Lightning Map
Privacy by Design

Privacy Policy & Data Principles

Last updated: September 1, 2026. At Lightning Map, we believe severe storm monitoring should never come at the expense of your privacy. Our live lightning map is engineered to operate without capturing personal identifiers, tracking cookies, or profiling metrics.

Zero User Tracking

No tracking pixels, behavioral telemetry, advertising scripts, or session recordings.

Browser-Only Geolocation

When tracking lightning strikes near me, device GPS never leaves your local browser memory.

No Tracking Cookies

We do not use advertising or third-party cookies. Only local session caching is utilized.

GDPR & CCPA Compliant

Fully compliant with international data protection laws by collecting zero personal data.

1. Information We Do Not Collect

Unlike traditional weather portals, Lightning Map is architected so that you can view the real time lightning map and lightning tracker anonymously. Specifically:

  • We do not create personal accounts, user profiles, or collect email addresses.
  • We do not log personal IP addresses or associate network connections with identifiable individuals.
  • We do not partner with behavioral ad-tech networks or third-party data brokers.

2. Ephemeral Browser Geolocation

When you click the “Locate Me” control on the map interface, your browser asks permission to retrieve your latitude and longitude via the W3C Geolocation API.

Architecture Guarantee: These coordinates are processed entirely in your device's local RAM to center the map and compute local acoustic thunder distances. Your position is never transmitted, logged, or stored on our servers.

3. Browser Storage & Session Caching

We utilize temporary client-side memory (sessionStorage) exclusively to optimize performance:

Strike Burst Cache: Temporarily retains recent strike objects so page reloads do not trigger an empty map canvas.
Session Strike Counter: Tallies live detected discharges during your active visit.
Map Preferences: Stores layer preferences (Satellite, Light, Dark) and audio synthesizer toggle.

This data resides strictly on your device and is discarded automatically when you close your browser tab.

4. Server Logs & Edge Telemetry

To maintain sub-second WebSocket streams and defend against DDoS attacks, our edge servers collect non-identifiable network telemetry:

  • HTTP request headers, timestamp, and bandwidth transfer metrics.
  • Aggregated geographic region (country or state level) for Content Delivery Network (CDN) routing.
  • WebSocket connection error rates and server failover triggers.

These logs are retained for a maximum of 14 days solely for security monitoring, after which they are automatically purged.

5. Third-Party Map Endpoints

Base map imagery is served directly from Esri ArcGIS Online. When your browser requests raster tiles, standard HTTP requests are made to Esri's public CDN. For additional information, please review the Esri Privacy Statement.

6. GDPR & CCPA Compliance

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), individuals hold specific rights regarding data access and deletion. Because our platform is architected to collect zero personal data, there are no personal records to query, modify, or delete.

For privacy compliance questions, contact our Data Protection Officer at:

privacy@lightningmaps.live