HookScan

Privacy Policy

HookScan uses location, camera, and photo-library access only after permission is granted and only for features the user chooses.

Information used by HookScan

• Spotter Network: Optional sign-in securely relays your credentials to Spotter Network; HookScan does not save your password. The provider credential stays in server memory. A separate reporting session is protected by iOS Keychain or Android Keystore-backed encryption and expires after 30 days without a successful report, sign-out, replacement sign-in, or a server restart. After you choose 1 hour, 24 hours, or continuous reporting until turned off and explicitly start, HookScan collects precise location in the background—including while the screen is locked or another app is open—and sends fresh fixes to Spotter Network about every two minutes. Android shows an ongoing notification with Stop; iOS shows its location-use indicator. Timed reporting ends at its original deadline. Force-quitting, force-stopping, permission changes, and device or network restrictions can interrupt updates. Stop or sign out in HookScan to end reporting. Coordinates are not saved in the device credential record. Ordinary users are never included on HookScan’s shared chaser map. Approved team members appear only during authenticated reporting, with their last successful fix retained in memory for up to 150 seconds. Stop requests clear that presence sooner when connected. Spotter Network may display or retain the last report under its own policies; already-delivered reports cannot be retracted. Browser previews keep sessions in memory and pause when hidden.
• Location: map positioning, nearby radar selection, saved places, forecasts, location-relevant weather alerts, and vehicle navigation that the user starts. A navigation request sends its start, destination, language, and route options to HookScan's private routing adapter. Destination searches send the entered text and optional nearby focus point in an encrypted request body. The edge uses a random app-installation UUID for abuse controls, removes it before proxying, and gives the origin only a keyed pseudonym. HookScan does not use a hardware or advertising ID for navigation. Route and search responses are marked no-store and are not written to an account or community-report record. A supported vehicle screen may send the driver's current point to HookScan in a private encrypted POST body for a local official-alert check. HookScan uses the point only transiently to intersect coordinate-free official Polygon or MultiPolygon data. It does not relay the point to the weather provider, place it in a URL or cache key, write it to an application log or record, or retain it. Official alerts without supplied geometry cannot be matched by this point check and are omitted. Remaining-route warning, watch, and outlook geometry stays on the device for local evaluation.
• Photos and camera: Cloud ID and the local scrapbook when the user selects those features. A photo sent for hosted Cloud ID is processed to return the result and is not retained by the HookScan backend.
• Weather questions and context: sent over encrypted HTTPS to the HookScan backend when hosted analysis features are used. If a user reports a WeatherCore answer, the separate moderation request includes that displayed answer, its SHA-256 fingerprint and character count, and a fixed reason category so the output can be reviewed. It does not include the user's question, radar context, location, account token, or account details. Its salted rate-limit key expires one hour after the latest attempt, its duplicate-prevention key expires after 24 hours, and the reported answer and moderation record expire after 90 days.
• Notifications: Apple Push Notification tokens, alert preferences, and user-selected monitored locations may be stored after remote alerts are enabled.
• Optional account sync: signed-in users may privately sync selected app preferences, layer choices, saved radar sites, and an explicitly saved Home location.
• Sign in with Apple: when selected, HookScan receives Apple's private account identifier and the verified email address Apple provides. HookScan never receives the user's Apple ID password.
• Widgets: the iOS app stores a bounded latest radar snapshot and selected official forecast in HookScan's private Apple App Group so its widgets can display them.
• Community road and storm observations: signed-in users may choose to send a predefined traffic, road, or observed-weather category, precise GPS coordinate, location accuracy, report source, and report time. A supported vehicle report may include direction and speed for road context. The public map receives the category, coordinate, time, and a stable opaque publisher code used only for local blocking—not the reporter's name, email, phone number, account identifier, direction, or speed. Reports are unverified and expire automatically. A marker can be hidden or its publisher blocked locally without signing in. A marker report uses the signed-in account only for duplicate and abuse controls; its identity-free moderation record keeps the marker ID, fixed reason, report type, time, count, and action for seven days.
• Android app integrity and notifications: when Android remote alerts are enabled, Firebase Cloud Messaging and Firebase App Check with Play Integrity process an installation token and app/device integrity information for delivery and abuse prevention. HookScan does not use these services for advertising or cross-app tracking.
• Storm Chasers: The optional layer shows approved profiles, public social links, and configured public posts or streams. A team location requires explicit reporting through the authenticated Spotter Network session described above. HookScan does not download the all-spotter location/contact feed or infer private locations.

HookScan does not sell personal information, use it for cross-app tracking, or receive a user's Apple ID password or device passcode.

Accounts and retention

Account features are optional; radar and official weather data remain available without one. When account signup is enabled, HookScan stores a name, email address, phone number, an unreadable salted password hash, verification status, privacy acceptance, and security/session records. Signed-in users may also sync selected preferences, map-layer choices, saved radar sites, and a saved Home location. Synced settings are private account data and are not shown on public weather reports. Unverified accounts expire after 24 hours; verification and reset codes expire after 10 minutes; inactive sessions expire after 30 days. Users can delete their account, synced settings, and active sessions in Settings. Anyone who no longer has the app can use the public account-deletion request page.

Notification registrations expire after 90 days unless refreshed and are removed when registration is disabled or deletion is requested. Duplicate-prevention delivery identifiers are retained for up to 7 days. App Attest security records may be retained for up to 400 days after the latest verification.

Weather providers

HookScan retrieves public weather information from NOAA and related government or university services. Those providers may receive ordinary network information such as an IP address and request metadata under their own policies.

Contact

Privacy questions can be sent to hookscanadmin@hookscan.net.