Privacy notice
Effective September 8, 2026. This notice reflects the site's current practices and is revised when they change.
This notice describes what Noise Overhead collects, why, how long it is kept, and with whom it is shared. The site carries no advertising, uses no analytics service, and does not sell or share personal information for anyone's marketing.
What we collect, and why
When you request a report
- The address you enter. We need it to find the point on the map and to build the report. We keep it so we can see which areas people ask about and so the same address is not computed twice in a day.
- Your IP address and your browser's description of itself. Both are used to enforce the limit of a few reports per visitor per day, to keep automated scripts out, and to see how the site is used.
- The report itself. It is stored behind a random link so you can share it or come back to it. It contains modeled sound levels, flight paths and times near the address, and nothing that identifies you. It names each of the loudest aircraft of the week it lists by type and registered owner, from the public FAA aircraft registry, and by the airline and flight number each was broadcasting, or by tail number where there was no airline; where the registry records the owner as a private individual rather than an organization, we do not show it.
When you leave an email address
- The email address, kept to send one message when our service to order and generate full reports is available.
- Your IP address and browser description, kept so that a script cannot fill the list with addresses that are not its own, and so we can find and remove such entries if it happens.
Always
- Web server logs. Like every website, the server in front of the application records the IP address, time and page of each request. These logs are rotated automatically and are not combined with anything above.
- Cookies. The bot check may set a cookie of its own to remember that your browser passed. We set one ourselves only while the site is behind a shared password, to remember that the password was entered on this browser; it says nothing about you and is not used to recognize you anywhere else. Neither is used for advertising or analytics.
- No tracking, and no response to Do Not Track. We do not follow you across other sites and use no advertising or analytics service, so there is nothing for a browser's Do Not Track signal to turn off, and we do not act on it. We are not aware of any third party collecting information about your activity across other sites through this one.
How long we keep it
- Your IP address and browser description are erased from the request record after 90 days. The address you asked about stays, without anything to connect it to you.
- A report and its link are deleted after 30 days.
- The result of looking up an address on the map is kept for 180 days, so the same address is not looked up twice. It holds coordinates only.
- An email address stays on the list until the one announcement has gone out, or until you ask for it to be removed, whichever comes first. The IP address recorded with it is erased after 90 days. When you ask us to remove an address we keep the address itself, and nothing else, so that it stays off the list and cannot be added again; ask us to delete it instead and nothing at all is kept.
Who else sees anything
Building a report involves three outside services, each of which sees only what it needs:
- Geocoding. The address you enter is sent to a geocoding service to find its coordinates: the OpenStreetMap Foundation's Nominatim service and, as a fallback, the United States Census Bureau's geocoder. They see the address and our server's identity, not yours.
- The bot check. Cloudflare Turnstile runs in your browser when you press a button and tells us whether the request came from a person. Cloudflare sees your IP address and some technical details of your browser. Its own privacy policy governs what it does with them.
- The map. The map behind a report is drawn from OpenStreetMap tiles that your browser fetches directly. The tile servers see your IP address and which small area of the map you are looking at.
No other party receives personal information from us. We do not share, sell or trade any of the above.
Your choices
- You can use the site without leaving an email address.
- To have an email address taken off the list, write to us from that address. We take it off for good: it is left out of anything we send, and a later sign-up cannot put it back. Doing that means keeping the address itself, and nothing else, for no purpose but keeping it off the list. If you would rather we deleted it outright, say so and we will — with nothing kept, nothing then stops the same address being entered here again.
- To ask what we hold about an address you entered on the site, write to us as well. We will answer within a few days.
- Sharing a report link shares the report, which contains the address it was made for. Share a link only with people you are willing to give that address to.
Children
The site is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13.
Where it lives
Everything above is stored on a server in the United States and is intended for use with addresses in the United States.
Changes to this notice
Material changes to what we collect, keep or share are announced by posting the revised notice on this page with a new effective date. We hold no contact details for visitors other than the email list, which is reserved for the single announcement described above, so no individual notification is sent.
Questions about this notice go to the same address: the contact address.