Before It Strikes
Before It Strikes
Before It Strikes is a severe-weather app. To warn you before lightning strikes and to push official alerts for the places you care about, we need to know where you are — so this policy is mostly about location. The short version: we use your data to keep you safe, we don't sell it, and we don't run ads. The detail is below.
We never sell your personal information, we don't share it with advertisers, and we ask for only what the app needs to warn you about the weather where you are.
This policy applies to the Before It Strikes iOS app, its companion Apple Watch app, the Before It Strikes Pro dashboard for organizations, and this website (collectively, the “Service”). If you have any questions, reach us at [email protected].
With your permission, the app uses your device’s location to show local conditions and radar, and to determine which warnings, watches, and lightning alerts are relevant to you. If you enable “follow-me” alerts, the app monitors significant changes in your location in the background so alerts can track where you actually are. You can grant, limit, or revoke location access at any time in your device settings.
If you save locations (for example, home, a lake house, or a child’s school), we store those place names and their coordinates so we can watch them and alert you about weather there.
If you enable push notifications, Apple issues a device token that lets us deliver alerts to your device. We store that token together with the locations you’ve chosen to monitor so our systems can send the right alert to the right device. We do not use it for anything else.
If you sign up on our website to be notified at launch, we collect your email address for that purpose only. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email we send.
If your organization uses Before It Strikes Pro and you are set up to receive text-message (SMS) safety alerts, we collect and store the mobile phone number designated for those alerts, along with the venues that number is set to receive alerts for, so we can deliver the right alert to the right recipient. We use your mobile number only to send these lightning-safety alerts and the related opt-in, STOP, and HELP messages. Message frequency varies with the weather — you receive no messages during clear conditions and may receive several during an active storm. Message and data rates may apply. You can opt out at any time by replying STOP.
We do not sell your mobile phone number, and we do not share it with any third party for their own marketing. Your mobile information is shared only with our messaging provider (Twilio) and the mobile carriers as needed to transmit these alerts to your phone. Mobile phone numbers and SMS opt-in consent are never shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.
If you subscribe to Before It Strikes Pro, your payment is processed by Stripe on our behalf. We do not receive or store your full payment-card details. We receive limited information — such as your email address, a customer identifier, and your subscription status — so we can activate and manage your subscription.
Bolt is a Pro feature that answers questions about your current lightning situation. When you ask Bolt something, your question, your location, and the app’s current safety reading for that location are sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, which processes them to generate a response. Anthropic processes this data on our behalf and, under our agreement, does not use it to train its models. We also keep a log of Bolt questions and responses (with a device identifier and the location) to monitor answer quality and safety and to improve the feature.
We may collect limited, non-identifying technical information (such as app version, device type, and error logs) to keep the Service reliable and fix problems. We use this to operate and improve the app, not to identify you.
We do not use your information to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell it.
We share information only with the service providers we need to run the app, and only for that purpose:
We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the safety, rights, or property of our users or the public. Weather data comes from public government sources (such as the National Weather Service and NOAA) and, for Pro’s precise lightning, from a licensed provider (Earth Networks) — we consume that data as an input; we do not send those sources anything about you.
We keep your device token and saved locations for as long as you have the app installed and notifications enabled; removing a location or disabling notifications removes the associated data from active use. If you subscribe to launch emails, we keep your address until you unsubscribe. If you receive Pro text alerts, we keep the designated mobile number for as long as your organization keeps that alert channel active or until you opt out by replying STOP, after which the number is suppressed from further messages. If you use Bolt, we keep the logged questions and responses for up to 90 days. We keep subscription records for as long as needed to provide the subscription and to meet our legal, tax, and accounting obligations. Diagnostic logs are retained only as long as needed to operate the Service.
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to safeguard the limited data we hold and to limit access to it.
The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we’ll delete it.
We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we’ll revise the “Last updated” date above, and for significant changes we’ll provide a more prominent notice.
Questions about this policy or your data? Email [email protected].
← Back to Before It Strikes