Laos Alert — Privacy

Receiving alerts requires no account, no name, no email address and no phone number. The app works fully anonymously. An account is only needed to submit a community report or to use the SOS feature.

When you install the app it creates a random identifier on the phone and sends only a one-way hash of it to the server. That is what lets the app remember your settings without knowing who you are. Alongside it we store the areas you have chosen to follow, your language, the app version, and — if you allow notifications — the push token the operating system issues so a warning can reach you.

"Alerts near me" is off by default. If you turn it on, the app reads your position only while the app is open. It never runs in the background; the app does not request background location permission at all.

The position is rounded to roughly one kilometre before it leaves your phone, and the server keeps a single current point that is overwritten each time. There is no history of where you have been, because no history is ever written. The stored point is deleted automatically after 7 days of inactivity, and immediately when you turn the setting off.

If you raise an SOS, your position at that moment is recorded at full accuracy and sent to the emergency contacts you added — because being findable is the point. Only you and those contacts can see it, and contacts only while the SOS is active. It is never broadcast, and it never appears in the public alert feed.

Your emergency contacts' names and phone numbers are stored so they can be notified. They are visible only to you.

A report you submit — its text, any photos, and the location if you attached one — is reviewed by a moderator before it can become an alert. Photos are kept private and are visible only to you and to moderators. If a report is published as an alert, it appears as a community report and is not attributed to you by name.

We record which alerts were sent to your device and whether they arrived and were opened. That is how we can answer "why did I not get a warning", and how we know the system is actually working rather than failing silently. It is tied to the anonymous device identifier, not to you.

• We do not sell or rent any data.
• We do not use advertising networks or advertising identifiers.
• We do not track you across other apps or websites.
• We do not build a profile of your movements.
• We do not require your real name to receive warnings.

Settings → Privacy → Delete my data removes the device record and everything attached to it: the areas you follow, the stored position, and the record of alerts delivered to you. It cannot be undone. If you have an account, contact us to have it removed as well.

Data is stored on Supabase infrastructure in Singapore, the nearest region to Laos. Notifications are delivered through Expo's push service, which passes the message to Apple or Google to reach your phone.

The app is not directed at children and collects no information intended to identify them. Anyone may safely receive alerts anonymously.

Questions, corrections, or a request to delete an account: contact the address published on the app's store listing.