Privacy

This policy covers the PlanePit website, the PlanePit Telegram bot and the PlanePit Android app. Using any of them means you accept it. If you do not, do not use PlanePit.

Who we are

PlanePit is run from Latvia, in the European Union. The operator of planepit.com is the controller of your personal data. For anything about your data, write to info@planepit.com.

What we collect

We collect what you give us, what your devices send us while you use PlanePit, and what we work out from both.

• When you sign up: your name, email address and password (we store only a hash of the password), and the photo of you next to your plane. We keep that photo after the account is reviewed.
• Each time you sign in: the IP address, the browser or app you used, and when the session started and was last used. A session stays signed in for up to 180 days.
• Your profile and settings: bio, profile photo, home airport, phone number and contact email, who may see your contact details, notification preferences, author title and link, and the Telegram chat you link to your account.
• Your planes: registration, make and model, engine details, the weather limits you set for the brief, maintenance dates, photos, and the other pilots you share a plane with.
• Your journey log: flights, Hobbs readings, fuel, oil, landings, maintenance entries, notes, photos, GPX tracks and other attachments. We store photos as you send them, with the location and time in their metadata, and use that location and time to date an entry and find the airport.
• The flight recorder app: while it records, it collects precise location (raw satellite measurements included), accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and barometer readings, plus the phone's make, model and an install ID. It uploads whole recording sessions, and from them we work out flights, tracks, landings, fuel and engine figures and other analyses.
• How you use the site: our servers log requests, including IP address, browser, pages and times, and Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, records how the site is used.
• Anything you send us by email or through the bot.

How we use it

We use all of the above to:

• run PlanePit and give you its features;
• decide who gets an account;
• send you service messages, such as sign-in links, approvals and flight reports, by email or Telegram;
• analyse how PlanePit is used and make it better;
• build and test new features and products;
• do research and produce statistics, including aggregated or anonymised flight, engine and fuel data across many planes;
• keep PlanePit secure, and prevent abuse and fraud;
• enforce our terms, and protect our rights and other users;
• meet legal obligations.

The legal bases for this are the contract between us (our terms), our legitimate interest in running, securing, improving and developing PlanePit, our legal obligations, and your consent where we ask for it.

What other people can see

• Pilots you share a plane with see that plane and its whole journey log, including the entries you add.
• A flight's share link shows a card to anyone who has the link. The card has the date, airports, flight times, maximum altitude, distance, touchdown figures, a short finding and a simplified track. Share links do not expire.
• Articles published under your name are public. Their byline shows your name, bio, profile photo, author title and link.
• Where PlanePit shows your contact details or planes to other members, your visibility settings decide who can see them.

Who else handles your data

PlanePit runs on servers in the European Union. Some work is done by other companies:

• Anthropic (Claude) gets a scaled-down copy of each Hobbs or fuel photo you send to the journey log, from the website, the bot or the app. It tells us what the photo shows and reads the meter or the fuel figure.
• Telegram carries the messages, photos and files you exchange with the PlanePit bot.
• Mailgun delivers our emails.
• Google runs Tag Manager and Analytics on the website and sets its own cookies.
• Maps on the site load from demotiles.maplibre.org, which sees your IP address.
• The rain radar on the brief's field-now page loads from RainViewer (api.rainviewer.com and tilecache.rainviewer.com), which sees your IP address.

Weather and aerodrome data for the brief is fetched by our servers from public sources. No user data goes into those requests.

Some of these companies process data outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Where they do, we rely on the safeguards the law provides for, such as adequacy decisions and standard contractual clauses. We may add or change providers. We may also disclose data when the law requires it, to protect our rights or the safety of others, or as part of a sale, merger or reorganisation of PlanePit.

Cookies and browser storage

• A sign-in cookie keeps you signed in for up to 180 days. The site does not work without it.
• Your browser's local storage holds your light or dark theme choice, the plane you picked on the brief, and a small counter used by the maps.
• Google Analytics sets its own cookies.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account exists, and after that for as long as we find it useful or the law requires.

You can delete your account under Settings, Account. That removes your name, email address, password, bio, profile photo, author details and verification photo, and signs you out everywhere. Your planes, journey log entries, recordings and other content can stay on PlanePit, no longer tied to your name or email. Copies can also remain in backups.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your data. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that yours never leaks or gets lost.

Your rights

Data protection law gives you the right to access your data, correct it, have it erased, restrict or object to how we process it, get a portable copy, and withdraw consent you gave us. Each right applies where and as far as the law grants it. To use one, write to info@planepit.com from the address on your account.

You can complain to the Latvian Data State Inspectorate (Datu valsts inspekcija, dvi.gov.lv) or to the data protection authority where you live.

Children

PlanePit is not for anyone under 18. If we find an account that belongs to a minor, we may close it.

Changes

We can change this policy at any time. A change takes effect when we publish it here. If you keep using PlanePit after that, you accept the new version.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data go to info@planepit.com.