Information pursuant to Art. 13 GDPR
There is no legal obligation to appoint a data protection officer for this service. For data protection requests, please use the address above.
orecast.app is an information service. The map can be used anonymously; for orecast Pro you can optionally create an account (see section 6d). On the website we use no cookies and no third-party tools (e.g. Google Analytics). To improve the service we only collect anonymous, cookieless usage statistics on our own server (see section 6a) – without storing IP addresses, without profiling, without personal reference.
The website is hosted by Hetzner Online GmbH (Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany) in a data centre in Germany, acting as a processor. When the site is accessed, the web server automatically stores access data in log files:
The purpose is the technical operation, stability and IT security of the website. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in secure, functional operation (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Log data is stored only for as long as necessary for these purposes and then deleted.
To display the map and the address search, the site embeds third-party resources. For technical reasons your IP address is transmitted to the respective providers; without this transmission the map could not be displayed. The legal basis in each case is our legitimate interest in a functional map display (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
The map software “Leaflet” is delivered from our own server; no transmission to a content delivery network (e.g. Cloudflare/USA) takes place for it.
The map material comes from the servers of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (St John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WS, United Kingdom). When the tiles are loaded, your IP address is transmitted to OpenStreetMap. Privacy notice: osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.
If you use the address/place search, the search term you enter is transmitted together with your IP address to the Nominatim geocoding service of the OpenStreetMap Foundation in order to determine the corresponding coordinates. Please do not enter any sensitive information here.
Using the “GPS” button you can use your location. The request is only made after your active confirmation via your browser's location prompt (consent, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The determined coordinates are processed only locally in your browser in order to centre the map and retrieve the assessment for that point; no permanent server-side storage of your location takes place.
For the technical assessment, the selected coordinates are sent to our own server and queried there against local geodata holdings. These coordinates refer to a map point, not necessarily to you; they are not combined into a personal profile. The log file rules under section 3 apply.
To understand which features are used and to improve the service, we collect anonymous, cookieless usage statistics on our own server – no third-party service, no cookies, no storage of your IP address, no device identifier and no combination into a profile.
Per event we only store: the type of event (e.g. “page view”, “map opened”, the layer/button used), the page concerned, the chosen language, an optional short label, and – if transmitted by the browser – the host name of the referring page (not the full address), so that we can see which sources visitors come from. This data does not allow any conclusions about your identity.
To count unique visits, we derive a non-reversible short hash from your IP address, mixed with a daily-changing value (salt) that is stored nowhere. The IP address itself is not stored. Because the salt changes every day, this value can neither be linked to a person nor recognised across different days; it serves solely to count visits on a per-day basis.
In addition, we derive only the country from the IP address (e.g. “DE”) to see which countries usage comes from. Here too the IP address is not stored – only the two-letter country code is kept. The lookup happens locally on our server using the open database DB-IP Country Lite (“IP Geolocation by DB-IP”, CC BY 4.0); no data is transmitted to third parties in the process.
The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a needs-based, low-error design of the service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). As collection is anonymous and without cookies, no consent is required. Analysis is carried out exclusively in aggregate.
If you click the optional “What would be beneath me here? (AI)” button, our server creates a plain-text explanation from the local geodata of the selected point. For this, the relevant geodata (coordinates of the map point, geology/layer and mineral information) are transmitted to our processor Anthropic PBC (USA) and processed there. No further personal data is sent; the coordinates refer to a map point, not necessarily to you.
The transfer only takes place when you actively trigger it (click). The legal basis is our legitimate interest in providing the explanation, expressed through your use (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); the transfer to the USA is based on the standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. If you do not want a transfer, simply do not use the AI button.
This section applies only to the mobile orecast app (iOS); the website itself shows no advertising. To finance the free service, the app displays advertising via Google AdMob (provider: Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland; where applicable Google LLC, USA).
We only serve non-personalised advertising. No cross-app tracking and no advertising profile about you is created. For technical reasons Google nevertheless processes certain data to deliver ads and prevent fraud (e.g. IP address, device and ad information, and data for frequency capping of impressions).
Where required (in particular in the EEA), the app obtains your decision via a consent banner (Google UMP) before advertising is loaded. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in financing the free service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) or your consent where such consent is obtained (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). Any transfer to the USA is based on the standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
Subscribers to orecast Pro see no advertising. Further information and settings from Google: policies.google.com/technologies/ads.
The map can be used anonymously. For orecast Pro (app subscription or web unlock) you can optionally create an account. We then process only your email address and your password – the password exclusively as a cryptographic hash (Argon2), never in clear text. We do not request any further data.
The purpose is to provide the account and Pro access (e.g. AI explanation, full web scope). The legal basis is performance of the user contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Accounts are stored in our own database at Hetzner (Germany); no third-party login service is used.
After signing in we store a signed sign-in token (JWT) in your browser's
local storage (key gt_token) so you stay logged in. It serves solely
for authentication, is not tracking, and remains on your device until you log out.
Subscription status (RevenueCat): to verify the app subscription we use the processor RevenueCat, Inc. (USA). Only a pseudonymous account identifier (not the email) is transmitted to mirror “Pro active until”. The transfer to the USA is based on the standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
Unlock codes: a random unlock code may be associated with your account; it contains no personal data.
Retention & deletion: we store account data for as long as the account exists. You can delete your account at any time (app: “Delete account” in the account area; web: in the account menu) – this removes the email, password hash and associated codes (Art. 17 GDPR). Alternatively, an informal email to the address in section 1 is sufficient.
Signed-in users can save their own finds with a title, description, photos and the find position. This data is private at first and visible only to you; the position is stored with metre precision so you can relocate your own spots.
Uploaded photos are technically re-created on receipt; all file metadata (in particular EXIF data such as GPS coordinates, camera and time information) is removed and the image is downscaled. Any GPS value contained in the photo is compared once with the stated find position before removal; the result of that comparison is visible to our moderators only.
Only if you explicitly submit a find for publication is it reviewed — first automatically (AI-assisted pre-check of the photo and texts via Anthropic, see section 6b; the downscaled photo plus title, description and category are transmitted, not the find position), then by a human. Published finds show the title, category, description, photo and month of the find — never the exact position: publicly, only an area coarsened to roughly 5 km is shown, and never your name or e-mail address.
In addition, signed-in users can contribute place photos to existing map data points (with a short caption, up to four photos per point). The same technical processing applies (re-creation, removal of all metadata incl. GPS) as well as the same review path (automated AI pre-check, then human approval). Approved place photos are publicly visible at the respective data point — without your name or e-mail address. Other signed-in users can mark photos with a "like"; only the account→photo assignment is stored, and you can remove it at any time by tapping again. Account-related experience points (XP) are awarded for approved contributions. You can delete your own place photos at any time; deleting your account removes all contributions and likes.
You can withdraw any find at any time (it becomes private again immediately) or delete it entirely; deletion also removes the photos from the server. Deleting your account removes all private, in-review and rejected submissions including photos. Already approved contributions remain without any link to you (anonymised: no account reference, no name; for finds only the position coarsened to roughly 5 km is kept). If you prefer otherwise, simply delete individual contributions before deleting the account — possible at any time. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (providing the feature) and, for publication, your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), revocable at any time with effect for the future.
Signed-in users can comment on finds that have been published (see section 6e) and can mark them with a “like”. On private finds there are no comments and no likes. Writing a comment requires an account that is at least 24 hours old; we accept up to 20 comments per account and day, and there is exactly one level of replies (you can reply to a comment, but not to a reply). Your comment is visible to everyone who can see the find, together with your display name.
We store the text of the comment, the find it belongs to, the account that wrote it and the time. The text is stored in normalised form: invisible control characters are removed and runs of spaces are collapsed. A comment is between 2 and 1,500 characters long.
Display name: with your first comment your account is automatically given a pseudonym of the form “Sammler#4712” (German for “collector”, plus a four-digit random number). It is never derived from your e-mail address. You can change it; the name has to be unique, and names using characters that look confusingly similar to an existing name count as taken. New names are checked automatically (see below); any objection leads to rejection. Publicly visible are only your account's ID number and your display name — that is enforced technically by a database view containing just those two columns. Your e-mail address never leaves our server.
Check before publication: every comment is checked before it becomes visible, in two stages. Unlike finds and place photos, comments are not approved by a person beforehand.
geo: links), for
any web address, for telephone numbers and for e-mail addresses. If it
matches, the comment is held back for our review and no AI is asked at
all.If nothing is found, the comment appears immediately. If the check objects to an insult or to advertising, the comment is still shown, but it is marked for us to look at again. In serious cases — hate, threats, sexual content, data about other people, a betrayed find location — it is held back or refused; you then see a fixed, predefined reason, never a text written by the AI. If the check cannot be reached, the comment is held back; an hourly run tries again, and if that does not succeed within twelve hours the comment is published with a note for our review.
Likes: one like per account and find, which you can withdraw at any time by tapping again. Stored is only the account→find assignment with a time stamp. No experience points (XP) are awarded for likes or comments.
Removal, reports and blocking: you can delete your own comments at any time. The creator of a find can remove other people's comments under their own find; a reason of 3 to 500 characters is mandatory. That reason is itself put through the automated check and is visible only to the author concerned and to us — never publicly. As the operator we can remove comments, close a thread and mute an account temporarily. Every signed-in user can report comments or users (reasons: insult, hate, spam, sexual content, data about other people, betrayed find location, other) and can block users; a block works in both directions, so the blocked account can no longer write under your contributions. For a report we store the reason, your optional note, the reported target, your account, the status and the outcome — this is how you can check what became of your report. For a block we store only which account blocked which.
Moderation record: for every moderation decision we record the target, the action, who acted, the reason, a text excerpt of at most 200 characters and the time. This record remains even once the comment itself is gone; it is the evidence of what was decided and why.
Visibility and deletion: comments are only visible while the find is public. If the creator withdraws the find, the whole thread disappears from view; it stays stored and reappears unchanged if the find is published again. If the find is deleted, its comments are deleted with it. A removed comment shows only a neutral placeholder in public; the text is then visible to its author and to us only. If you delete your account, your likes disappear completely and your comments remain without any link to you — the account reference is removed, and with it the display name.
Retention: moderation records are deleted after six months. If there was a report or an objection concerning the case, they are deleted after three years, in line with the regular limitation period for claims under German law. Closed reports are deleted twelve months after being closed. Comments themselves remain for as long as the find exists.
Throttling: to prevent misuse we limit how often an account and a network range can write. For this the IP address is used solely as a key in the server's working memory (IPv6 shortened to the first 64 bits); it is not stored for this purpose. The log file rules under section 3 remain unaffected.
The legal basis for providing and displaying comments, display names and likes is performance of the user contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). The automated check before publication, the reports, the blocks and the moderation record rest on our legitimate interest in a lawful, safe community and in being able to demonstrate our decisions (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object to that processing at any time (section 8), delete your own comments at any time and stop using the function at any time.
On some pages (e.g. "Gear" and in the guides) we link to products on Amazon through the Amazon Associates programme. These links are marked as ads. Merely viewing our pages transfers no data to Amazon; we embed no Amazon content (images, widgets, cookies). Only when you click such a link do you leave our site, and Amazon (Amazon EU S.à r.l., 38 avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg) processes your data under its own responsibility. The link carries an associate ID through which Amazon attributes resulting purchases to our account and credits a commission; your price does not change. We never learn who bought something, only anonymous totals. Details: Amazon's privacy notice. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
To store your language setting (key gt_lang) and – after sign-in – the
sign-in token (gt_token, see section 6d) we use your browser's local
storage. This information is not used for advertising/tracking and remains on your
device. You can delete it at any time via your browser settings.
Within the statutory requirements you have the right to information (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and a right to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR). You can withdraw any consent given at any time with effect for the future.
You also have a right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The competent authority is the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia (LDI NRW), Postfach 20 04 44, 40102 Düsseldorf, Germany.
On orecast.app/en/templates you may voluntarily leave your e-mail address so that we can send you new template-kit forms and occasional updates. We store only the e-mail address, the sign-up source and the time of sign-up.
The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The address is not shared with third parties and is used solely for this purpose. You may withdraw your consent at any time — by replying to one of our e-mails or via the address given in the imprint; the entry will then be deleted without delay.
We adapt this privacy policy as soon as the underlying technology or legal situation changes. The version published here at the time applies.
Last updated: June 2026