Privacy Policy
Flow Now shows public river data published by the U.S. Geological Survey. It has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party code of any kind.
The short version
The developer collects nothing about you. There is no Flow Now server — nothing you do in the app is sent to us, because there is nowhere for it to go.
Location
If you allow it, Flow Now uses your location to list river gauges near you.
- Your location is used on your device to sort and filter gauges by distance.
- Before any request leaves your device, your position is rounded to a grid roughly 9 km (6 miles) across. The area sent to the USGS is built from that rounded point, never from your actual position.
- Your precise location is never transmitted anywhere.
- Your location is not stored, other than as that rounded grid point, used as the key for a local list of nearby gauges so the app doesn't re-fetch it constantly.
- Declining is fine. The app works without location — you search for gauges by river name, town or zip code instead.
Searching
- Searching by river name sends that text to the USGS to look up matching gauges.
- Searching by town or zip code sends that text to Apple's geocoding service, which turns it into a coordinate. Apple's handling of that request is covered by Apple's Privacy Policy.
- Your searches are not recorded or retained by the app.
What is sent to the USGS
Only gauge site numbers, a rounded area (described above), and state codes. Nothing that identifies you or your device. The USGS is a U.S. government agency; see the USGS Privacy Policy.
What is stored on your device
- The gauge you selected and its most recent reading
- Your display preferences (which reading to show, temperature units)
- A cache of nearby gauge lists and historical flow statistics
This lives in a private container shared between Flow Now and its widget. It never leaves your device, and deleting the app deletes all of it.
Children
Flow Now collects no personal information from anyone, including children.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date above will change with it.
Contact
Questions: cspan00@pm.me