Privacy policy
How Terminal handles your information
Terminal is an iPhone app for your flights, made by Jay (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what information the app and this website use, why, who else receives it, and how long it is kept.
Summary
- Most of Terminal stays on your iPhone.
- You do not need an account or any personal details to use it. If you choose to sign in, our server keeps no name or email address.
- We show no ads, we do not track you across other apps or websites, and we never sell your information.
- Only what a feature needs leaves your iPhone, and only to run that feature.
- Our website only counts visits, and it does so anonymously.
Information We Collect
Most of the information Terminal uses stays on your iPhone. This section describes what stays on your iPhone and what reaches our server.
On your iPhone. Your saved flights, your Logbook of the flights you’ve taken, your last ten searches, your nickname, the flights found in your calendar and your settings are stored on your iPhone. Terminal also creates a random identifier for your copy of the app and keeps it in your iPhone’s keychain. It is not your name, your Apple ID or any other personal detail, and if you install Terminal again, it creates a new one. Your iPhone’s own backups may include the information Terminal stores, as they do for any app.
On our server. Some features need our server to work. It receives only what each one needs:
- If you look up a flight, a route or an airport’s departures, Terminal sends the flight numbers, airport codes and dates to our server. Nothing about you is sent with them. Some lookups start as you type, after a short pause, so that results are ready when you finish.
- If you save a flight, Terminal sends the flight, whether it is your flight or one you follow, the random identifier for your copy of the app and, if you allow notifications, the address Apple provides for sending notifications to your iPhone. Requests about your saved flights, such as checking them for updates or finding other flights when one is cancelled, carry the same identifier. Our server keeps a record of each notification it sends to your iPhone. None of this contains your name, email address or phone number.
- If you switch off a kind of notification, Terminal sends the kinds you have switched off, with the random identifier, so that our server can leave them out.
- If you search in your own words, by typing or speaking, and Terminal cannot read the sentence on your iPhone, it sends the sentence to our server with the date, your time zone and the code of your nearest airport, so that words such as “tomorrow” and “from here” are understood correctly. The random identifier is not sent with it. Only what’s needed to understand your search is shared with our AI partners, Anthropic and Google, and never your name or location. They are never allowed to use it to train their AI or for advertising, and Terminal never sells your data. Terminal asks before it sends the first one, and you can turn Smart Search off in Settings, under Privacy.
- If you allow calendar access, Terminal reads your calendar’s events from today to twelve months ahead, on your iPhone, to find flights. Only each flight’s number and date leave your iPhone, to look the flight up. Event titles, places and notes never leave your iPhone.
- If you allow location access, Terminal uses your location on your iPhone to find your nearest airport, to show your position on the map and to guide you around the airport. Your location is never sent to our server. Only the code of your nearest airport is, with a search sentence as described above.
- If you search by voice, Apple’s speech recognition turns your words into text, on your iPhone when it can and otherwise on Apple’s servers. Terminal does not record or keep the audio.
- If you allow motion access, Terminal counts your steps and reads your iPhone’s barometer while it walks you through an airport. That information never leaves your iPhone.
- If we investigate a problem with notifications, we may keep a more detailed record of one flight’s checks and notifications, including the random identifier of the iPhone involved.
Server logs. Like most online services, our server’s hosting records the requests it receives: the time, the network (IP) address each request came from, and the address requested, which can include a flight number, an airport code or the app’s random identifier. To prevent abuse, our search service also counts requests by network address. Those counts are held in memory only and are never written down.
Crash reports. Terminal keeps Apple’s own reports of its crashes and hangs on your iPhone: the newest 20, for up to 30 days, left out of your iPhone’s backups. They hold the app and iOS versions, the iPhone model, the region setting and technical details of what the app was doing, and no name, account, location or flight. They never leave your iPhone unless you choose Send a Crash Report in Settings, which opens an email to us with them attached, for you to send. Delete My Data deletes them. Terminal contains no analytics or advertising code. If you have chosen in your iPhone’s settings to share analytics with app developers, Apple may also share crash reports from Terminal with us.
If You Sign In
Signing in is optional, and Terminal works the same without it. When it is offered, you can sign in with Apple or with Google so that your flights and your Logbook come with you to a new iPhone.
What our server keeps.
- An account record: a random account number, when it was created, and the random identifiers of the iPhones signed in to it.
- Your Apple or Google account identifier: the code Apple or Google gives us for you. It is not your name or email address.
- If you sign in with Apple, the token Apple provides for your sign-in, encrypted. We keep it only so that we can cancel your sign-in with Apple when you delete your account.
- A sign-in key for each iPhone, kept only in a scrambled (hashed) form. It ends after 90 days without use, or when you sign out.
- A copy of what your iPhones share with your account: your saved flights, on My Flights and your Watchlist, and your Logbook. When you delete a flight, a marker that it was deleted is kept, so that the deletion reaches your other iPhones.
What it never keeps. Our server keeps no name or email address. During sign-in, Apple or Google may share your name or email address with us. If they do, our server does not store them, and Terminal keeps them only in your iPhone’s keychain, to show in Settings. Your nickname, settings, searches and calendar stay on your iPhone and are not part of your account.
Google. If you sign in with Google, we use it only to learn your Google account identifier, and we cancel the access Google gives us straight away. We keep no Google token.
Signing out ends the sign-in on that iPhone. Your account and its copy stay on our server, and everything stays on your iPhone.
Deleting your account. Delete Account, in Terminal’s Settings, starts at once and normally finishes within an hour. It ends every sign-in, cancels your sign-in with Apple, removes the saved flights and notification choices of the iPhones signed in to your account and the records of notifications sent to them, and deletes your account’s copy, your Apple or Google account identifier and the account itself. Terminal then removes everything it stores on your iPhone and creates a new random identifier. An iPhone you signed out of earlier is no longer part of your account, so use Delete My Data on that iPhone as well.
Apple’s own settings. If you stop using Sign in with Apple for Terminal in your Apple account settings, Apple tells us, and we sign you out everywhere. If you delete your Apple account, we delete your Terminal account.
How We Use Information
We use information only to run Terminal: to look up flights, to understand searches, to send the notifications you ask for about the flights you save, to keep your account’s copy up to date if you sign in, and to fix problems.
We never use information for advertising, and we never send marketing notifications. We do not track you across other apps or websites.
Service Providers
We work with a small number of service providers, each only for its own task:
- Google Cloud. Runs our server and stores the information described in this policy.
- Flight data providers. Supply flight schedules, gates, statuses, takeoffs and landings. They receive only flight numbers, dates and airports, never anything about you.
- Anthropic and Google. Our AI partners. Anthropic’s Claude AI reads the search sentences Terminal cannot read on your iPhone, to work out what is being asked. If it is unavailable, Google’s Gemini AI does the same job. Either one receives the sentence, the date, your time zone and the code of your nearest airport, but not who sent it, and never your name or location. They are never allowed to use it to train their AI or for advertising.
- Apple. Delivers notifications to your iPhone, including what each notification says, and provides Sign in with Apple and the maps, place search, directions, weather and speech recognition in Terminal. When you use these features, Apple receives what it needs to respond, such as a place name you type, the airport whose weather is shown, or your location to calculate a drive time. Apple’s privacy policy covers that information.
- Google. If you sign in with Google, Google handles your sign-in, and Google’s privacy policy covers it.
- Mapbox. Draws Terminal’s indoor airport maps. Like any map service, it receives the area shown on screen and your network address. Terminal switches off Mapbox’s usage reporting each time it opens.
- Cloudflare. Hosts this website and counts its visits, as described below.
Terminal does not include advertising networks, data brokers or tracking code.
Data Retention
- On your iPhone. Information stays on your iPhone until you remove it, use Delete My Data or Delete Account, or delete Terminal. Your iPhone may keep the random identifier in its keychain after you delete Terminal. If you install it again, Terminal replaces it with a new one.
- Saved flights. Kept on our server until you remove them, and deleted automatically within a few days after the flight.
- Flight and notification records. Deleted automatically within a few days after the flight, or about a day after no one is following it.
- Notification choices. Kept until you switch every kind back on, use Delete My Data, or delete your account.
- Search sentences. Used to answer the search. We do not keep them.
- Records for fixing a problem. Kept for up to 28 days.
- Server logs. Kept for a short time, usually about a month.
- Your account. Kept until you delete it, with its copy of your flights, your Logbook and the deletion markers. Sign-in keys end after 90 days without use.
Website Analytics
We count visits to this website with Cloudflare’s privacy-friendly web analytics. Visitors remain anonymous: it uses no cookies, it collects no personal information, and we see only totals, such as the number of visits to a page.
The website shows no advertising and does not track you across other sites.
Security
All communication between Terminal, our server and our service providers is encrypted in transit using HTTPS, and this website is served over HTTPS.
The random identifier, and your sign-in if you sign in, are stored in your iPhone’s keychain. On our server, the Apple sign-in token is encrypted, sign-in keys are kept only in hashed form, and requests to our search service are limited in number to prevent abuse.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect the information we hold.
Disclosure
We do not sell, rent or trade information. Beyond the service providers described above, we share information only when the law requires it, such as in response to a court order, or when it is necessary to protect people or Terminal from fraud or abuse.
Business Transfers
If Terminal is ever sold or merged with another business, the information we hold may be transferred as part of that transaction. This policy will continue to apply to information collected under it.
International Transfers
Your information may be stored and processed outside your country, including by our service providers. We protect it in the same way wherever it is processed.
Your Choices and Rights
- Location, calendar, notifications, microphone, speech recognition and motion access are each your choice. You can turn any of them off in your iPhone’s Settings, and Terminal continues to work without them.
- In Terminal’s Settings, you can switch off each kind of notification, and turn off Suggest Flights from Calendar.
- When you remove a saved flight, it is deleted from our server straight away.
- Delete My Data, in Terminal’s Settings when you are not signed in, removes your flights, your Logbook, your searches and any crash reports from your iPhone, and your flights and notification choices from our server. When you are signed in, Delete Account deletes your account as described above.
- You can ask us what information we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it, by writing to [email protected]. If you are not signed in, our server does not know who you are, so please tell us which flights you saved so that we can find them.
If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Union, you have the right to access, correct or delete your personal information, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to complain to your local data protection authority. We process information only to provide the features you use and to keep Terminal working and secure.
Children’s Privacy
Terminal is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to This Policy
When we change how Terminal handles information, we will update this page first and change the date at the top. We will not begin collecting new kinds of information without describing them here first.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this policy or about your information, please contact Jay at [email protected].