WTF Allergies
Effective August 7, 2026
With your permission, WTF Allergies uses your device location to fetch the pollen, air quality, and weather for where you are. To do that, your coordinates (or, for the UV forecast, a ZIP code derived from your location on your device) are sent to the third-party data providers listed below so they can return local conditions. Your precise location and any places you save are stored on your device; a location can be saved alongside a check-in so you can see where you were when you logged it. You can turn location off at any time in iOS Settings; the app still works using a default area. Direct environmental requests generally use coordinates rounded to two decimal places (about 1.1 km); the pollen relay uses the coarser cell described below. Apple's geocoding service may receive the device coordinate to resolve the place name or ZIP.
We do not build an individual location history. If you opt into live alerts, the alert service stores only the current one-decimal latitude/longitude cell (about 11 km north-to-south) for the area Polly should monitor. Moving to another alert area replaces that cell; there is no table of previous cells. Disabling live alerts asks the service to delete the subscription immediately.
On-device briefings and check-in reminders do not require a Polly server subscription. Live environmental-change alerts are a separate, explicit opt-in. If you enable them, the app sends our Cloudflare-hosted alert service an Apple Push Notification service (APNs) device token, a random per-installation ID, an update/deletion secret, the coarse current alert cell described above, your time zone, Polly voice, sensitivity, selected alert categories, briefing times, and quiet hours.
The APNs token is encrypted at rest with AES-GCM, and only a one-way hash of the update/deletion secret is stored. The service does not receive your name, Apple Account, advertising identifier, precise coordinates, saved places, symptoms, feel history, foods, medications, remedies, notes, Home & Animals profile, indoor observations, photos, Apple Health data, or learned associations. Notification payloads contain environmental facts and an in-app destination only.
The service checks environmental providers using the shared coarse cell, sends the resulting notification through APNs, and records short-lived delivery keys to prevent duplicate pushes. Disabling live alerts unregisters the phone from remote notifications and requests deletion; if the phone is offline, the app retries that deletion when it next opens. Delivery keys are removed after 14 days, and subscriptions not refreshed for 120 days are removed automatically. Shared provider caches are not a location trail and are not linked to a health diary. Service logs contain aggregate run counts only; stored per-request invocation logs are disabled.
Check-ins (how you feel, symptoms, whether you're sick), medications and remedies, foods you log, indoor/animal observations, measured indoor-humidity bands, and related notes are stored only on your device using Apple's on-device storage. This information is not automatically transmitted to us or to any third party. If you back up your iPhone to iCloud or your computer, this data is included in that private backup, which is controlled by Apple and your device settings — not by us.
If you choose to use Home & Animals, the app stores your answers about animals, flooring and soft surfaces, cleaning cadence, moisture clues, humidity-related devices, and indoor air sources on your device. Check-ins can include optional animal/indoor observations, cleaning actions, and a broad indoor-humidity band measured with your own room sensor. The app does not access a home sensor automatically, and outdoor weather is never recorded as an indoor humidity measurement.
The app may also store broad weather-context tags such as a moisture-heavy stretch, cold stretch, or snow/ice forecast. They are calculated on your device from the same National Weather Service data already fetched for the app. They describe outdoor context only and are not a mold inspection, indoor-air measurement, home assessment, or conclusion about what caused symptoms.
If you use the Apple Watch app, a check-in you file on the watch (how you feel and when) is sent to your paired iPhone over Apple's encrypted device-to-device connection. It is not routed through any server of ours.
The camera identification feature processes plant photos on your device. The current release does not upload those photos.
Connecting Apple Health is entirely optional, and nothing is read or written until you choose to connect it and grant access on Apple's permission screen. With your permission:
This Health data is used only on your device and is never sent to us or to any third party. You can turn the connection off in WTF Allergies's Settings and review or revoke permissions in the Apple Health app under Sharing. Deleting data in WTF Allergies does not delete symptom entries already written into Apple Health; review or delete those in Apple Health.
Subscriptions are processed by Apple through the App Store. Apple handles your payment; WTF Allergies only receives whether you have an active subscription. We never see your card or Apple Account details.
To keep the seven-day complimentary Plus period from casually restarting after an ordinary reinstall, the app stores one first-start timestamp in the device Keychain. It contains no name, account, health, diary, or location data and is not sent to us. Apple's Keychain may preserve this single timestamp when the app is removed. The in-app Delete all local app data action removes it.
WTF Allergies includes no third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking software. If you have opted into sharing crash and usage data with developers in your iOS settings, Apple may share aggregate, non-identifying diagnostics with us through App Store Connect. You can turn this off in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Analytics & Improvements.
The Relief section contains clearly labeled Amazon affiliate links, and other screens link to source and policy websites. A third party receives information under its own privacy policy only when you choose to open its link. We do not send your health logs with those links.
To return local conditions, your coordinates or ZIP are sent to these services, each governed by its own privacy policy:
Our pollen relay receives a coarse, one-decimal location (about an 11 km grid cell) and a forecast-window request — no name, device identifier, health log, or account. It stores Google's shared forecast under that cell for up to 12 hours so nearby users reuse one lookup; it does not build an individual location history. Stored successful-request logs are disabled, and our error messages contain no coordinates or app token. Cloudflare processes standard connection information to deliver the request under its own policy.
The separate Polly live-alert service is also hosted on Cloudflare. It queries NWS/NOAA, AirNow, Google Pollen, and NASA FIRMS from the coarse shared cell when those feeds are available, then sends environment-only notification text through APNs. Cloudflare and Apple necessarily process standard connection and delivery information under their own privacy policies.
Because your logs live on your device, you are in control of them:
WTF Allergies is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Your health and wellness record remains in your hands on your device. The only persistent server-side record specific to an installation is the minimal live-alert subscription described above, and only when you opt in. You can delete it by turning live alerts off or using "Delete all local app data." If you have questions about access, correction, deletion, or other privacy rights (including under laws such as the CCPA or GDPR), contact us at apps@hiatusstudios.com.
WTF Allergies is an informational and educational tool, not a medical device, and it does not provide medical advice or a diagnosis. It does not inspect, score, or certify a home. Any patterns it surfaces — including animal, measured indoor-humidity, and seasonal indoor-context patterns — are associations worth watching, not clinical findings or proof of cause. Cleaning actions are retained as context and are not assumed to have helped or hurt. Always talk to a qualified healthcare professional about your symptoms.
We may update this policy; the "Effective" date above will change and, for significant updates, we'll note it in the app.