Privacy

Global News Map is run by Luma Tech Solutions. Questions: hello@lumatechsolutions.co.uk.

The website

Reading the map needs no account. We use no advertising, analytics or tracking scripts. Chat sign-in uses one essential HttpOnly session cookie for up to 14 days; no advertising cookies are used. Settings such as the map layers, the mode and the conflicts you follow are kept in your own browser. Your last visit and the last news change you saw are also remembered on your device, to show what changed when you return; these are not sent to us. To count how many people have the map open, each open tab sends a random id every minute, held in memory for a few minutes and never stored. On a first visit the globe turns to your country, looked up from your IP address in a local copy of DB-IP's database; the address is not stored or sent anywhere. Our web server keeps standard access logs for a short time to deal with abuse. Problem reports you send are stored so the maintainer can read them.

Community chat and accounts

Chat is public: anyone visiting can read messages and usernames, including messages from before they joined. Please avoid posting personal or sensitive information. Registration is for people aged 13 or over and records your username, a username colour, a salted password hash, a hashed recovery code, acceptance of the chat terms and account timestamps. We do not ask for an email address. Passwords and recovery codes are not stored as readable text. Keep your recovery code safe; we cannot recover it for you.

We process account and message data to provide the account and chat service you request (contract). We keep messages for up to 90 days, and accounts until you delete them. Replies and mentions may still refer to a former username after account deletion. Report reasons, moderation actions, suspension records and temporary abuse controls support our legitimate interests in protecting the community. Resolved reports and moderation audit entries expire after 90 days; open reports remain until reviewed. Rate-limit identifiers are keyed hashes of IP addresses and expire within a day. Private daily chat backups expire within 30 days.

Discord linking is optional. To verify an administrator, Discord shares your account identifier and the list of servers you belong to with your permissions. We check membership and Administrator permission in the Global News Map server; we do not retain that server list or request your email or private messages. The access token is encrypted at rest and expires after at most seven days. Admin permissions are rechecked at least every five minutes when used; linking again may be needed after token expiry. Discord also processes your data under its own privacy notice.

Chat data is hosted on our Hetzner server in Germany. Chat content and passwords are not sent to the news-reading AI. Account settings let you download your account and message data or delete your account and messages. Contact us for access, correction, restriction, an objection to legitimate-interest processing or a moderation appeal. We may retain information where legally required. You can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

The apps

The iOS, macOS and Android apps show the same map and ask for nothing more, unless you turn on alerts. Then the app sends us a push token issued by Apple or Google for this installation, whether you want alerts for everyone, and the ids of the conflicts you follow, and, if you watch places, where each one is, the name you gave it and how far around it to watch. Places are chosen on the map by you; the app never reads your device's location. We use all this only to send those alerts, through Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging (and Apple's push service on Apple devices). They are not linked to your name, email or any account, not shared with anyone else, and deleted when you turn alerts off or uninstall the app. The home screen widget only downloads the current top conflicts.

Third parties

Satellite imagery (EOX), rain radar (RainViewer) and live TV (YouTube) load from those providers only when you switch them on, and they see your IP address as any website would. Article links take you to the news outlets.

See also the terms of use. Last updated 1 October 2026.