Privacy — Plain and Simple Planes

Last updated 2 August 2026.

The short version: one thing leaves your phone — roughly where you are, rounded to about a kilometre — and it goes to a volunteer network so they can tell you what is above you. Nothing is stored, by them or by us, and there is no Plain and Simple server for anything to reach.

Why this app is different from the others

Every other Plain and Simple app works with the phone in airplane mode, because everything it needs is inside it. This one cannot. Where aircraft are right now is not a fact that exists on your device, and no amount of anything shipped inside the app would change that.

So Planes asks a question of somebody else's computer, and the honest thing is to say exactly what is in the question.

What leaves your phone

A coordinate, rounded to two decimal places — about a kilometre — and the distance you have asked it to look. That is the whole request.

Rounding is not a setting and cannot be turned off. It happens once, in one place in the code, before the position can reach a web address at all, and the app has a test that fails the build if a finer coordinate ever could. About a kilometre is enough to work out which aircraft are above you; it is not enough to say which street you are on.

What does not leave your phone:

• No name, no email address, no account — there is nothing to sign in to.
• No device identifier, no advertising identifier, no advertising.
• No analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting. Not ours, not anyone's.
• No contacts, no photos, no microphone, no health data.
• Nothing at all when the app is closed, or in the background. It only asks while you are looking at it.

Who it goes to

Two services, and only these two. The app has a test that fails the build if a third address is ever added, which is there to stop exactly the sort of convenience that arrives quietly.

adsb.lol — the live positions of aircraft. It is a network of volunteers running radio receivers in their homes and sharing what they hear. Your rounded coordinate is sent so they can answer "what is near this point". No account and no key is involved, so there is nothing to attach a request to a person by. Their data is published under the Open Database License, which the app credits on screen because the license requires it and because they have earned it.

adsbdb — turns a flight number into an origin and a destination. It receives the flight number of an aircraft you are looking at, and nothing about you. It is asked only when the app needs the answer, and the answer is remembered in memory for as long as the app is open and then thrown away.

Neither is run by us, and both have their own terms. We do not receive a copy of anything either of them is told.

The map, if you turn it on

The Map screen draws range rings and the aircraft on them. That needs nothing from anybody — the rings are drawn by the app, and the aircraft are the ones it already had.

You can also turn on Apple's map underneath them, so you see the actual ground: roads, rivers, the airport. It is off until you switch it on, and the first time you press the button the app explains what changes and gives you the option to decline. You can turn it off again at any time, on the map or in Settings.

What changes when it is on: the map is drawn by Apple Maps, which is built into your phone, so Apple's map service sends those map pictures to your phone and sees roughly which area you are looking at. That is Apple, under Apple's own privacy terms, and we cannot make promises on their behalf — which is exactly why it is off by default and why you are told before it comes on rather than after.

What does not change: Plain and Simple still runs no servers, still has no account, and still receives nothing about you. The app does not fetch the map itself and does not contact Apple — it hands the built-in map component an area, in the same way it hands the App Store a link and lets your phone open it. The two services listed above are still the only addresses this app contacts, and the test that fails the build on a third one is unchanged.

The camera

The Look Up tab shows the sky through the camera so you can compare it with the list.

It is a viewfinder and nothing else. The app has no photo output, no video output, and no access to your photo library, and there is a test that reads the source code and fails the build if any of those ever appear. Nothing is photographed, recorded, saved, or sent anywhere. The picture exists on screen and then it is gone.

The camera runs only while you are on that tab. It is not started on any of the others, so it is not started at all unless you go there.

What is stored on your device

Your settings — units, how far to look, and which aircraft you want shown — and a note of the rounded position the app last asked about, so the home screen widget knows where to ask. Both stay on the device. Deleting the app removes them.

Aircraft positions and routes are not saved. They are shown and then discarded, which is also why the widget never shows a route: route data may not be written to disk under the terms it comes with, and a widget draws from things on disk.

Deleting your data

There is nothing of yours anywhere to delete. Removing the app removes the settings on your device, and that is the entire footprint.

We cannot delete anything for you because we have never had anything.

Children

The app collects nothing from anyone, of any age, so there is no children's data to treat differently — there is no data.

Changes

If any of this ever changes, this page changes with it, with a new date at the top. In particular, if a third service were ever added it would be named here.

Getting in touch

help@plainandsimple.app