1. Introduction
Left Traffic is a social app for aviation people — sharing photos and videos of aircraft, following other owners and enthusiasts, and building a record of your time around airplanes. This policy explains what information we collect through the Left Traffic app and lefttraffic.com, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have.
We've tried to write this in plain language rather than maximal legal hedging. Where a feature doesn't exist yet — payments, push notifications — we say so and describe what will be true once it does, rather than staying silent and rewriting this policy every time something ships.
Left Traffic is intended for users 16 and older. See section 10.
2. Information we collect
2.1 Account information
- Email address, if you sign up with email and password.
- Name, if you sign in with Apple or Google and choose to share it. Apple shares your name only once, at your first sign-in — if you decline, or use Apple's "Hide My Email," we receive a private relay address instead of your real one and treat it like any other email.
- A unique account identifier, used internally to link your account to your data. Never shown to other users.
If you try to sign up with an email address already associated with an account (regardless of which sign-in method that account used), we'll ask you to sign in with your existing account rather than silently creating a second one.
2.2 Profile information
- Handle (public username), display name, profile photo — visible to anyone who can view the app, including people who aren't signed in. See 5.1.
- Bio (up to 160 characters) and home airport (free text, not validated against any aviation database) — visible only to you today; if a future release changes that, we'll update this policy first.
2.3 Content you create
Posts (caption, up to five photos or videos, optional free-text location, optional tail number), comments, likes, and reports you file. See 5.2 for a specific note on what posting a tail number and location means.
2.4 Information collected automatically
Standard server logs from our cloud infrastructure (IP address, request timestamps), kept for security and operational purposes.
2.5 Purchases and subscriptions (not currently offered)
Left Traffic does not currently sell anything or offer paid subscriptions. If we introduce paid features, purchases will be processed through Apple's or Google's own in-app purchase systems — we will not receive or store your full payment card information, only purchase or subscription status passed to us by Apple or Google. This policy will be updated, and where required, you'll be notified, before any payment feature launches.
2.6 Diagnostics and analytics
Device model, operating system version, crash and error data, and aggregate usage patterns (which screens are used, how often), collected through our analytics and crash-reporting tools. If you use a pre-release build through Apple's TestFlight, Apple's own beta platform separately collects crash logs and feedback under Apple's terms. This is separate from lefttraffic.com's own website analytics, which is governed by the site's own cookie disclosure.
2.7 Third-party sources
If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the name and email address (or Apple relay address) those providers share with your permission. We don't otherwise purchase or receive information about you from data brokers or other third parties.
2.8 What we don't collect
We don't collect your precise real-time location, don't access your contacts, and don't read the content of your photos or videos beyond what's needed to display them and strip location metadata (2.3, 5.2).
3. How we use your information
- Operate your account and authenticate you.
- Display your content and the feed, and process likes, comments, and reports.
- Detect and prevent abuse, and enforce our Terms of Service.
- Diagnose crashes and technical problems, and understand usage patterns to improve the app.
- Respond to support requests and send account and security notices.
- Send occasional product updates, if you haven't opted out (see 7.3).
- Process payments, once that feature exists (2.5).
- Comply with legal obligations and protect the rights, property, or safety of Left Traffic, our users, or the public.
4. Public content, marketing, and advertising
We do not currently run ads or share your information for advertising purposes. If that changes as Left Traffic grows, we will update this policy before making that change and, where required by law, provide a way to opt out (see 7.5).
Because much of what you post on Left Traffic is public by design (5.1), your public profile information and public posts may be used in Left Traffic's own marketing — social posts, App Store materials, and similar — consistent with the content license in our Terms of Service. We will never use your private information (an unpublished draft, your email address, account settings) for this.
5. How we share information
5.1 With other users, and the public
Left Traffic's feed is visible to anyone who opens the app or website, signed in or not. This is a deliberate design choice: you don't need an account to browse posts and read comments. A post is not just visible to "the Left Traffic community" — it's visible to anyone on the internet who finds it.
Liking, commenting, creating a post, and viewing your own activity, hangar, or profile pages require an account. We don't currently offer a way to make an individual post or your profile private — if you'd rather something not be public, don't post it.
5.2 Content about aircraft
Left Traffic posts often include a tail number and a location, whether stated explicitly or just visible in the photo or video. Aircraft tail numbers are already public information — the FAA maintains a public registry mapping tail numbers to registered owners. Left Traffic doesn't create this exposure, but posting a tail number alongside a home airport, especially repeatedly, can make it easier to infer where a specific aircraft is usually kept. Worth being thoughtful about, the way you'd be thoughtful about posting a home address anywhere public.
We remove GPS location metadata from photos and videos you upload, specifically because this kind of post can otherwise carry precise coordinates invisibly. This doesn't undo a tail number, airport name, or location you choose to write in a caption.
5.3 Service providers
We share information with cloud infrastructure providers (hosting our servers, databases, and uploaded media), sign-in providers (Apple and Google, if you use them), analytics and crash-reporting providers, and — for pre-release builds — Apple's TestFlight beta platform. Each processes data only to provide their specific service to us, not for their own independent purposes.
5.4 Legal, safety, and business transfers
We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or if we believe in good faith it's necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Left Traffic, our users, or the public. If Left Traffic is ever acquired, merged, or its assets transferred, your information would be one of the assets transferred, subject to this policy or a successor policy you'd be notified of.
5.5 We do not sell your information
We do not sell personal information for money. We do not currently share it for cross-context behavioral advertising either (see section 4). See 7.5 for how we'll handle this if it ever changes.
6. Data retention and deletion
You can delete your account from within the app.
- Immediately: your account and everything you've posted is hidden from every part of the app, for every user, including you.
- Within approximately 48 hours: we permanently delete the underlying data — account, posts and their media, comments, likes, and activity history.
- Reports you filed, or filed against you, are retained as internal moderation records even after account deletion.
- Backups: our infrastructure provider maintains rolling disaster-recovery backups on a 35-day cycle. Deleted data can persist in these backups for up to 35 days after live deletion, even though it's already inaccessible through the app.
- If you have an active subscription (once payments exist, 2.5): deleting your account does not automatically cancel a subscription managed through the App Store or Play Store. Cancel it separately through Apple's or Google's own subscription management.
If you don't delete your account, we retain your information for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterward consistent with the above.
7. Your choices and rights
7.1 Device permissions
Posting requires access to your camera or photo library, which your device will ask you to grant. You can revoke this at any time in your device settings, though you won't be able to post until you grant it again.
7.2 Profile and content visibility
We don't currently offer per-post or per-profile privacy controls — see 5.1.
7.3 Marketing communications
Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link. Opting out never affects your ability to use the app or receive account and security notices.
7.4 Push notifications (not currently offered)
Left Traffic does not currently send push notifications. If we add them, we'll ask your permission through your device's standard prompt, and you can turn them off at any time in your device settings.
7.5 Advertising choices
Not applicable today (section 4). If introduced, this section will describe how to opt out.
7.6 Access, correction, deletion, and jurisdiction-specific rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know what we've collected, access a copy of it, correct it, delete it, and object to or restrict certain uses. Account deletion is available directly in the app at any time. For any other request, contact us at lefttraffic.com/support; we'll respond within the timeframe required by applicable law.
California residents: the CCPA/CPRA gives you the rights above, plus the right to non-discrimination for exercising them. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of today (section 5.5); if that changes, we'll provide a clear opt-out, including honoring the Global Privacy Control signal where legally required. Separately, if you're under 18 and a California resident, you may request that we remove content you posted while under 18, consistent with California's minor online content removal law — contact us at lefttraffic.com/support to make this request.
EEA/UK residents: the GDPR/UK GDPR gives you the rights above, plus data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Our legal basis for processing is generally performance of a contract, your consent where we ask for it, and our legitimate interests, balanced against your rights.
8. Security
We take reasonable measures to protect your information, including encrypting data in transit, storing authentication tokens securely on your device, and restricting internal access to production data. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.
9. International transfers
Left Traffic is based in the United States, and our infrastructure is located in the United States. If you access Left Traffic from outside the US, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, relying on our infrastructure providers' own compliance mechanisms for cross-border transfers.
10. Children's privacy
Left Traffic is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If we learn we've collected information from someone under 16, we will delete it. Contact us at lefttraffic.com/support if you believe this has happened. See 7.6 for a separate note on California residents under 18.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app changes. If we make a material change, we'll notify you — through the app, by email, or by posting a notice on this page — before the change takes effect. The effective date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent version.
12. Contact us
You can reach Left Traffic at lefttraffic.com/support.
For questions about your content and conduct on Left Traffic, see our Terms of Service.