Privacy Policy

Last updated 24 October 2026

Who is responsible

HeyPlane, the Apple Watch app, its iPhone companion app and this website are run by Mario Anderhub. You can reach us at contact@heyplane.app or at the postal address in the Impressum.

Your location

When the HeyPlane Watch app is open and you have allowed location access, your Watch sends its current location to the HeyPlane service at api.heyplane.app over an encrypted connection. The service uses it to find aircraft nearby and to work out how far away and in which direction they are.

• Your location is used only to answer that request. It is not stored, not written to logs and not combined into a history of where you have been.
• To get aircraft positions, the service asks its data provider about a surrounding area, rounded to a grid of a few kilometres. The request comes from our server, so the provider never receives your exact location or your IP address.
• The compass direction the Watch uses to show which way you are facing stays on your Watch and is never sent.
• The iPhone app does not use your location.

Sharing your location is your choice and is not required by law or by these terms. You can turn off location access at any time in the Settings app. HeyPlane can’t show nearby aircraft without it.

Aircraft photos from Planespotters.net

When you open the details of an aircraft, your Watch asks Planespotters.net for a photo of that aircraft and loads the image from them. Their terms require the device that shows a photo to fetch it directly, so this is the one request that does not go through the HeyPlane service.

• The request contains the aircraft’s address or registration and the app name and version. It contains no location, cookies or identifiers.
• Planespotters.net does see the IP address of your Watch or paired iPhone and which aircraft you opened. Because that aircraft is near you, this can reveal roughly where you are.
• Photos are only requested when you open details, never for aircraft on the map. They are not saved on your device.

Planespotters.net decides for itself how it handles this data, as a separate controller under its own privacy policy, which you can find on its website. If you don’t want Planespotters.net to receive these requests, don’t open aircraft details; the map works without them.

Technical data the service receives

Like any internet service, the HeyPlane service sees the IP address of the device that connects to it. We use it only to protect the service from overload and abuse, by limiting how many connections and requests a single source can make:

• Our web server keeps the IP address in its working memory for this, and the application behind it keeps only a scrambled value that cannot be turned back into the address.
• Neither is ever written to disk. Both are discarded automatically after a short time, usually within minutes, and whenever the service restarts.

We keep no access logs of these requests. Operational logs contain only counts and timings, with no IP addresses, locations or device identifiers.

The iPhone app asks the same service for the list of data source notices it shows. That request contains no location.

Data stored on your devices

The apps store a few settings on your devices only, such as whether you have finished setup or seen the data source notices. This never leaves your device, except through your own device backups. Storing these settings is strictly necessary for the apps to work the way you asked, so it doesn’t need your consent (§ 25(2) no. 2 of the German TDDDG). HeyPlane reads nothing else from your device.

Apple services

HeyPlane uses services from Apple that are covered by Apple’s privacy policy, not this one:

• Maps. The map on your Watch is drawn by Apple Maps, which loads map data for the area you are viewing directly from Apple.
• App Store. Apple handles downloads and any future purchases. We don’t receive your name, Apple ID or payment details.
• TestFlight. If you test a beta version, Apple shows us the name and email address you were invited with, and any feedback, screenshots and crash reports you choose to send.
• App analytics. If you have chosen to share analytics with app developers in your device settings, Apple may give us crash reports and aggregated usage statistics that do not identify you.

What we don’t do

• No user accounts or sign-in.
• No advertising and no advertising identifiers.
• No third-party analytics or tracking tools, in the apps or on this website.
• We don’t sell or share your data.

This website

This website sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads nothing from other servers. Our web server does not keep access logs for it.

When you email us

If you write to us, we use your email address, your message and anything you include in it only to answer you. Mail to contact@heyplane.app is forwarded by our domain provider, Porkbun (USA), to our mailbox at Google (USA). We delete the conversation once it is no longer needed to answer you, at the latest 12 months after it ends, unless we need it longer to deal with a legal claim.

Where data is processed

The HeyPlane service and this website run on a server we rent from a hosting provider in Helsinki, Finland, in the European Union. The provider processes data only on our behalf, under a data processing agreement (Article 28 GDPR).

Email to us passes through the USA, as described above. Google LLC is certified under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, which the European Commission has found to provide adequate protection (Article 45 GDPR).

Apple and Planespotters.net handle data as separate controllers under their own privacy policies, as described above, and may process it in countries outside the European Union.

We don’t pass your data to anyone else, unless the law requires us to.

Legal basis

Where the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, we rely on these legal bases:

• Your location, and the photo request to Planespotters.net: needed to provide the app you chose to use, showing aircraft near you and their details (Article 6(1)(b)).
• IP addresses for rate limits, and delivering this website: our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and available for everyone (Article 6(1)(f)).
• Emails: our legitimate interest in answering your message (Article 6(1)(f)), or taking the steps you ask for (Article 6(1)(b)).

We don’t make automated decisions about you or build profiles.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to ask what data we hold about you (Article 15) and to have it corrected (Article 16), deleted (Article 17), restricted (Article 18) or handed to you in a portable format (Article 20). You can also complain to a data protection authority (Article 77), for example the one in the German state where we are based or in the EU country where you live or work.

Right to object. Where we rely on our legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)), you can object at any time, for reasons arising from your particular situation (Article 21). We will then stop, unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, or need the data to deal with a legal claim.

Because we don’t keep your location or link requests to you, there is usually nothing stored that we could return or delete. To use any of these rights, or with any question, write to contact@heyplane.app.

Children

HeyPlane is not directed at children. It works the same way for everyone and collects nothing beyond what this page describes.

Changes

If the way HeyPlane handles data changes, for example when we add a new feature, we will update this page and the date at the top before the change takes effect.