stop and tell you instead of deleting. Then, at once:
- your sessions and unused sign-in links are deleted and your email address is erased;
- your phone numbers, browser alert subscriptions, per-place alert choices and incident history are deleted;
- your subscription records and the link to your Stripe customer are cleared from our database;
- your places are switched off and removed from the alarm engine, so alerts stop.
Your places' names, coordinates and schedules, and their delivery records, are then permanently deleted by a nightly job once the alarm engine confirms it holds nothing for them. That normally happens within a day. If the engine cannot be confirmed, the job retries each night until it can.
What remains after deletion.
- One-way hashes of email addresses and phone numbers, kept so a deleted account cannot be used to dodge limits and so a number that replied STOP stays opted out.
- Security log entries: event type, an internal account number, and a keyed hash of an IP address. We have no fixed end date for these today.
- Alert delivery records, which carry a hash of the recipient and no place name, for up to 120 days.
- Stripe's records of your payments, kept by Stripe as the law requires.
While your account is open. Sign-in links expire after 15 minutes. A session lasts up to 30 days from your last visit. Unverified phone numbers are removed after a day. Browser alert messages are removed after a day. Stripe webhook records are removed after 90 days. Deleting a single place switches it off and removes it from the alarm engine, but the place's record, with its name and coordinates, and your incident history stay until you delete your account.
Alarm engine history. The engine records each suspend and all-clear for a place identifier, with times, closest approach and flash count, and no name, email or coordinates. It deletes those records after 400 days.
Server logs. Web server logs are rotated daily and kept for about 14 days.
You can also remove a single phone number or browser from Account, Alerts, at any time.
Cookies and browser storage#
The web app sets one cookie, la_session. It keeps you signed in, is HttpOnly, Secure and SameSite Lax, and lasts up to 30 days. It is required for the app to work and carries no tracking.
The app also stores your setup choices in your browser's local storage until you finish signing up, and its service worker caches the app shell so it opens quickly. Your browser's settings clear both.
Analytics#
The Lightning Alarm landing page and these two pages load our own first-party analytics script. It records page views, scroll depth, referrer, screen size and an anonymous visitor identifier kept in a cookie. It is not an advertising tracker and does not follow you to other sites. The web app itself loads no analytics.
The iPhone app#
The iPhone app has no account and no ads. To run the server alarm, it sends our server your device's push notification token and the places you save: name, coordinates, radius, all-clear time and schedule. If you buy Pro, it also sends Apple's signed purchase record so we can verify it with Apple's public keys. It reads the lightning data from the same public data files the web app uses. The app also sends anonymous usage and crash diagnostics to our own server. Alert text goes to your phone through Apple's push service. Uninstalling the app and turning notifications off stops the alarm for that device. Our general policy covers the rest.
Your choices and rights#
You can see and change your places, numbers and alert choices in the app, delete your account yourself, and unsubscribe from alert email with the link in any alert. Email [email protected] to ask what we hold about you, to correct it or to have it erased. We reply within 30 days. If you live in California or another place with privacy laws, you have the rights those laws give you. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.
Children#
Lightning Alarm is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information. A subscriber must be 18 or older. If a child has given us information, write to [email protected] and we will delete it.
Security#
Traffic is encrypted in transit. Sign-in links, session identifiers and verification codes are stored only as hashes, and IP addresses only as keyed hashes. Our private files are not served by the web server. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise it.
Changes to this policy#
We may update this policy. The date at the top shows the current version, and we will tell you by email or in the app about a change that matters.
Contact#
BigBalli Consulting. Privacy: [email protected]. Terms, billing and text message help: [email protected].