Privacy Policy

We collect only what is needed to run the service:

• Usage and device data. When you visit the website, our servers and Google Analytics receive technical information such as your IP address, browser and device type, language, the referring page, the pages you view and an approximate location derived from your IP address.
• Alert subscriptions. If you subscribe to alerts, we store the location you choose (latitude and longitude), the alert radius, magnitude and risk thresholds, language, quiet-hour and digest preferences, and the delivery address for the channel you pick: an email address, a Telegram chat ID, a Discord channel ID, a web push endpoint issued by your browser, or a webhook URL.
• Delivery records. For each alert we send, we keep the recipient address, the message, the time and the delivery status, so that we can prevent duplicate alerts and investigate failures.
• Messages to our bots. When you use our Telegram bot or Discord integration, we receive your chat or channel ID, your language and the commands you send.
• Precise location (optional). If you press the “locate me” button, your browser asks for permission to share your location. It is used in your browser to centre the map and pre-fill an alert area, and it is stored only if you save an alert subscription for that place.
• Settings on your device. The website keeps preferences such as language, theme, map layers, units and sound in your browser’s local storage. They stay on your device and are not sent to us.

We do not ask for your name, we do not offer public user accounts, and we do not knowingly collect sensitive personal data.

• to show the map and deliver the alerts you asked for;
• to operate, secure and troubleshoot the service, including preventing abuse;
• to understand which features are used and improve the website, using aggregated statistics;
• to answer your messages and requests.

We do not sell personal information, we do not build advertising profiles, and we do not use your data to train machine-learning models. Our forecasting models are trained only on public seismological catalogues.

Where the EU or UK GDPR applies, we rely on your consent (alert subscriptions and location access), on the performance of the service you requested (alert delivery), and on our legitimate interest in running and securing a public information service (server logs, aggregated analytics and abuse prevention).

We use Google Analytics 4 to measure traffic. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies (such as _ga) and processes your IP address and usage data on our behalf. You can read how Google uses this data at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and opt out with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout or by blocking cookies in your browser.

We do not currently show third-party advertising. If that changes, we will update this policy beforehand.

EarthquakeLive publishes automatically generated earthquake and volcano videos and images to its own official accounts on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X (Twitter), Telegram and Discord.

To publish on TikTok we use TikTok’s developer APIs (Login Kit and the Content Posting API) only with EarthquakeLive’s own TikTok account. The access tokens for that account are kept on our own servers and are used solely to upload our videos and their captions. We do not use this integration to access, collect or store data about other TikTok users, and we do not offer “Log in with TikTok” to visitors.

Our YouTube uploads use YouTube API Services. When you watch our videos on YouTube, the YouTube Terms of Service (https://www.youtube.com/t/terms) and the Google Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) apply.

When you view, like, comment on or share our posts on any platform, that platform processes your data under its own privacy policy. We see only the public interactions that the platform shows to every account owner, and we do not export them.

• Esri ArcGIS Online and Amazon Web Services supply map imagery and elevation data; they receive your IP address when your browser loads map tiles.
• Google Analytics (Google LLC) provides website statistics.
• Telegram, Discord, our email provider and your browser’s push service (for example from Google, Mozilla or Apple) deliver alerts.
• Public agencies such as USGS, EMSC and the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres supply earthquake and volcano data; this data contains no information about you.

Alert subscription data is kept while the subscription exists. When you unsubscribe, alerts stop immediately; the inactive subscription record may be kept, so that it can be restored and to prevent abuse, until you ask us to delete it.

Delivery records and server logs are kept for troubleshooting and service statistics. Google Analytics data is kept for the retention period configured in Google Analytics, which is no longer than 14 months.

You can ask us to delete your subscription and delivery records at any time (see “Your choices and rights”).

You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in every email alert, the /stop or /unsubscribe command in our Telegram bot, or by turning off notifications for this site in your browser.

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in the EU and UK, or the CCPA in California), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your personal data, to object to or restrict its processing, and to withdraw consent. To exercise these rights, email earthquakelive.org@gmail.com and include the alert address you used (email address, Telegram chat ID and so on) so we can find your records. We reply within 30 days.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

All connections to the website use HTTPS, administrative access is restricted, and we keep the data we collect to a minimum. No system is completely secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify affected users where the law requires it.

Our servers and service providers may be located outside your country. When personal data is transferred internationally, we rely on the safeguards offered by those providers, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.

EarthquakeLive is a general-audience information service and is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 where local law requires). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has subscribed to alerts, contact us and we will delete the data.

We may update this policy as the service changes. The “Last updated” date at the top shows the latest revision, and we will post a notice on the website for material changes.

Questions and requests about privacy: earthquakelive.org@gmail.com. Operator: EarthquakeLive.org, https://earthquakelive.org.