Privacy Policy

Who we are

WX-CoPilot is operated by the Southern Africa Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (SAAOPA). [Owner to confirm: SAAOPA’s registration number and registered address]. For anything in this policy, write to wx@saaopa.org. [Owner to confirm: that this mailbox is the right contact for privacy requests, and the name of any information officer]

When you create an account

• Your e-mail address and a password. We store only a scrambled (hashed) form of the password, never the password itself.
• Optionally your cell number, which is what lets you use WhatsApp.
• Optionally a display name, your country, your newsletter and forum e-mail notification choices, and the display name of your Garmin inReach device.
• When you verified each contact, and when and which version of the terms and the Disclaimer & Release of Liability you accepted.
• Short-lived one-time codes used to verify your e-mail or cell number and to reset a password. They expire after 15 minutes.

When you ask for weather by message

• WhatsApp: your cell number, the text of your message and our reply. WhatsApp is reply-only here: we message you on WhatsApp only in response to something you sent us (or a verification code you asked for). We do not start conversations or send marketing or unsolicited messages on WhatsApp.
• E-mail: your address and the text of your request, which arrive in the service mailbox (wx@saaopa.org), and our reply.
• Garmin inReach: your device display name and message text, which Garmin relays to the same mailbox, and our reply sent back through Garmin.
• For each request we record the channel, route, time and outcome, and keep a count of requests per day to enforce daily limits. Message activity is also written to an administrator-only log, which is automatically emptied of entries older than 14 days.

When you use the website and briefings

• For each flight briefing: the route, altitude, radius, flight rule and aircraft type, the time, how it was requested, and the e-mail address or WhatsApp number if you asked for a copy to be sent. Briefings made while signed in are linked to your account (that is how “My briefings” works).
• Your IP address and browser details (user agent) are saved with a briefing, and when you submit a station or camera. We use them to prevent abuse and investigate misuse, and for nothing else.
• If you ask for a briefing by e-mail without an account, we keep your address (and the IP address and browser details of your first request) so we can confirm it reaches you, limit how often it can be mailed, and invite you to create an account. If you then tell us your name, home base or aircraft type, we keep those too.

When you contribute a station or camera

• The station and camera details you submit: name, location, sensor height, device type and the contact e-mail and phone number for the station. Contact details are not shown publicly.
• Weather-station account keys you give us (for example Davis WeatherLink API keys, or an Ecowitt device address), which we use to read your station’s data. They are never displayed back to you or shown publicly.
• The images and weather readings your equipment sends us. These are published on this site. Under the media & data licence you accept on the contribute page, SAAOPA may also share them with partners it chooses (for example Windy). Camera images are also available, by default, to the South African Weather Service (SAWS) and Windy through an allow-list of sites that may fetch them. Recent camera frames are kept for time-lapse for a period set by an administrator (3 days by default); administrators can also export archived frames for an investigation.
• If an administrator lists you as the contact for a station, we create an account for your e-mail address so you can manage it, and e-mail you about the station (for example if it goes offline).

Subscriptions and the community forum

• Paid plans: if you subscribe, payment is handled by Stripe. We keep only a reference to your Stripe customer and subscription, its status and its renewal date. We never see or store your card number. [Owner to confirm: that paid subscriptions (Stripe) are live; if not, remove this item]
• Forum: the posts, threads, reactions and reports you make on the SAAOPA community forum, and your notification settings. New posts can be checked by an automated moderation model run by Anthropic, which receives the text of the post. [Owner to confirm: that automated forum moderation is switched on; if not, remove the Anthropic sentence]

Cookies and browser storage

This site does not set cookies. It uses your browser’s own storage for:

• your sign-in token, kept until you sign out;
• which country and board sections you have collapsed on the weather-cam and map pages;
• while you add a station or camera, a flag that you accepted the licence and the result of your submission, which are removed when you close the tab.

We do not sell your information. It goes to the following services only to provide the feature you are using:

• Meta Platforms (WhatsApp Business Cloud API) carries every WhatsApp message to and from our number, so it receives your cell number and the text of the messages. Meta’s own privacy policy applies to WhatsApp.
• Garmin relays inReach messages to our mailbox and carries our replies back to your device.
• Our mail server. E-mail you send us, e-mail we send you (verification codes, password resets, replies, alerts) and inReach relays pass through SAAOPA’s mail server (wx@saaopa.org), which is hosted by GoDaddy.
• Stripe, if you subscribe: your e-mail address and account reference.
• Anthropic, for automated forum moderation: the text of a forum post.
• Windy, SAWS and other partners SAAOPA chooses: contributed camera images and weather data, as set out in the media & data licence.
• Weather-station vendors such as Davis (WeatherLink): we use the keys you give us to read your own station’s data from their service.
• Hosting. The service runs on a DigitalOcean server, and its database is backed up regularly, including to a computer held by a SAAOPA administrator. [Owner to confirm: the hosting region and whether any information is transferred outside your country of residence]
• Your browser, directly. Map pages load map tiles from OpenStreetMap, and station pages embed a Windy weather map. Your browser contacts those services itself, so they see your IP address. Our account service also supplies a Gravatar picture link (made from a one-way hash of your e-mail address) for sites that show your avatar. [Owner to confirm: whether the SAAOPA community site displays Gravatar avatars]

The weather sources we query (for example NOAA, Open-Meteo and MET Norway) are asked about places, not people.

• One-time codes expire after 15 minutes.
• The administrator message log is emptied of entries older than 14 days.
• Database backups are kept for 14 days on the server; full backup bundles kept off the server are removed after 30 days.
• Camera frames kept for time-lapse follow the administrator-set period (3 days by default).
• Account, briefing, station and forum records are kept until they are deleted; the software has no automatic expiry for them. [Owner to confirm: how long account, briefing and IP-address records are kept, and what is deleted when an account is closed]

• You can change your cell number, display name, country, newsletter and notification choices, and the automated-messaging consent from your Account page.
• Messaging only works after you accept the terms there, and replies go only to contacts you have verified. Remove your cell number to stop WhatsApp replies.
• To see, correct or delete the information we hold about you, or to retire a station and stop publishing its feed, e-mail wx@saaopa.org. [Owner to confirm: the process and timeframe for access and deletion requests, and the data-protection laws and legal basis you rely on]

The site is served over HTTPS and passwords are stored hashed. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a password you do not use elsewhere.

If we change this policy we will update this page and its effective date.