Privacy Policy — Air4Laos

1. About this policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) ("we," "us," or "our") handles information in connection with the Air4Laos mobile application (the "App") and the services we operate to support it.

Air4Laos helps users explore PM2.5 forecasts, maps, hotspots, air-quality guidance, news, and alerts for areas in Lao PDR. The App uses information from the Air4Laos platform associated with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) / SERVIR-Southeast Asia.

This policy covers the App on both iOS and Android. It does not automatically cover every ADPC website or an independently operated website that you visit through an external link.

2. Location access and your choice

With your device's permission, the App can use your location to identify the nearest district and help you find relevant air-quality information. You can also select an area manually instead of using GPS. Location access is not required for manual area selection.

You can refuse or change location permission through your device settings. When location permission is unavailable, the location-based nearest-district feature may not work, but you can continue to browse areas manually.

How location is handled. The App requests "while using the app" (foreground) location permission only; it does not request or use background location access, and it does not track your movements. When you open a screen that offers the nearest-district feature, the App takes a single position fix at balanced (approximately city-block) accuracy, or reuses a position the operating system obtained within the previous ten minutes. The fix is compared on your device against the list of Lao districts and provinces to find the closest one, and it is used to centre the map. Your coordinates are not sent to the Air4Laos platform or to any other server: forecast requests identify a district or province by its public identifier, not by your position. Your coordinates are held in memory only while the screen is open and are not written to storage. You can turn the "use my location" option off in the App's settings at any time, independently of the system permission.

3. Preferences and information stored on your device

The App stores settings and cached information on your device to remember your choices and make previously loaded information available when a connection is unavailable. This includes saved areas and preferences such as language, theme, PM2.5 display scale, sensitive-group mode, notification settings, alert thresholds, and quiet hours.

The sensitive-group setting changes the air-quality guidance displayed by the App. It is a guidance preference, not a medical assessment. Saved areas can relate to places you care about, even when you select them manually rather than using GPS.

Cached environmental information can include previously loaded forecasts and related results. An offline cache does not guarantee that information is current or that every map feature will work offline.

Preferences stay on your device. All of the settings above, together with the in-app alert history (the last 60 alerts), a short record used to avoid sending the same alert twice (kept for three days), and the offline cache of forecasts, boundaries and news (kept for between six hours and seven days depending on the item), are stored in the App's private storage on your device. They are not uploaded to, or synchronised with, any server, and the App has no user account. The only way a preference influences a network request is indirectly: when the App fetches a forecast for a saved or selected area, the request names that area's public identifier. The sensitive-group selection and the groups you choose are never transmitted. Your device or cloud backup may include the App's storage according to your backup settings.

4. Notifications and background activity

The App uses local notifications for features such as PM2.5 threshold alerts, upcoming high-pollution periods, hotspots in saved areas, and daily summaries. Background tasks support checking for updates and evaluating alert conditions using your saved areas and alert settings.

You can manage alert preferences in the App and turn notification permission on or off in your device settings. Background activity and notification delivery depend on operating-system permissions, scheduling, and device conditions. Alerts are not guaranteed to arrive immediately.

All notifications are generated on your device. The App does not use a remote push-notification service, does not register a push token with any server, and no server can send a message to your device. The background check runs at most about once an hour when the operating system allows it; it reads your saved areas and alert settings from local storage, requests the current forecast and hotspot counts for those areas from the Air4Laos platform, and decides locally whether to show an alert. It does not use your location.

5. Online requests, technical records, and support

Online services and technical records

When the App requests forecasts, maps, hotspots, wind information, or news, the receiving service processes the network request needed to return that information. Processing a request and retaining information in a log are different activities.

Information recorded by the Air4Laos platform. When the App contacts the Air4Laos platform, our web server and application server record standard connection logs. Each log entry can include your device's IP address, the date and time, the address requested (which includes the identifier of the district or province and the forecast date you asked for), the response code, and the App's network identifier (user agent). Requests also carry a read-only access token that is the same for every copy of the App; it identifies the App, not you. We do not log your location, your saved areas as a list, your preferences, or any device or advertising identifier. We use these logs to keep the service running, to diagnose faults, and to detect abuse. Retention is described in Section 8.

No analytics, crash reporting, advertising, or accounts. The App contains no analytics, crash-reporting, advertising, or tracking software development kits, does not read the advertising identifier, shows no advertisements, and has no sign-in or user account. If the App crashes, your operating system may offer to send a crash report to Apple or Google under their own terms; we do not receive those reports.

Information you send to us

When you contact us about the App, we receive the contact details, message, and any attachments that you choose to provide. We use that information to respond to your inquiry, investigate the issue, and manage the request. Please avoid including unnecessary personal, identity, or medical information in a support message.

6. How we use information

We use the information described in this policy to provide the features you request: show relevant air-quality information and maps, remember your preferences, check alert conditions, and display notifications. We also use information you send us to respond to questions and support requests.

Where the technical records described in Section 5 are retained, we use them for the specific operational, troubleshooting, and security purposes disclosed there. We will explain a materially different use of personal information and obtain permission where required before starting that use.

7. Service providers and disclosure

The App's environmental-data features connect to the Air4Laos API and geospatial services: GeoServer for map layers and administrative boundaries, NASA FIRMS hotspot data through a platform proxy, and GFS wind information. Regional news headlines are provided through a Google News RSS feed.

An organization supplying an environmental dataset is not necessarily a recipient of your personal information. For example, using a platform proxy does not, by itself, mean that the App sends your device's information directly to the upstream data source.

Services that receive information from your device, and why. Each of the following services receives your device's IP address and the standard information in a web request when the App contacts it. None of them receives your name, your saved areas as a list, your preferences, or your GPS position.

Air4Laos platform (air4laos.adpc.net), operated by ADPC. Forecast data, district boundaries, the PM2.5 map layer, hotspot counts and wind data. Requests name the district or province and date you are viewing.
NASA FIRMS, via the Air4Laos platform. Fire-hotspot locations are fetched by our platform and relayed to the App; NASA receives requests from our server, not from your device.
CARTO (basemaps.cartocdn.com) and Esri (server.arcgisonline.com). Background map tiles for the light, dark and satellite basemaps, and map fonts from OpenMapTiles (fonts.openmaptiles.org). Tile requests reveal the map area and zoom level you are looking at. These providers process requests under their own privacy policies.
Google News (news.google.com). The News tab loads a public RSS feed of regional air-quality headlines directly from your device, so Google receives your IP address and the search terms (country names and air-quality keywords chosen by the App, not by you). Opening an article hands you to the publisher's website in your browser.

Where we engage a provider to process personal information on our behalf, we require it to use that information only for authorized purposes and provide protection at least equivalent to the commitments in this policy. We may also disclose information where legally required, in response to valid legal process, or where necessary and lawful to protect the security of the service or the rights and safety of people.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with anyone for advertising or marketing purposes.

External news articles and other independently operated websites have their own privacy practices. Review their policies before providing information to them. This does not remove our responsibility for providers processing information on our behalf.

8. Retention and deletion

Information on your device

Settings and saved areas remain available until you change them or remove the relevant App data. Cached information remains until it is replaced, cleared, or removed with the App's local data.

You can remove local App data using your operating system's app-data controls, where available, or by deleting the App, subject to your device's storage and backup behavior. An app-offloading feature may retain data. Device or cloud backups may also retain copies according to your backup settings and the backup provider's policies.

Information held by us or our providers

Server connection logs: Kept for up to 30 days and then deleted automatically by log rotation. Entries relating to a specific security incident may be kept for as long as the investigation requires.
Support correspondence: Emails and attachments you send us are kept for up to 24 months after your request is closed, so that we can answer follow-up questions, and are then deleted.
Backups: The platform's database backups contain environmental data and service configuration only. Connection logs are not included in backups, so no information about App users is retained in them.

We retain personal information only for the disclosed purposes and applicable retention periods. Where retention is required by law or necessary for an identified security or legal matter, we explain the relevant exception when responding to a deletion request, to the extent permitted. Information no longer needed is deleted or irreversibly de-identified.

Deleting the App does not, by itself, delete information already held in server records, support correspondence, or third-party systems. Contact the privacy contact in Section 12 to request deletion of information we hold.

9. Your choices and privacy requests

You can choose areas manually, change location and notification permissions through device settings, adjust your preferences in the App, and remove local App data as described above. Disabling a permission affects the features that rely on it, rather than automatically deleting previously retained information.

You may contact us to ask about information we hold about you or request access, correction, deletion, or withdrawal of consent where applicable. The rights available and any exceptions depend on applicable law and the information involved. We may need information sufficient to identify the relevant records and verify a request. If we cannot identify records associated with you, or cannot fulfill a request in full, we will explain the reason.

10. Security and international processing

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards intended to protect personal information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or disclosure. No method of electronic transmission or storage can guarantee absolute security.

Safeguards in place. Connections between the App and the Air4Laos platform, and to the third-party services listed in Section 7, use HTTPS (TLS) encryption; the App is built so that unencrypted connections are refused on iOS and Android. The platform's data endpoints are read-only and protected by access tokens; no endpoint accepts personal information from the App. The App collects no account credentials and stores no password. Server access is limited to ADPC staff responsible for the service. Logs are kept on the platform server and are not shared with third parties except as described in this policy.

Where information is processed. The Air4Laos platform is operated by ADPC and hosted in Thailand. The map-tile and news providers named in Section 7 operate global content-delivery networks and may process requests outside your country under their own policies. By using those features you understand that this processing may occur.

11. Children and changes to this policy

Air4Laos provides public air-quality information that people and caregivers can use when considering activities for themselves or others. Parents or guardians with concerns about a child's personal information may contact us using the details below.

Intended audience. The App is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children. Because the App has no accounts and does not collect names, contact details, or other personal information from any user, we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, for example by email, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy to reflect changes to the App, our practices, or applicable requirements. We will publish the updated policy with a revised effective date and provide additional notice or seek permission where required for a material change.

12. Contact us

For privacy questions or requests concerning Air4Laos, please contact:

Responsible organization: Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)
Privacy contact or team: Risk Analytics and Climate Services Department
Email: adpc@adpc.net
Postal address: ADPC Head Quarter
SM Tower, 24th Floor, No. 979/67-69 Phahonyothin Road
Phaya Thai Sub-district, Phaya Thai District
Bangkok 10400, Thailand

Please use "Air4Laos — Privacy Request" as the subject of your message so that it can be directed to the appropriate team.