Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Vigil Earth is owned by WebAi.Scot Limited, a company registered in Scotland with company number SC886292. We decide how your information is used, which makes us the "controller" under UK data protection law. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration number ZC230643.

For anything about your information, email [email protected].

2. The short version

• Vigil Earth watches places, not people. It never tracks where you go.
• Your place photos stay on your phone. They are never uploaded.
• You do not need to give us your name or email to use the app.
• There are no adverts, no advertising trackers and no analytics tools in the app.
• We never sell your information.
• You can delete your account, and what we hold for it, at any time in the app.

3. What the app keeps on our servers

To watch your places while your phone is asleep, some information has to live on our servers:

• An anonymous account. Created the first time you open the app. It is a random identifier, not your name.
• Your places. The name you give each place, where it is (its coordinates, town, region and country), how close counts for alerts, and trip dates if you add them. We also keep what we work out for each place, such as its forecast and its hazard ratings.
• Your settings. Which alerts you want, whose travel advice you follow, your home country and your units.
• Your alerts. The alerts matched to your places and whether you have read them, any events you chose to hide, and the preparation steps you have ticked.
• A notification token. If you allow notifications, Apple gives the app a token so we can send alerts to your phone. It identifies the app on your phone, not you.
• Vigil Pro status. If you subscribe, Apple tells us the product, the dates, whether it is a trial, whether it will renew, and Apple's transaction numbers. Apple never gives us your card details.
• Sign in with Apple. Optional. If you use it, Apple gives us an identifier and, if you choose to share them, your name and email address. The email can be Apple's private relay address. We use these only so your places can move to a new phone.

4. What stays on your phone

• The photos you choose for your places.
• The copy of your places and alerts that the widgets read.

5. Your location

Vigil Earth asks for your location only when you tap to add where you are now as a place. It takes one reading, turns it into a place, and stops. There is no background location and no tracking.

The place it creates is stored like any other place, and you can delete it at any time. You can turn location off for Vigil Earth in your iPhone's Settings.

6. Ask

Ask uses Apple Intelligence, which runs on your iPhone or on Apple's Private Cloud Compute. Apple says data sent to Private Cloud Compute is never stored and is never made accessible to Apple.

To answer, Ask looks things up in Vigil Earth: a place name, an area to check for events, a country's travel advice, or a forecast. Your question itself stays with Apple Intelligence. Our servers receive only those lookups, run as your account so Ask can see your own places, and we do not store them.

7. The website

• Notify me. If you leave your email, we keep it with the page you used, the words you agreed to and, if the link you followed had one, a campaign code. We use it to send one email on launch day. Nothing else unless you ask.
• Stopping abuse. The form keeps a scrambled code made from your internet address, never the address itself, for less than 24 hours.
• No cookies. This website sets no cookies. We may count visits with a privacy-friendly service that sets no cookies and does not identify you.
• Emails. If you email us, we keep the email so we can help you.

8. Why we use it

UK data protection law asks us to give a legal reason for each use:

• To provide Vigil Earth (your account, places, settings, alerts and Vigil Pro status): this is needed for our contract with you.
• Notifications, location and Sign in with Apple: only when you allow them on your phone. This is your consent, and you can withdraw it in your iPhone's Settings at any time.
• The launch-day email: your consent, given when you leave your email.
• Keeping Vigil Earth secure and stopping abuse, such as the form's limit on attempts: our legitimate interests.
• Counting how many people use Vigil Earth and Vigil Pro, as totals only. Some of our data suppliers price their service on these totals, so we share the numbers with them. The totals never include anything that identifies you. This is our legitimate interests.
• Keeping subscription records as tax and accounting law requires: a legal obligation.

9. Who we share it with

We share information only with companies that help us run Vigil Earth, and only what each one needs:

• Apple, for notifications, Sign in with Apple, subscriptions, maps and Ask.
• Our database and server host, which stores the information above in London.
• Our website host, which serves this website and its forms.
• Our email provider, for emails you send us and, after launch, the launch-day email.
• Our weather and place-lookup provider, which receives coordinates or a place name from our servers and sends back a forecast or a location. It never receives anything that identifies you.

We may also share information if the law requires it. We never sell it.

10. Where it is stored

Our servers are in London. Some of the companies above, including Apple, may handle information outside the UK. Where they do, they use the safeguards UK law requires.

11. How long we keep it

• Your account, places, settings and alerts: until you delete your account. If an anonymous account is not used for 12 months, we delete it.
• Your notification token: until you turn notifications off, delete your account, or Apple tells us the token no longer works.
• Vigil Pro records: for as long as UK tax and accounting law requires, usually six years after the subscription ends.
• Notify me emails: until we have sent the launch-day email, then deleted within 30 days. Sooner if you ask.
• The form's scrambled code: less than 24 hours.
• Emails you send us: as long as we need to help you, and no longer than two years.
• Technical logs kept by our host: a short time, usually days.

12. Your rights

You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the information we hold about you;
• correct anything that is wrong;
• delete your information;
• limit how we use it, or stop using it;
• give you your information in a form you can take elsewhere.

Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Email [email protected] and we will reply within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. We would like the chance to put it right first, so please contact us too.

13. Deleting your account

In the app, go to Settings › Account › Delete account. This removes your account, places, settings, alerts and notification token from our servers. Place photos and the widgets' copy on your phone go when you delete the app.

Deleting your account does not cancel Vigil Pro. Cancel it first in your iPhone's Settings: tap your name, then Subscriptions.

You can also ask us to delete your account by emailing [email protected].

14. Children

Vigil Earth is not designed for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you think a child has given us information, email [email protected] and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you in the app or on this page before it applies. The date at the top shows the latest version.