SkyariumPrivacy
For Skyarium and Skyarium Web · last updated November 6, 2026
There's no account, no ads, no analytics and no tracking. We don't collect anything about you: your Logbook and settings stay on your iPhone. To show what's flying, the app asks public flight and weather services about a point on the map, the place you're watching, and nothing that identifies you.
Your location
With your permission, the app uses your iPhone's location to find the planes, weather and terrain around you. It's used on your phone and never stored anywhere else. What leaves the phone is a map position rounded to about a kilometer (a bit over half a mile), sent with requests like "what's flying within 50 miles of here" or "what's the weather here". When you watch from somewhere else, such as a famous spotting spot or an airport you searched for, that place's position is sent instead of yours.
Sharing a place
When you share a place from Skyarium, the link holds that place's position, the direction you were facing and its name, and nothing about you. They sit after the "#" in the link, the part browsers never send to a website, so even skyarium.app's server doesn't see them. Your own location can't be shared: the Share button only appears when you're watching from a place you chose.
Who the app talks to, and what it sends
| Service | What for | What's sent |
|---|---|---|
| adsb.fi, adsb.lol | Live flights nearby | A map position and a radius |
| adsbdb | Aircraft details and routes | The aircraft's public transponder code and callsign |
| adsb.im | Flight routes | The callsigns of nearby flights and where those planes are (plain http, as adsb.im asks, to spare its server) |
| skyarium.app (GitHub Pages) | Flight routes, as a backup | Which airline's route list to download |
| planespotters.net | Aircraft photos | The aircraft's public registration |
| Open-Meteo, aviationweather.gov | Weather and which way airports are landing | A map position |
| Amazon Web Services (Terrarium elevation tiles) | The shape of the land on the horizon | Map tiles around the place you're watching |
| OpenFreeMap (OpenStreetMap map tiles) | Where the water is: coastlines, harbors and lakes near you | Map tiles around the place you're watching |
| Apple Maps | Searching for a place to watch from, and a chosen place's time zone | What you type in the search, or the chosen place's position |
These are public services with their own privacy practices. Like any website, they see your internet address when the app asks them something. The app doesn't send them your name, email, contacts, device identifiers or anything else about you.
On your phone only
- Your Logbook of saved flights, and your settings.
- A short diagnostic log (what the flight feed said about a plane you were watching, what the wall announced), used to improve the app. It stays in the app's storage and is never sent anywhere. It's deleted with the app.
Deleting the app deletes all of it. If you use iCloud backups, iOS may include the app's data in your own backup, as it does for any app.
Skyarium Web and its Chrome extension
Skyarium Web shows the planes passing over any place you choose, live in your browser. It works the same way as the app: no account, no ads, no analytics, nothing collected about you.
- Your location. If you choose "use my location", your browser shares your position with the page. It isn't saved: the next visit asks your browser again. Like the app, the page sends a position rounded to about a kilometer (a bit over half a mile) to ask what's flying nearby.
- The extension. adsb.fi doesn't accept requests from web pages, so the Skyarium Web extension makes that one request from your browser: a rounded position and a radius, sent to adsb.fi. It can't reach any other site, and it doesn't read or change the pages you visit. It only runs on skyarium.app/web. It remembers which tab has the wall open, so its button can take you back there, and forgets that when you close the browser.
- Searching for a place. What you type is sent to Photon by komoot, an OpenStreetMap search service.
- Routes and photos. The page asks adsbdb and skyarium.app for flight routes, using the flights' public callsigns, and asks planespotters.net for photos, using their public registrations.
- On your computer only. The place you chose to watch (not your own location), your recent places, the radius and your sound setting are kept in your browser's storage for this site. Clearing the site's data, or removing the extension, removes them.
Children
The app doesn't collect personal information from anyone, children included.
Changes
If this changes, for example if a future version adds something optional that sends data, this page will say so before it ships, and the date above will change.
Questions
Email support@skyarium.app, or see Support.