Privacy Policy
Last updated: August 4, 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. We do not collect personal information, require accounts, or 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. Coordinates are not sent to or stored on any Heliora server.
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.
No accounts or personal data: Heliora does not require registration. We do not collect names, email addresses, or any personally identifiable information.
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 Analytics — anonymous usage analytics. Google Privacy Policy
- Google Fonts — web fonts loaded from Google servers. Google Fonts Privacy
- Cloudflare — serves and caches heliora.app. 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, and whether peak labels are on — in your browser's local storage. Your location is not stored there: a pin lives in the page URL, which is what makes a Heliora link shareable. 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].