MeteoFrontier · meteofrontier.ca · Frontier app
Privacy Policy
Effective 2026-11-11 · Questions: support@meteofrontier.caPlain-language draft, not yet reviewed by a lawyer.
1. Who we are
MeteoFrontier is a small, independent Canadian aviation weather service run from Alberta. It includes the website at meteofrontier.ca, the member accounts on that site and the Frontier Android app. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean MeteoFrontier, and "you" means anyone who uses it.
We follow Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and, where it applies, Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). The person responsible for privacy at MeteoFrontier can be reached at support@meteofrontier.ca.
2. The short version
- You can use the weather pages without an account. We don't run advertising, we don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
- We count page views to see how the site is used. For visitors who aren't signed in, this count can't be linked to you from one day to the next. If you are signed in, your page views are recorded against your account (date, number of views, device type, operating system, browser and country) and kept for about 13 months.
- With an account we keep what we need to run it: your email address, a scrambled (hashed) password, your settings, and security records such as active sign-ins and a security log.
- Our service runs on Cloudflare. Your information may be stored and processed outside Canada, including in the United States.
- You can ask to see, correct or delete your information, and you can delete your account yourself.
3. Visiting the site without an account
Delivering and protecting the site
Like every website, our servers receive your IP address, the page you asked for, your browser's user-agent string and similar technical details with each request. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, uses these to deliver pages and to block attacks and abuse. Our own code also writes logs for a small sample (about 5 %) of requests to find errors; Cloudflare keeps those logs for a short period it sets.
Our page-view counter
For each page you view, we record the date, a coarse device type (phone, tablet or desktop), the operating system family, the browser family, the country Cloudflare detects from your IP address, the number of views and the first and last time that day. We don't store your IP address or the full user-agent string here.
To tell visitors apart within a day, we combine your IP network and user-agent with a random value that changes every day, and keep only a shortened scrambled result. We delete each day's random value after that day, so yesterday's entries can no longer be matched to anyone. These rows are kept for 400 days.
Cloudflare Web Analytics
Our pages load Cloudflare's Web Analytics script, which reports page loads and page performance to Cloudflare in aggregate. It does not set cookies or use local storage, and Cloudflare states it does not use it to track you across sites.
Fonts
Our pages load fonts from Google Fonts, so your browser sends your IP address and browser details to Google when it fetches them.
4. Cookies and browser storage
We set only two cookies, and only if you sign in:
| Cookie | Purpose | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
__Host-mf_session | Keeps you signed in. Secure, HTTP-only, sent only to meteofrontier.ca. We store a scrambled copy of it, never the cookie value itself. | Up to 30 days (12 hours for administrators), or until you sign out |
__Host-mf_trusted | Only if you choose to trust a device: lets that browser skip the second sign-in step. | 30 days, or until you remove the device |
Cloudflare may set its own strictly necessary security cookies to detect bots and attacks.
The site also saves some settings in your browser's local storage, such as favourite and recently viewed airports, your chosen forecast model, map layer and display choices, and your TAFbuilder desk. This stays in your browser; we don't receive it. You can clear it at any time in your browser settings.
5. Your account and its security
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Email address | Your sign-in name, and how we send account messages (verification, password reset, sign-in codes, security notices) and alerts you set up. |
| Password | Stored only as a salted, one-way hash. We can't read it. |
| Display name (optional) | Shown on your account and, if you use them, in chat or the forum. |
| Settings and saved airports | Your preferences and favourite airports, so they follow you between devices. |
| Two-step sign-in | Your authenticator secret (stored encrypted), one-time recovery codes (hashed), and passkeys (the public key, a name you choose, and when it was last used; your private key never leaves your device). |
| Sign-ins and trusted devices | For each active sign-in or trusted device: when it started and was last used, the browser's user-agent string, and a keyed scrambled form (HMAC) of your IP address. This lets you see and end your sessions and helps us spot account takeovers. |
| Security log | Security events such as sign-ins, password and email changes, 2FA changes and account deletion, with your account ID and the scrambled IP. Kept 2 years, including after the account is deleted, to investigate abuse. |
| Page views while signed in | See section 3: the same counter, but tied to your account ID. Kept 400 days. |
| Rate-limit counters | Short-lived counters that slow down password guessing and spam. Deleted within a day. |
6. Alerts, chat, forum and other features
These features only keep information when you use them.
Weather alerts
The airports, conditions, thresholds and quiet hours you choose, and a history of the alerts we sent you, including the weather observation that triggered each one. Alerts go by email, and by phone notification if you use the app. The history is kept 90 days.
Live chat (when it is switched on)
Messages you post, with your display name and chat handle, and private messages you send or receive. Room messages and private messages are deleted after 30 days. Reports about messages are kept 90 days. Moderators can see reports and apply bans.
Forum (when it is open)
Your forum profile (username and anything you add, such as a title, signature, bio, location, occupation, website, home airport or avatar), your posts and their edit history, private conversations, attachments, reactions, poll votes, bookmarks, subscriptions, drafts and notifications. Posts record a scrambled IP address to deal with abuse. Moderation records (reports, warnings, moderator notes, bans) are kept as needed for moderation. Posts are public to the audience of the forum they are in. If you reply by email, we receive that email. Deleted posts are removed for good after 180 days; drafts after 90 days; notifications after 120 days.
Staff-only tools
Some tools are currently limited to MeteoFrontier staff: webmail and calendar for our own @meteofrontier.ca addresses (if you email us, your message and attachments are stored there), private notes, and TAFbuilder edit capture. Edit capture records the draft TAF the tool suggested, the TAF the forecaster actually copied, the differences, the airport, model run and editing time, to improve our forecasts; it is kept 3 years. If TAFbuilder opens to customers, we will update this policy before any capture applies to them.
7. The Frontier Android app
- Device registration. When you sign in, the app registers your phone with your account: a device name, the platform (Android), the app version and a public key. The matching private key stays in your phone's secure key store.
- Notifications. If you allow notifications, the app gets a push token from Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging, and we store it to send you alerts. Google delivers the notification. Firebase Analytics is turned off in the app.
- Biometric unlock. Fingerprint or face unlock is checked by Android on your phone. We never receive biometric data.
- Not collected. The app does not ask for location, contacts, camera, microphone or files, and it turns off Android cloud backup of its data.
- Updates. The test app can download and install its own updates from meteofrontier.ca, which is why it asks for permission to install apps.
You can remove a device from your account at any time. Removed devices are deleted from our records 30 days later.
8. Payments
We don't take payments yet. When paid plans start, payments will be handled by Stripe. We will keep your Stripe customer ID, plan, subscription status, renewal date and invoice records (number, amount, status and a link). Stripe, not us, collects your card details. We will update this policy before billing starts.
9. Who processes your information
We don't sell personal information or share it for advertising. We use these service providers, who handle information on our behalf:
- Cloudflare, Inc. hosts the site, the accounts system and its databases and file storage, sends our email, provides Web Analytics, and protects the site from attacks.
- Google delivers app notifications (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and serves web fonts (Google Fonts).
- Stripe, Inc. will process payments once billing starts.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people's safety, or to investigate fraud or a security problem.
10. Where it is stored
Our databases (Cloudflare D1), file storage (Cloudflare R2) and chat storage (Cloudflare Durable Objects) are not pinned to a region, so Cloudflare chooses where they live, and pages are served from Cloudflare locations around the world. Your information may therefore be stored or processed in the United States or other countries, where courts and authorities may be able to access it under local law.
11. How long we keep it
| Information | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account, settings, saved airports, alerts | Until you delete them or your account |
| Sign-ins and trusted devices | Until they expire (30 days) or are ended, then up to 30 more days |
| Registered phones | Until removed, then 30 days |
| Email links and codes (verification, reset) | Until they expire, then 1 day |
| Page-view counts | 400 days |
| Security log | 2 years |
| Alert history | 90 days |
| Chat messages and private messages | 30 days; reports 90 days |
| Forum | Posts until deleted; deleted posts 180 days; drafts 90 days; notifications 120 days; read markers 35 days; moderator log 2 years |
| TAFbuilder edit capture (staff) | 3 years |
| Webmail trash (staff) | 30 days |
| Payment event records | 90 days after processing; invoices as long as tax law requires |
Cloudflare's database recovery feature can restore our database to an earlier point for up to 30 days, so deleted information can remain in that recovery history for that long.
12. Your choices and rights
- Access and correction. You can see and change most of your information on your account pages. You can also ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, or to correct it.
- Deletion. You can delete your account from your account page (you'll need your password). This deletes your account, settings, saved airports, sign-ins, devices, alerts, chat messages and other records linked to it. Exceptions: the security log keeps entries under your account ID for up to 2 years; page-view counts tied to your account ID are kept for their 400 days; and forum posts stay visible under your username unless you delete them first or ask us to remove them. If you have an active paid subscription, cancel it first.
- Withdrawing consent. You can turn off alerts, remove devices, decline phone notifications, clear browser storage, or stop using the service at any time. Some information is needed to run an account, so withdrawing consent to it means closing the account.
- Requests. Email support@meteofrontier.ca. We may need to confirm it's you. We aim to answer within 30 days, and there is no charge.
- Complaints. If you aren't satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in Alberta, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta.
13. Security
We use HTTPS everywhere, hashed passwords, encrypted two-step secrets, scrambled IP addresses, short-lived administrator sessions and optional passkeys and two-step sign-in. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we will tell you and report it to the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.
14. Children
MeteoFrontier is meant for pilots, dispatchers, forecasters and other adults interested in aviation weather. It is not directed at children, and you must be at least 13 to create an account. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
15. Changes and contact
We will update this policy when what we collect changes, and change the effective date at the top. If a change is significant, we will put a notice on the site or email account holders before it takes effect.
Contact: support@meteofrontier.ca. See also our Terms of Use.