Privacy policy

Last updated: 10 July 2026

Lightning Radar is a hobby project by Koode. It shows live lightning strikes on a map, as an iOS app and on this website. This page explains what happens to your data. The short version: there are no accounts, no tracking, and no advertising, and we don't build a profile of you.

No accounts, no tracking

There's no sign-up and no login. We don't ask for your name or email address, there are no analytics or third-party trackers, and we don't sell or share data for advertising.

Your location

Lightning Radar has an optional “use my location” feature so it can centre the map on you and show how close strikes are. It's off until you ask for it:

• When you tap the locate button, your browser or device asks for permission. If you allow it, your coordinates are used on your device to centre the map and work out nearby activity. They aren't sent to us or stored on a server.
• If precise location is unavailable or you decline it, the site can fall back to an approximate location derived from your IP address by Cloudflare (our hosting provider), so the radar still has somewhere to start. This is coarse (roughly city-level) and isn't retained.

The one exception is Lightning alerts, an optional iOS feature described below: if you turn it on, it does share a coarse location with us.

Lightning alerts (iOS)

The iOS app has an optional Lightning alerts feature that notifies you when a strike lands within your chosen radius. It's off until you turn it on. When you enable it:

• Your device registers for Apple Push Notifications, which gives us an anonymous push token, a per-install identifier from Apple, not your name, email, or Apple ID.
• The app sends that token together with a coarse location, a grid cell roughly a fifth of your alert radius across (never your exact coordinates), and the radius, to our own server. We use these only to work out when nearby lightning should alert you and to deliver the notification through Apple.
• Optionally, you can let alerts follow you as you move by turning on Background location. This uses iOS's low-power significant-location updates (which need “Always” permission) to refresh that same coarse cell in the background, so an alert reaches you where you actually are. It still only ever sends the coarse cell described above, never your precise position or a continuous track, and you can turn it off at any time.
• There's no account and nothing tying this to your identity. We keep the token, coarse cell, and radius until you turn alerts off (which deletes them), the token stops working, or it goes unused and is pruned.
• Our server runs on our own hardware in the EU. Delivery goes through Apple's Push Notification service under Apple's terms; we don't share this with anyone else.

What the app does

The app and site connect to our relay at api.lightning-radar.com to receive public lightning-strike data from the Blitzortung.org volunteer network, and draw it on the map. That data is about lightning, not about you.

Server logs

Like any website or online service, our servers receive ordinary connection information when your device fetches data, such as your IP address and basic request details. The service runs on Cloudflare, and this information is used only to deliver the data and keep things working. We don't use it to identify or track you, and we don't sell it or share it for advertising.

Maps

The iOS app draws the map with Apple Maps (MapKit); the website uses map tiles from OpenFreeMap, and place search uses OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service. When the map or a search loads, those providers receive the requests needed to serve it, handled under their own terms (Apple; OpenMapTiles / OpenStreetMap contributors). We don't send them anything about you beyond what's needed to draw the map or run a search.

On your device

Your preferences — the light or dark map, units, display window, radar radius, and any places you save — are stored on your own device (in your browser's local storage or the app). They stay there and aren't sent to us. The exception is Lightning alerts: if you turn them on, your radius and a coarse location are sent to our server so we can notify you (see above).

On iOS, the home-screen widget, the Storm Live Activity, and the Siri shortcut read a small on-device summary (the nearby strike count, the distance and direction of the closest strike, and your radius) that the app shares with them through a private app group on your device. That summary stays on your device and isn't sent to us.

Children

Lightning Radar isn't aimed at children, and we don't knowingly collect data from anyone, children included.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Email contact@lightning-radar.com.