Privacy policy
Last updated 29 October 2026
Typewatch shows which aircraft are flying right now, by aircraft type. You can use it without an account, and without an account we keep nothing about you. This page says exactly what we do keep when you sign up, why, for how long, and how to have it removed.
Who we are
Typewatch (typewatch.app) is run from South Africa and is responsible for your personal information under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). For anything on this page, write to [email protected].
If you don't have an account
- No analytics, no adverts, no tracking cookies. We don't use Google Analytics or anything like it.
- No IP addresses are stored. To stop one address flooding the site, the server counts requests per address in its memory for a few minutes. That count is never written down.
- Your browser keeps a few settings (light or dark, photos or list) and, if you star something without signing in, your favourites. These stay on your device; we never receive them.
- Interest counts. When someone stars an aircraft, opens its page or follows a link, we add one to that aircraft's count for the day, to build the bounty board of wanted photos. The count is about the aircraft, not about you: it isn't linked to you or your device. Counts are kept for 30 days.
If you have an account
We keep:
- Your name and email address, to sign you in and to send the emails below.
- Your password, only as a one-way hash (scrypt). Nobody can read it back, including us.
- Your favourites and alerts, and a history of the alerts that fired for you (kept 90 days).
- Reports you send ("Wrong photo?", "Wrong type?"): what you wrote, and a snapshot of what Typewatch showed for that aircraft at the time.
- Your sign-ins. One cookie keeps you signed in. It holds a random code; we store only a scrambled form of it, with the name of the browser it was made in (so you can see your sessions) and when it was last used. A session ends 30 days after you last used it, or when you sign out.
- Emails we send you: confirming your address, resetting your password, and the alerts you asked to be emailed. Each is kept 30 days after sending, then deleted. We never send marketing or newsletters.
Why we may keep this: to provide the account you asked for, and to keep Typewatch secure and its data accurate (our legitimate interests).
Who else handles it
We don't sell or share your data with anyone for their own use. A few service providers handle it on our behalf, only to run Typewatch:
- Our hosting provider: the server Typewatch and its database run on, in the United States.
- Our network and security provider, which carries traffic between your browser and our server and protects it from attacks. Like any network, it sees your IP address while doing so.
- Our email provider, which delivers the emails we send you.
Your data is therefore stored and handled in the United States. We only use providers that are bound, by law or by contract, to protect it to the standard POPIA requires.
When a report helps us fix an aircraft's type or a wrong photo, we may pass the correction on to adsb.lol or Planespotters.net. We send the facts about the aircraft, never your name or email.
Donations
Donations go through Ko-fi and are paid with PayPal. We never see your card or bank details. Ko-fi tells us what you choose to share with a donation, such as your name and message, and we keep a record of each payment for as long as tax law requires. Ko-fi's and PayPal's own privacy policies apply to the payment.
Aircraft, not people
Typewatch is about aircraft: positions broadcast by their transponders and picked up by adsb.lol's volunteer receivers. We keep when each aircraft was seen and its type, operator and registration, never its route or positions. We never store the names or addresses of aircraft owners, even where official registers publish them.
Owners can ask not to be tracked (the FAA's LADD and PIA programmes). For those aircraft we never show when or where they fly. While airborne they appear only as "a private" aircraft of their type. A week after we first see a LADD aircraft, it may be listed by registration and photo only, with no times. A PIA aircraft is never identified. Once an aircraft is flagged, we treat it as private for good. If you own or operate an aircraft and want it hidden, write to us.
How long we keep things
- Your account: until you delete it.
- Sign-in sessions: 30 days after last use. Email links: up to 7 days.
- Emails we sent you: 30 days. Alert history: 90 days.
- Reports: kept, because they explain the corrections we make. When you delete your account they are no longer linked to your name or email.
Deleting your account, and your rights
You can delete your account yourself, on the Account page, at any time. That removes your name, email address, password, favourites, alerts and sessions straight away, and the emails we sent you within a day.
Under POPIA you can also ask us what personal information we hold about you and for a copy of it, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. Write to [email protected]; we'll answer within a month. If you're unhappy with our answer, you can complain to South Africa's Information Regulator.
Children
You can browse Typewatch at any age. To create an account you need to be 18 or older, or have a parent's or guardian's permission.
Changes
If we change what we collect or why, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If the change matters to account holders, we'll email them first.