Privacy Policy

What NYC Alert is

NYC Alert publishes short, AI-assisted summaries of public FDNY and NYPD radio transmissions as incident cards, with maps, radio audio and alerts. Anyone can read the public cards without an account. This policy explains what we store about people who use NYC Alert, why, for how long, and how to have it deleted.

Your account

• Account details: your email address, username, account type (Public, Fire Buff or News Media), staff role if any, and when you registered and verified your email. A display name if you give one. Your password is never stored, only a salted scrypt hash of it.
• Fire Buff and News Media requests: what you enter on the request (for News Media, your organization and position; on the website also an optional reason and boroughs), the domain of your email if it is not a free-mail provider, a shortened one-way hash of your network address and your browser's description, so staff can review the request.
• Sign-in security: the time, network (IP) address and channel (website, MDT or app) of your three most recent sign-ins, and a record of your signed-in votes and community notes, which staff can see to stop abuse.
• Sessions: when you sign in on the website or MDT we store a hash of your session cookie, when it started, was last used and expires, a short device description (for example "iPhone · Safari") and a hash of your network address, so you can see and sign out your devices. Sessions end after 12 hours, or 30 days after last use with "Keep me signed in". The iPhone app signs in with a token of which we keep only a hash, with the device's name, platform and app version; it lasts 180 days after last use.
• Saved settings: your website feed settings, radio settings and app notification settings.
• API keys and webhooks you create, if any (we keep only a hash of each key).

Notifications

If you allow notifications in the app, we store your device's push token (issued by Apple through Expo, the service we use to deliver notifications), the device name and platform, and a log of the notifications sent to it (kept 30 days per device; the notification log itself 180 days). Notification content goes through Expo and Apple to reach your phone.

Location (Nearby alerts)

Location is used only if you turn on Nearby alerts and allow it. The app then sends your phone's latest position; we keep one point per device, rounded to about 11 meters (4 decimal places), only inside the New York City area (outside it, the point is deleted), and we use it for at most 12 hours, after which it is deleted. It is used only to tell whether a newly published incident is within the distance you chose. Staff never see it and it is not written to logs; the staff console shows only how many devices have a recent point. Turning Nearby alerts off, signing out, removing the device or deleting your account deletes it.

With Alert Plus you can also save up to five places (a label, a position and a distance) for Nearby alerts. They are stored with your notification settings until you remove them or delete your account.

When a Fire Buff uploads a photo, the app sends the phone's position once to check that the photo was taken within 1,000 feet of the incident. We do not store that position, only the distance (in feet), which is shown with the photo.

Community photos and updates

Photos and text updates you post to an incident are public, shown with your username, account type and whether you support NYC Alert with Alert Plus. Before a photo is stored we remove its metadata (camera details, GPS position, comments). Fire Buff and News Media text updates are first checked by an AI model that NYC Alert runs on its own server, and may be held for or removed by staff. You can delete your own posts; staff can remove posts and stop an account from posting.

You can report a post: the report (its reason, an optional note, and your account, or on the website a one-way hash of your network address) is seen only by NYC Alert staff, never by the poster. You can block a member: their posts are hidden from you only, and they are not told. Reports and blocks are deleted with your account.

Courtesy Plus for public servants

If you ask for Courtesy Plus as a Member of Service or NYC public servant, we store your agency and title. If you verify with a work email, we send a link to that address but store only its domain and a one-way hash of the address. If you upload proof (such as an ID card or pay stub, with numbers you do not need covered), the files are visible only to NYC Alert moderators and administrators, never published or logged, and are deleted 30 days after the decision; the decision, agency and title are kept.

Alert Plus payments

In the iPhone app, Alert Plus is bought through Apple; we use RevenueCat to receive the subscription's status, identified by your NYC Alert account ID. On the website, payment is handled by Stripe, which receives your email address. We never receive or store card numbers. We store your plan, its source (Apple, Stripe or complimentary), its status and renewal or end date, and Stripe's customer and subscription IDs, plus a short record of each payment notification we receive.

Contact form and email

Messages you send through the contact form (your name, email, topic, message, the incident if any, and your username when signed in) are stored for staff and emailed to the NYC Alert team, with a shortened hash of your network address and your browser's description to fight spam. We send account email (verification, password reset, approvals, security notices) and, unless you unsubscribe with the link in each message, occasional announcements to members.

If you use NYC Alert without an account

• Votes: a thumbs-up or -down on an incident is stored with a one-way hash of a random ID your browser keeps, never with your name; if you are signed in, the vote is also added to your account's moderation record.
• Analytics: the website uses Cloudflare Web Analytics and, when staff enable them in the console, Google Analytics 4 and the Meta Pixel; the web preview of the app uses Google Analytics 4. These services receive information about your visit (pages, device, approximate location from your network address) under their own policies. The iPhone app contains no advertising or analytics SDK.
• Server logs: our servers and Cloudflare process network addresses to deliver pages and stop abuse (rate limits use your address, mostly in memory or as a hash).

Radio, incidents and cameras

Incident cards are produced from public-safety radio transmissions that anyone with a scanner can hear, summarized by AI and checked against the radio before publication. Published radio audio clips are kept for 7 days; live radio calls are relayed for at most an hour. Traffic camera images come from NYC DOT. We do not intentionally publish the names or other identifying details of people involved in incidents; if you see something that should not be public, contact us.

How we use it, and who we share it with

We use this information to run NYC Alert: to sign you in, send the alerts you chose, show community posts, review requests, prevent abuse, answer you, and keep the service working. We do not sell or rent personal information and do not use it for advertising profiles. We share it only with the services that run NYC Alert for us (hosting and database, Cloudflare, Expo and Apple for notifications, RevenueCat, Apple and Stripe for payments, our email server), when the law requires it, or to protect people's safety.

How long we keep it

• Account data: until you delete your account (sign-in records keep only the last three sign-ins).
• Location points: at most 12 hours. Courtesy proof files: 30 days after the decision.
• Sessions: until they expire (12 hours, or 30 days after last use). App sign-ins: 180 days after last use.
• Notification records: 30 days per device, the notification log 180 days.
• Community posts, contact messages and staff records: until deleted, or as long as needed to run and protect the service.

Your choices and deleting your account

You can change your settings, turn off notifications or Nearby alerts, sign out other devices, and delete your posts at any time. To delete your account, use Settings → Delete account in the iPhone app, or email [email protected] from the address on the account. Deletion removes your account, sign-ins, devices, location points, notification and saved settings, API keys and webhooks, sign-in records, and your community posts and photos. If another NYC Alert record still refers to your account, the account is emptied instead (no email, name or password remains). Staff accounts are removed by an administrator. You can also ask us what we hold about you, or to correct it.

Children

NYC Alert is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Passwords are stored as scrypt hashes, tokens and keys as one-way hashes, and connections use HTTPS. No system is perfectly secure; tell us at [email protected] if you find a problem.

Changes and contact

We will post changes on this page with a new effective date, and tell members by email when a change matters. Questions or requests: [email protected].