Privacy Policy

Summary

• No account, no ads, and no tracking. Only if you allow it, the app sends one anonymous count a day (no ID, no location) so we know how many people use it; you can change this in Profile. We use no third-party analytics tools.
• Your saved places, trips, home area and settings are stored on your device, not on our servers.
• To show data, your device asks our server for public information about specific areas, airports or topics. Those requests don't include your name or an account, and we don't save them in our own database.
• “Use my current location” is matched to an area on your device; your coordinates are not sent to OutbreakWatch.
• Questions you type to Ask Nicole are answered on your device and are not sent to OutbreakWatch.

What stays on your device

The app (and the website, in your browser's storage) keeps the following on your device so it works between visits:

• Your home area, saved places (with any labels such as Home or Work), saved trips and dates, and the diseases you follow.
• What My Health Radar showed on your last visit, so it can tell you what changed; and which alerts you have already been shown.
• The last few airports you looked up.
• In the app, the emergency contacts you type in (names and phone numbers). OutbreakWatch never calls or texts them: Call opens your phone's dialer and Text opens your messaging app with a draft you send yourself. If you turn on “Include my location”, your location is read once on your device and added to that draft only.
• If you choose to add them, your passport country or countries. They are used only to show the right embassy guidance in travel reports and are never sent to OutbreakWatch.
• Your answer about the anonymous daily count, and, only if you allowed it, the day it was last sent and the week you started sending it.
• Copies of recently loaded public data, so the app can show something when you are offline.
• On the website, one cookie (ow_lang) that remembers your language choice for up to a year. It is used only to show the site in your language.

We cannot see or access this information. Your device's own backups (for example iCloud Backup) may include it, as with any app.

What is sent to our server

OutbreakWatch has no user accounts and no user database. To display information, your device sends requests over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection to our server at outbreakwatch.vercel.app. Depending on what you do, a request can contain:

• Area codes for the places you view, save, or plan to travel to (for example a U.S. county, a state, or a country). My Health Radar and background alerts request the areas you saved.
• Text you type into search (a place or airport name or code).
• Airport codes you look up.
• Topics for Ask Nicole answers: when an answer needs current official data, the code of an area, the name of a disease from our list, or the name of a listed outbreak (for example “cholera”) — never the text of your question (see below).

As with any website or online service, our hosting provider also receives technical information needed to deliver responses, such as your IP address, the address requested, the time, and your device or browser type. To limit excessive requests, our code turns the IP address into a scrambled, one-way code (a salted hash) and keeps only that code in server memory, for about one minute after your last request. It is never written to storage or used to identify you, and it is not paired with the place or topic you asked about. Our hosting provider records request logs; on our current hosting plan these runtime logs are kept for about one day, and the provider may keep limited information longer for security and billing under its own policies (see Service providers).

Location

The app asks for location permission only while you are using it (“While Using the App” on iPhone, “Only this time” or “While using the app” on Android, where you can also choose approximate location), and uses it only when you tap “Use my current location” (or “Near me”). The app matches your position to a U.S. county or a country using map data built into the app, on your phone. Your coordinates are not sent to OutbreakWatch; afterwards, the app requests data for the matched area, like any other area you choose. The app does not track your location in the background. On the website, your browser asks for permission in the same way and the matching happens in your browser.

Ask Nicole

Ask Nicole is an automated assistant, not a person or a doctor. It answers using OutbreakWatch's official data, action guides and Help Center, using fixed rules. It does not use any outside artificial-intelligence service.

Your question is read and answered on your device (in the app, or in your browser on the website). The text of your question is not sent to OutbreakWatch or anyone else. When an answer needs current official data, your device requests only public information: the code of an area (one you named, or your home area if you ask about “near me”), the name of a disease from our list, or the name of a listed outbreak. These requests are the same for everyone who asks about that topic. The conversation is shown on your screen and is not saved.

Anonymous daily count

So we can tell how many people use OutbreakWatch and whether they keep using it, the app can send one count to our server at most once a day. The app asks you once, after the health notice, and sends nothing unless you tap Allow. The count contains only: the platform (iPhone or Android), the app version, the country from your phone's language and region setting (not your location), the week you started sending the count, and whether this is the first count ever, this week and this month.

It contains no name, account, device identifier, advertising identifier, location, saved places, trips or questions, and it is not linked to you. Our server adds the counts up and keeps only the daily totals, for up to 3 years; it does not store your IP address with them. You can change your answer at any time in Profile → Anonymous daily count; turning it off also deletes the dates the app stored for it. The website does not send this count.

Alerts and notifications

If you turn on alerts, your phone periodically checks official notices and data for the areas you saved, by requesting those areas from our server, and shows a notification created on your device. OutbreakWatch does not use push notification tokens and does not keep a list of your saved places. You can turn alerts off in the app's Profile tab or in your phone's Settings.

Service providers and other sites

• Vercel hosts the website and the server the app talks to, and processes the request information described above. See Vercel's privacy policy at vercel.com/legal/privacy-policy.
• OpenStreetMap Nominatim: only when you tap “Search cities” for a place that isn't in our own list, our server forwards that search text to Nominatim to find its location. The request comes from our server, so your IP address is not passed on.
• Apple distributes the iPhone app through the App Store and TestFlight and provides location, notifications and sharing on your iPhone, under Apple's own privacy policy.
• Google distributes the Android app through Google Play and provides location, notifications and sharing on Android phones, under Google's own privacy policy.
• Official data sources (U.S. CDC, World Health Organization, U.S. Department of State, FAA, NOAA Aviation Weather Center and others listed on our Data Sources page) are downloaded by our server. Your device does not send them any information.
• Links you open: official reports and other links open the publisher's website (for example cdc.gov or who.int). Those sites have their own privacy policies.
• Sharing: when you share a notice, place or trip, your phone's share sheet sends it to the app you choose. Shared links include a short tag (“s=ios” or “s=android”) showing which version it was shared from; they contain no information about you.

What we don't do

• We don't require or offer accounts, and don't ask for your name, email, phone number or health information.
• We don't use advertising, third-party analytics, or tracking across other companies' apps and websites.
• We don't sell or share personal information with data brokers or advertisers.
• The “What should I do?” guides run on your device; your choices in them are not sent to us.

How long information is kept

• On your device: until you remove it, delete the app, or clear this site's data in your browser.
• Anonymous daily count: only the daily totals are kept, for up to 3 years.
• On our server: we don't keep a record of your requests. A scrambled, one-way code made from your IP address is held in memory for about one minute after your last request, to limit excessive requests.
• Hosting logs: kept by our hosting provider as described above.
• Emails to support: kept in our email system for as long as needed to answer you and keep a record of the request. You can ask us to delete your messages.

Your choices and deleting data

• Remove saved places and trips in the app at any time (My Health Radar and Profile).
• Delete the app to remove everything it stored; on the website, clear this site's data in your browser.
• Turn location access and notifications off at any time in your phone's Settings.
• Allow or stop the anonymous daily count at any time in Profile → Anonymous daily count.

Because we don't keep personal information in our own systems, there is usually nothing for us to retrieve or delete about you. If you have a privacy question or request, contact us and we will help.

Children

OutbreakWatch is a general-audience public-health information service. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes and contact

If we change what the app or website collects (for example by adding optional accounts), we will update this page before the change takes effect and ask for your consent where required. The date at the top shows the latest version.

Contact: support@myinfinivue.com · Infinivue Inc.

OutbreakWatch provides educational public-health information from official sources and is not medical advice.