Privacy Policy — Hilal Vision
Effective date: 1 January 2026
Last updated: 12 October 2026
Data controller: Athrwise Ltd — Contact us
Who we are
Moonsighting.live is operated by Athrwise Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17410302, registered office 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom.
Athrwise Ltd is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration reference ZC229634.
Contact: support@moonsighting.live
Athrwise Ltd is the data controller for personal data processed through this Platform.
Introduction
This Privacy Policy describes how Athrwise Ltd ("we", "us") collects, uses, and protects personal data when you use the Hilal Vision web application or native mobile applications. We operate with a minimal-data philosophy: we collect only what is necessary to provide the service, we never sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising profiling.
1. Information We Collect
Account & Registration
When you create an account (via Clerk), we collect: email address, display name (optional), and OAuth profile picture (optional). Authentication tokens are managed by Clerk and not stored by Athrwise Ltd directly.
Location Data (Optional)
You may provide GPS coordinates or a city name to compute crescent visibility for your location. Your chosen location is kept in your browser (local storage) so the site remembers it. Real-time location queries are processed transiently and are not stored on our servers in a way that identifies you, with three exceptions: (1) a sighting report you submit, which is stored with its position displaced by up to about 1.1 km; (2) push notification alerts you switch on, which store the coordinates and time zone you choose so an alert can be timed to your local sunset; and (3) the terrain lookup for the local horizon feature, which sends your coordinates rounded to about 110 m to our server, where the resulting terrain profile is cached under those rounded coordinates, with no account or IP address attached.
Sighting Reports (Public)
Submitted sighting reports are published publicly and include: the approximate position (displaced by up to about 1.1 km), the time, the outcome (seen with the naked eye, seen with optical aid, or not seen), and any note or photo you add. Your name, email address and account identifier are not shown with a report. Precise GPS coordinates are not stored.
Before a report is published you must tick a consent box, and we store the time you did so with the report. A sighting report can reveal your religious practice (for example, that you are looking for the Ramadan crescent), and any notes or photo you add are shown publicly with it, so we ask for your explicit consent each time; the box is never pre-ticked or remembered. If you are signed in, the report is also added to your private Crescent Log (see below). You can withdraw consent at any time by email to support@moonsighting.live, and we will delete or anonymise the report.
Crescent Log (Signed-in Users)
If you are signed in, each sighting report you submit is also added to your Crescent Log, a personal life-list that only you can see. An entry holds the date (Gregorian and Hijri), a broad region such as "Europe" (never a city or coordinates), the computed visibility zone and q-value, the age of the Moon, how you saw it, a difficulty score, and any note or photo you added. The first time you open the log we also add your earlier reports that have a recorded consent. Because a sighting can reveal your religious practice, we treat the log as sensitive and rely on the explicit consent you give when you submit a report; you can withdraw it as described in section 5. The log is deleted with your account.
Support Messages
If you email support@moonsighting.live, we process your email address and the contents of your message to reply, and keep them only as long as needed to deal with your request and any follow-up.
Usage Analytics (Anonymised)
We collect anonymised, aggregated data: pages visited, feature usage, device/browser type, and general region (country-level, not linked to identity). Google Analytics is loaded only after you accept analytics cookies in the banner: before that nothing is sent to Google. Accepting allows analytics storage only, not advertising storage, advertising data or personalisation, and you can change your choice at any time with the Cookie settings link in the footer. We also use Vercel Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies.
Payment Data
Payments are processed by Stripe (web) or Apple/Google (mobile). Athrwise Ltd receives only a transaction confirmation — no card numbers or banking details are stored by us.
Server Logs
Standard logs (HTTP status codes, anonymised IPs, request paths) are retained for a maximum of 30 days for security and rate-limiting purposes.
2. How We Use Your Information
| Purpose | Legal Basis | Data Used |
|---|---|---|
| Account management | Contract performance | Email, name |
| Crescent visibility computation | Contract performance | Location (transient) |
| Publishing sighting reports | User consent (explicit submission) | Approximate position, time, outcome, notes, photo |
| Crescent Log (signed-in users) | User consent (explicit, given with each report) | Report details, broad region, scores |
| Push alerts you switch on | Consent | Push token, chosen location, time zone |
| Replying to support and rights requests | Legitimate interest and legal obligation | Email address, message |
| Pro subscription management | Contract performance | Stripe transaction confirmation |
| Platform analytics & improvement | Consent (Google Analytics cookies); legitimate interest (cookie-free Vercel analytics) | Anonymised usage data |
| Security & abuse prevention | Legitimate interest | IP address (short-lived rate-limit counters) |
We do not use your data for behavioural advertising or data broker services.
3. Third-Party Services
| Service | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk | Authentication; sets sign-in cookies on every visit | Email, name, profile picture; IP address and device data |
| Vercel | Hosting, CDN, cookie-free Web Analytics, photo storage (Blob) | Request logs, page views, photos you upload |
| Open-Meteo | Cloud cover & weather | Lat/lng (point query only, no storage); your browser may also contact it directly, which shows it your IP address |
| OpenStreetMap Nominatim | Place-name search and "use my location" lookups | The place name you type or your coordinates |
| OpenFreeMap and jsDelivr | Map tiles and map/globe code | Your IP address and the tiles requested |
| Stripe | Payment processing | Email, subscription status |
| Neon (PostgreSQL) | Database | Accounts, sighting records, Crescent Log, alert settings |
| Upstash (Redis) | Rate limiting and caching | IP address (short-lived rate-limit counter), rounded coordinates (terrain cache), a short-lived copy of the public recent-reports list |
| Zoho Mail (EU) | Support email and rights requests | Your email address and the contents of your message |
| Cloudflare (through Clerk) | Security cookies on the sign-in service | IP address |
| Google Analytics | Usage analytics, only after you accept analytics cookies | Pseudonymous usage data, device and browser type, approximate region |
| AWS Open Data Terrain Tiles | Public terrain elevation for the local horizon feature | Nothing about you: our server downloads public map tiles by tile number |
| Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) | Delivering the push alerts you switch on | Push subscription token |
We do not share your data with any third parties beyond those listed above.
4. Data Retention
| Data Type | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account data | Until you ask us to delete it; done within one month of a verified request |
| Crescent Log | Until you delete your account or ask us to erase it |
| Sighting reports | Indefinitely as public observations; anonymised if you ask for erasure |
| Support emails and rights-request records | As long as needed to handle the request and show we did so |
| Location queries (real-time) | Not stored |
| Push alert location, time zone and token | Until you switch alerts off or delete your account |
| Rate-limit counters (IP address) | Minutes |
| Terrain profile cache (rounded coordinates, not linked to you) | Up to 60 days |
| Server access logs | 30 days maximum |
| Payment records (Stripe) | 7 years (legal requirement) |
| Anonymised analytics | Aggregated indefinitely |
5. Your Rights
You have the right to access, rectify, erase, port, and restrict processing of your personal data. You also have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests and to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise any right, email support@moonsighting.live with the subject Data Protection — [Right]. We will respond within one month of receiving your request; for complex requests we may extend this by up to two further months and will tell you within the first month.
Notes on erasure: Public sighting reports are anonymised rather than kept with your account: we remove the link to your account, your notes and your photo, and keep the approximate position, time and result as part of the community dataset, or delete the report if you ask us to. Payment records are retained 7 years per regulation.
You may complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk, or, if you are in the EU/EEA, to your local Data Protection Authority, if you believe your data protection rights have been violated.
6. Cookies & Local Storage
| Storage | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-in cookies (Clerk) | Login session and bot protection; set on your first visit to any page | Session / up to about 400 days |
| Security cookies (Cloudflare, through Clerk) | Bot protection on the sign-in service | Session / short |
| localStorage | Language, theme, last location, cookie choice, whether you have seen the tour, daily streak, push subscription token, terrain profiles of places you viewed and obstruction angles you entered | Persistent (browser-controlled) |
| Google Analytics cookies | Usage statistics, set only if you accept analytics cookies | Up to 2 years |
We use no third-party advertising cookies or tracking pixels.
7. Children's Privacy
Hilal Vision is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe data from a child has been collected, please email support@moonsighting.live.
8. Security
- All data in transit is encrypted via TLS 1.2+
- Authentication delegated to Clerk (SOC 2 Type II certified)
- Database encrypted at rest
- Rate limiting prevents bulk API abuse
No system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute data security.
9. International Data Transfers
Our service providers (including Vercel, Clerk, Stripe, Upstash, Google and Cloudflare) may process data in the United Kingdom, the EU/EEA and the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK or the EEA we rely on an approved safeguard such as the UK-US data bridge, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or Standard Contractual Clauses, as set out in each provider's data processing terms.
10. Changes to This Policy
Material changes are notified via in-app notification and an updated date on this page. Continued use constitutes acceptance.
11. Contact
Email: support@moonsighting.live
Contact page: moonsighting.live/contact
Subject line to include: Data Protection — [Your Query]
Response time: Within one month for rights requests; for other questions we aim to reply within 48 hours