Privacy Policy for AlignedContact

Effective Date: July 24, 2026 Last Updated: November 2, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how LOUGIC LLC (“Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data when you use the AlignedContact mobile application, associated web services, and our dedicated aviation telemetry ingestion network (collectively, the “Service”).

We build AlignedContact with a privacy-first mindset. Your core application data is hosted on dedicated server infrastructure located within the European Union (Germany), giving you robust legal protections under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable US state privacy laws.

1. Data Controller & Contact Information

The Data Controller responsible for your personal information is:

LOUGIC LLC State of Formation: Wisconsin, USA Privacy & Compliance Contact: compliance@alignedcontact.com Mailing Address available upon written request to compliance@alignedcontact.com.

2. Information We Collect and How We Use It

A. Core Account & Profile Information

• Account Credentials: Handle, Display Name, and Avatar.
• Experiences (User Content): Text, journal entries, logs, and associated media (photos and videos) that you choose to store in the app.
• Social Connections: Your Followers, Following list, and Bookmarked items.
• User “Vibe” Centroid: An algorithmically computed preference profile generated from your personal content and bookmarks. This “Vibe” weight (~20% feed algorithm impact) is calculated to tailor your personal feed experience and is never sold to third parties.

B. Location Data (Optional — Requires Specific Consent)

Location features in AlignedContact are strictly opt-in. If granted, we process location data as follows:

• Heads-Up Display (HUD) Feature: When active, the HUD displays nearby aircraft relative to your position. We query map tiles from OpenStreetMap (which receives your device IP and requests for the map tiles covering the approximate area shown on screen — your exact coordinates are never sent to it) and transmit a fuzzed, non-exact location to our backend to fetch ADS-B aviation radius data.
• H3R2 Hex-Grid Location & Heatmaps: With both Location and Research consents active, you may attach an H3 Resolution 2 (H3R2) spatial hex-grid identifier to an experience. This value is stored in an ancillary database table. It is never publicly displayed on your logs. Instead, it contributes to an aggregated, anonymous heatmap feature where spatial hexes increment hourly. Location attachment is only permitted in hexes containing at least 5,000 residents, and hexes below that threshold are excluded from the heatmap entirely. It is technically impossible for other users viewing the heatmap to trace an increment back to your specific log or profile.

C. Research Data (Optional — Requires Separate Consent)

We offer an optional Research Consent program:

• Anonymization & Mapping: If you opt into research, your contributed experiences are anonymized and offloaded to a normalized researchdb. Linking records in a separate researchlink database map your account to two randomized researchuserid values — one for your public-visibility experiences and one for your private/team experiences — so research analysis that matches a public contribution gains no key to your private research corpus. Research is conducted in-house and is never sold or handed to outside parties; the research API exposes only the randomized researchuserid values, which cannot be correlated with one another.
• Scope of Contribution: Research consent is not retroactive. Experiences are contributed as they are created or updated while consent is active; granting consent does not export your past history.
• Immediate Unlinking on Withdrawal: If you revoke Research Consent, all linking records in the researchlink database are immediately destroyed. This breaks the connection permanently — your existing research data can no longer be attributed to you or anyone else. If you re-consent later, brand new researchuserid values are assigned, and there is no way to connect the new identifiers to your previously contributed data.

D. Automated Content Moderation & Private Content

To keep the platform free of illegal and prohibited content, media is screened by automated moderation (Azure AI Content Safety) at upload, and entry text at publishing. This screening is purely automated: findings on private content are never surfaced to staff, and private entries are never placed in a human review queue. Content that screening rejects is blocked from being uploaded or published.

3. Cookies on the Website

The AlignedContact website (www.alignedcontact.com) uses no advertising, analytics, or cross-site tracking cookies. Only one cookie is ever set:

• Strictly Necessary Session Cookie (ac.session): When you choose to sign in with a passkey, our API server sets a single HttpOnly session cookie so your browser stays authenticated for signed-in features (such as the Framework PDF download or the support form). It is inaccessible to website scripts, never used for tracking or profiling, and is deleted when you sign out or after 7 days. As this cookie is essential to providing the signed-in service you explicitly requested, it qualifies as strictly necessary and does not require consent.

For full transparency: the website also stores one purely functional entry in your browser’s local storage — your light/dark theme preference. Local storage entries never leave your browser and are not transmitted to our servers.

4. ADS-B Feeder Data & Telemetry Ingestion Network

In addition to our mobile application, we operate a dedicated high-performance aviation telemetry ingestion platform (feed.alignedcontact.com) that processes raw signals from remote independent receiver hardware (e.g., ADS-B and MLAT ground stations).

A. Nature and Scope of ADS-B Feeder Data

• Application Usage: The ADS-B and MLAT telemetry data ingested by our platform is utilized primarily to drive real-time aircraft positions displayed on the Heads-Up Display (HUD) map view within the camera experience of our application. As our platform grows, this data may potentially power additional map interfaces across the service.
• Feeder Identity & Station UUIDs: Our ingestion setup expects a unique station identifier (UUID) for Beast, SBS, or MLAT data feeds. Feeder data can be submitted anonymously by default. However, you may optionally associate your feeder’s station UUID with your AlignedContact user account/profile to enable future participation perks for contributing telemetry.
• Multilateration (MLAT) Location Requirements: Participating in our MLAT network requires your receiver to transmit its precise physical geographic location to our processing servers. This precise location data is processed strictly in real-time alongside peer receiver signals via readsb and our multilateration engine (mlat-server) to triangulate non-ADS-B aircraft positions. Precise receiver coordinates are not maintained historically after the immediate triangulation processing cycle.
• Feeder Location Privacy: We respect the privacy of our independent station operators. We do not publish individual feeder locations or contributor maps. We will not sell, distribute, or lease your personally identifiable feeder telemetry or station registration information to third parties, unless we have your explicit permission or are required by law to do so.

B. System Logs and Troubleshooting Retention

• Short-Term Operational Logs: System infrastructure logs (including connection records and operational events generated by our edge proxy and workers) are retained for a maximum of 14 days solely for system troubleshooting, performance monitoring, security analysis, and abuse mitigation.

C. ADS-B Data Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

• “As Is” Basis: We will use our best efforts to provide accurate aviation data. However, the aviation data is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. Neither LOUGIC LLC, its partners, licensors, nor data providers make any warranty, either implied or express, of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, including, but not limited to, the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, reliability, or availability of the telemetry data, applications, or services.
• Data Integrity & Spoofer/Gap Risks: Users acknowledge that our platform receives raw telemetry from multiple independent sources we do not control, and that data integrity and accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Our aim is to provide a better understanding of contact experiences; realistically, the data may contain gaps, accuracy issues, and users may deliberately spoof or manipulate flight data. While we implement safeguards to help alleviate errors, what we provide can only be as good as the raw data coming in. We are not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any flight data displayed.
• User Indemnification: To the extent allowed by law, users and contributors will indemnify, defend, and hold harmless LOUGIC LLC from all liabilities, claims, demands, costs, judgments, damages, losses, and expenses relating to any claim brought by a third party arising out of or in connection with your use of or reliance upon the ADS-B data in a manner not in conformance with this notice.

5. Third-Party Service Processors

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We share minimal necessary data with trusted third-party service providers (“Processors”) solely to operate the Service:

6. Legal Bases for Processing (GDPR Compliance)

If you reside in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we process your data under the following legal bases:

1. Contract Performance: Processing necessary to provide you with the AlignedContact service per our Terms of Service, including managing subscription entitlements and processing transactions.
2. Explicit Consent: For processing precise/fuzzed Location Data, Research Data contributions, optional feeder station profile associations, and specific opt-in permissions. You can withdraw consent at any time in the app settings.
3. Legitimate Interests & Legal Obligations: For maintaining app security, preventing billing fraud, evaluating refund eligibility and consumption requests initiated through storefront payment providers (such as Apple or Google), analyzing telemetry feeds for network health, and resolving legal liability issues.

7. Data Retention & Deletion Policy

Account Deletion (90-Day Soft Delete Window)

When you request account deletion through the app:

1. Immediate Soft Delete: Your account is instantly deactivated, hidden from public view, and logged out across all devices.
2. 90-Day Retention Window: We retain your encrypted account records in a soft-deleted state for 90 days solely for legal compliance, fraud prevention, and liability protection.
3. Permanent Purging: After 90 days, your personal identifiers, private gallery media, social links, and account records are permanently and irreversibly purged from our active databases and backup systems.

Feeder Data & System Logs

• Live Telemetry: Ingested ADS-B and MLAT data are processed purely for real-time hot state representation and are not archived for long-term historical storage.
• Operational Logs: Ingestion proxy and firewall logs containing technical connection parameters are automatically rotated and purged after 14 days.

8. Your Rights (GDPR & US State Privacy Laws)

Regardless of where you live, AlignedContact provides built-in tools under Account & Data Settings:

• Right to Access (Summary): View a structured summary of the data categories held about you.
• Right to Data Portability (Export): Download a machine-readable .json file containing your personal logs, profile history, and records.
• Right to Erasure: Initiate permanent account and data deletion at any time.
• Right to Revoke Consent: Toggle off Location or Research consents instantly in app settings.

Anonymous feeders: If you feed telemetry without an account, there is no account-bound rights machinery to invoke - we hold no identity to exercise rights against. Data-subject requests relating to feeder data (such as connection-log removal) can be directed to compliance@alignedcontact.com.

9. Security & Children’s Privacy

• Security: We enforce TLS encryption in transit and encryption at rest across the platform — media storage, the databases that hold your experiences, and backups — with backups purged on a fixed schedule. Infrastructure is protected in layers: edge filtering, container isolation, host firewalls, and intrusion detection, with continuous monitoring and a public status page. Read more on our security page.
• Age Requirement: AlignedContact is strictly intended for individuals 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If we learn a minor has created an account, it will be deleted immediately.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this policy periodically. If material changes are made to how we collect or process personal data, we will notify you through an in-app prompt requiring your updated acceptance before continuing to use the Service.