Storm Check Privacy Summary
Effective date: October 11, 2026
Storm Check (stormcheck.app) is run by Emerald Media LLC, a Florida limited liability company doing business as "Storm Check" ("we," "us"). This summary explains what we collect, who sees it, and what you can do about it. It's part of our Terms of Use.
The short version: we collect only what's needed to connect you with a neighbor and keep people safe. Your exact address goes only to the volunteer you approve, and your notes, phone and email only to the volunteers you choose. If you volunteer, the requester gets your name, phone and email once they approve you. We don't sell your data, run ads, or use tracking cookies.
What we collect
- Your name, as you enter it on a request or offer.
- Your email address, confirmed with an emailed link. We use it to confirm your request or offer, send notifications and receipts, and resend your private links if you lose them.
- Your phone number. Required for volunteers. Optional for requesters. We don't verify phone numbers.
- The address and map location of the request. Kept private and shown only to the volunteer you approve.
- Your public summary, the short description you choose to post publicly.
- Private notes you add to a request. These are shared only with the volunteer you approve.
- Messages between a requester and a volunteer.
- Photos and videos you send in messages. Our server removes the hidden data inside every photo and video (EXIF, XMP and similar metadata, including GPS location and device details) before storing it. What remains is the picture itself, which can still show where it was taken.
- IP addresses and technical data, used for rate limiting, security and abuse prevention. Where we store IP-based data, we keep a one-way coded (hashed) version instead of the raw address.
- Notification settings. If you turn on alerts, we store your browser's push subscription.
- On call sign-up (optional). If you sign up to be told about checks near you, we collect your first name, a confirmed email, an optional phone number (stored, not used or shared), the home base you pick (an exact point and a place label), how far you'll go, what kinds of checks you want, and how you want to be told (email or push). We use only a rough ~2 km area around your home base to find checks near you.
- Reports that users submit about posts or conversations.
- Consent records: which version of the Terms you accepted and when, plus a record of key sharing choices (for example, when you shared your address and with whom). We email you a receipt for those key events.
We don't use accounts or passwords. Your private link works like a key to your request or conversation: anyone you forward it to can get in, so keep it private. Links are also saved in your own browser so you can find them again ("My links").
Who sees what
| Information | Who can see it |
|---|---|
| Public summary and general area | Anyone. The map shows an area about 500 m (about a third of a mile) across, never your exact spot. |
| Requester's exact address | Only the volunteer you approve. |
| Requester's private notes, phone and email | Only the approved volunteers you choose, one by one. Each is optional, and you can turn sharing off later. |
| Volunteer's name, phone and confirmed email | The requester, once they approve you. This always happens on approval, and you're told before you offer. Until then, the requester sees your offer but not your phone or email. |
| On call details (name, email, phone, home base) | Only Storm Check administrators. Never other users. Public counts of volunteers on call are shown only as a rounded figure (like "25+") and only once there are enough that nobody can be picked out. Administrators see exact totals. |
| Messages, photos and videos | The requester and volunteer in that conversation. |
| Everything above | Storm Check administrators, for safety, moderation and support. |
When a request is resolved, closed or taken down, the volunteer loses access to the requester's address, notes and contact details, and the conversation becomes read-only.
A volunteer can tap "Ask them to call me." This notifies the requester without showing the volunteer the requester's phone number.
Turning sharing off can't un-show something. Once you share your address, a note or a photo with a volunteer, they've seen it. Turning sharing off stops future access only; the other person may already have seen, saved or written it down. Only share with someone you've talked to and trust.
Notifications carry only generic text. Push notifications say things like "New message" or "A volunteer offered to help". They never include an address, notes, a phone number or an email address. On call alerts say only the kind of check and roughly how far away it is.
Encryption and who can access your data
Your information is encrypted in transit and stored encrypted on our servers. Only Storm Check (Emerald Media LLC) holds the keys. It isn't end-to-end encrypted: we can access requests, messages, photos and video to run and moderate the service, respond to reports, and comply with law. A few services handle limited data so the app works:
- Cloudflare (network and security; it carries app traffic);
- Vercel (hosts the website);
- Resend (delivers our emails, so it sees your email address and the private links in them);
- the US Census Bureau and OpenStreetMap (turn an address you type into a map location);
- Sentry (error reports, with personal details removed).
We don't sell your data, run ads, or use tracking cookies. Our backups are encrypted too.
Service providers we use
We use these companies to run the Service. They process data on our behalf, only as needed to provide their service:
- Resend: sends email (confirmations, notifications, receipts, link recovery). It sees your email address and the private links in those emails.
- Cloudflare: network, security and protection for our API.
- Vercel: hosts the website.
- Sentry: error monitoring. We set it up to remove personal data (emails, phone numbers, addresses, links and tokens) before error reports are sent.
- Stripe: processes payments, only if you choose to support Storm Check. We don't receive your full card number.
- Web push services: your browser's push service (for example, from Google, Apple or Mozilla) delivers alerts, if you turn them on.
- Map and address lookup: OpenStreetMap supplies map images, and address searches are looked up through the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder and OpenStreetMap's Nominatim.
- Our own server, which stores requests, messages and media, hosted by Vultr in the United States. Off-site backups (Cloudflare R2) are encrypted before they leave our server.
What we don't do
- We don't sell your personal information.
- We never show your email or phone number publicly.
- We don't show ads or use tracking cookies, and we don't share your data with advertisers or data brokers.
- We don't use your data for anything other than running Storm Check, keeping it safe, and complying with the law.
How long we keep it
Requests, messages, photos and videos are deleted automatically 60 days after a request is closed or taken down, or after 90 days with no activity, whichever comes first. They are removed from backups within 30 days after that. We may keep a record longer if we are legally required to, or if it is part of an abuse or law-enforcement matter.
On call: sign-ups you never confirm are deleted after 48 hours, and the list of alerts we sent you after 30 days. Everything else stays until you stop, and stopping deletes your name, email, phone and home base (we keep only a consent record with no contact details). Deleting a request also removes the alerts that pointed to it.
Requests disappear from the public board after 30 days without activity. We may keep some records longer when needed to investigate abuse, protect people's safety, or comply with the law (see below).
Law enforcement and safety
We may keep and share information, including messages, media, email addresses, phone numbers and activity records, with law enforcement, emergency services, courts or government authorities when we believe in good faith that the law permits or requires it. This includes responding to valid legal process, reporting suspected crimes, and preventing death, serious injury, or harm to people or property. In short: we may disclose information to law enforcement when legally required or to prevent imminent harm.
Illegal content. We may review, manually or with automated tools, content for illegal material, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM). We report apparent CSAM to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A, may preserve the content and related data for law enforcement, and remove it and the account links involved.
Your choices
- Take down your request at any time from your private link. This removes it from the public board and ends volunteers' access to your private details.
- Delete your data now. On your request page, "Delete this request" erases the address, notes, your contact details and every conversation, message, photo and video on it. A volunteer can tap "Delete my offer and messages" in their conversation to erase their contact details, messages, photos and video. Or email help@stormcheck.app. We keep only a minimal record (dates, consent records and reports needed to handle abuse), and we keep content that is part of an abuse investigation, a report to NCMEC or a legal request.
- Stop sharing your notes, phone or email with a volunteer at any time. Requesters choose these per volunteer.
- Pause or stop On call at any time from your private link or the link in every email. Stopping deletes your details.
- Turn alerts off in your browser.
- Ask us to delete your information by emailing help@stormcheck.app. We'll delete it unless we need to keep it for safety, legal or abuse-prevention reasons (including consent records), and we'll tell you if that's the case.
Age
Storm Check is for people 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
Changes
If we change this summary, we'll post the new version here and update the date above.
Contact
Emerald Media LLC (d/b/a Storm Check)
Email: help@stormcheck.app