Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Abohawabid is a free weather application for Bangladesh, built and operated by yvortex (“we”, “our”, or “us”). This Privacy Policy explains what information the Abohawabid app collects, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have regarding your data.

If you have questions about this policy, contact us at [email protected].

2. Information We Collect

We have deliberately designed Abohawabid to collect as little personal data as possible. We do not ask for your name, phone number, email address, date of birth, financial information, contacts, calendar, or messages.

The information we do collect is described below.

2.1 Information You Provide

• Location preference — the division, district, and upazila you select during onboarding or in Settings. You may type this in manually, or you may grant the app permission to detect your approximate location once (it is used only to suggest the right upazila, not stored as raw coordinates).
• Profile preferences (optional) — if you choose to tell us your occupation (e.g., farmer, fisherman) and the crops you grow, we use this only to personalize the agricultural advisories you see. You can skip this entirely or change it at any time in Settings.
• Language preference — Bengali or English.
• Field reports (optional) — if you choose to submit a weather observation (type, optional photo, your district, and an approximate location intentionally fuzzed by ±500 m to protect your privacy), it is stored on our servers and may be displayed to other users in your district to help your community. Submitting a field report is always voluntary.
• Citizen Science submissions (optional) — when researchers run an active study inside the app, you may choose to contribute observations (such as type, optional photo, your division/district/upazila, and your precise GPS coordinates at the moment of submission) for that study. Submissions are stored on our servers and shared only with the admins or researchers running the study, and are not shown to other end users in raw form. An admin may, however, hand-pick individual photos to feature publicly — for example in a curated photo gallery on our website — shown only with the general area name (such as upazila and district) and never with your identity or precise location. Contributing is always voluntary, and the feature is only available when a study is active.
• Engagement actions — when you tap “Like” on a bulletin, dismiss it, or share it, we store an aggregate counter (not personally tied to you).

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Anonymous user identifier — when you first launch the app, an anonymous Firebase Authentication ID is generated for you. This ID is not linked to your name, email, or any personal information; it exists so the app can store your preferences and reports across sessions. If you uninstall the app, the ID and its associated data become disconnected from you.
• Approximate location — only when you explicitly tap “Detect my location” in onboarding or the location picker. The app uses Android’s location service to obtain your approximate coordinates, resolves them to the nearest upazila, and discards the precise coordinates. We do not continuously track your location.
• App diagnostics — Firebase Crashlytics collects crash reports (stack traces, Android version, app version, device model) when the app crashes, so that we can fix bugs. Firebase Analytics collects aggregate, anonymous usage events (e.g., “weather card opened”, “language changed”) so we can understand which features are useful.
• Network metadata — when your device requests data from our servers, the request includes your device’s IP address (as is normal for any internet request). Our content delivery provider (Cloudflare) sees this IP to route the request and protect against abuse, and discards it according to their retention schedule.
• Push notification token — if you grant notification permission, we store a Firebase Cloud Messaging token so we can send weather warnings to your device. No personal information is included.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information described above only for:

• Showing accurate, location-specific weather forecasts and warnings
• Personalizing agricultural advisories based on the crops you grow
• Operating the Field Reports community feature
• Operating the Citizen Science research-contribution feature (when a study is active)
• Sending you weather warnings via push notifications (only if you grant the notification permission)
• Diagnosing crashes and improving the app
• Understanding which features are useful, in aggregate

We do not use your information for:

• Advertising or marketing (the app has no ads)
• Selling to third parties (we never sell user data)
• Profiling for any commercial purpose

4. Who We Share Information With

We share information only with the third-party service providers we depend on to run the app. They each receive only the minimum information needed to do their job.

We do not share your information with advertisers, data brokers, or any party not listed above.

If we are ever required to disclose information by valid legal process (court order, etc.), we will do so only to the minimum extent legally required.

5. Data Retention

• Anonymous account and profile — kept as long as your installation is active. We may periodically delete data tied to anonymous accounts that have been inactive for an extended period. You can delete your account and all server-side data immediately at any time via Settings → About → Delete my data (see § 7).
• Field reports — kept until they are dismissed, expired, or moderated. You can ask us to delete a specific report at any time (see § 7).
• Citizen Science submissions — kept until the study you contributed to is closed by the researchers, then archived according to the study’s own retention policy. You can ask us to delete a specific submission at any time (see § 7).
• Crash logs — retained by Firebase Crashlytics for up to 90 days, then auto-deleted.
• Anonymous usage events — retained by Firebase Analytics for up to 14 months, then auto-deleted.
• Cached weather data — refreshed every 30 minutes; no historical user-specific data is kept.

6. Permissions the App Requests

Each Android permission Abohawabid asks for has a specific purpose. You can deny or revoke any permission in your device’s Settings → Apps → Abohawabid → Permissions at any time. The app continues to work without optional permissions; only the specific feature that needs the permission is unavailable.

7. Your Rights and Choices

Regardless of where you live, we honor the following rights for every user of Abohawabid:

• Access — you may ask for a copy of the data we store associated with your anonymous account.
• Deletion — you can permanently delete your account and all server-side data directly from the app: open Settings → About → Delete my data and confirm. The app removes your profile, location preferences, field reports, Citizen Science submissions, and uploaded photos from our servers, and starts a fresh anonymous session. If you prefer to delete by email — or if the in-app option is not working for any reason — email us at the address in § 1 and we will delete all server-side data within 30 days. Uninstalling the app alone disconnects the device from the anonymous ID but does not delete server-side data; use the in-app option for a full deletion. Step-by-step instructions — including everything that is removed and the little we retain — are on the Delete My Data page.
• Correction — you can update your location, profile, language, and other preferences directly in Settings.
• Withdraw permission — revoke any Android permission via Settings → Apps → Abohawabid → Permissions.
• Object to processing — you can stop using the app at any time; nothing locks you in.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

8. Children’s Privacy

Abohawabid is intended for adult users. It is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in regions where that is the applicable threshold), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, please contact us and we will delete it.

9. Security

All network traffic uses HTTPS / TLS 1.2 or higher, and data stored in Firebase and Cloudflare R2 is encrypted at rest by those providers. Because the app uses anonymous authentication, there is no password to leak. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information, we will notify affected users as required by applicable law.

10. International Data Transfers

Our service providers (Google Firebase, Cloudflare) operate globally, so your data may be processed in data centers outside Bangladesh. They apply appropriate safeguards to keep your data protected at the same standard wherever it is processed.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Continued use of the app after a policy update means you accept the updated terms.

12. Contact Us

For any privacy-related question, request, or concern:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: yvortex.com

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the data protection authority in your country.