Who we are
Explane.org is an informal organization to promote the use of the noise registration app Explane and to deliver open access to the data it delivers.
We aim to provide independent information on aviation noise as opposed to the colored information most aviation organizations deliver.
Our website address is: https://cms.explane.org. You can reach us via our e-mail address info@explane.org.
What data we collect and why we collect it
All data that is submitted with the Explane app will be stored in a database and can be used for publication.
This data exist of:
- The airplane information that is captured as described in https://opensky-network.org/apidoc/rest.html
- Date and time of the measurement
- Your location when starting the app in longitude and latitude values
- The decibels measured by your device during the “measuring decibels” period in timeslots of 500 milliseconds
- Data about the device you are using when submitting the registration.
The airplane information, date time, your location and decibels are used to be able to report about the airplane noise to influence decision makers, politicians, press and other stakeholders in airport activities and policies.
The data about your device that is stored in the database consist of these properties:
model
The device.model returns the name of the device’s model or product. The value is set by the device manufacturer and may be different across versions of the same product.
platform
Get the device’s operating system name.
version
Get the operating system version.
manufacturer
Get the device’s manufacturer.
isVirtual
Whether the device is running on a simulator.
serial
Get the device hardware serial number.
The serial number will be used when we suspect a user is making fake registrations, by for example by making a lot of noise during the measurement. With this serial number those submissions can be filtered out. With this serial number a user is also able to apply to delete his or her registrations from our database.
The other device data can be used to analyze the accuracy of the decibel measurement based on the device properties. For example, based on these properties, we might detect that a certain model/version of a device is not good at measuring decibels.
Feedback
When visitors leave feedback via the app or via our website https://explane.org we collect the data that you provide us with. That is:
- Your feedback
- Your e-mail address (optional)
- Your rating for the app
We use your feedback to learn from and possibly improve our app or models. Your e-mail address, if submitted, is only used to answer your questions or to follow-up on your comments. Your rating is just nice for us to read. Maybe we will publish the average user rating after we collected a substantial number of ratings.
News items
If you send a possible news item to our news partner SchipholWatch as asked for in the app, SchipholWatch may use this item to edit it and publish it in the Explane-app, at our website https://explane.org or on their own website https://schipholwatch.nl.
Publication will take place on the basis of journalist principles. If you do not want to be quoted as source of the information, please indicate this in your contacts with SchipholWatch. These wishes will be respected. You can read their privacy policy at https://schipholwatch.nl/privacybeleid/.
SchipholWatch’s site is edited by two experienced journalists, formerly working at leading Dutch news papers.
Cookies
When you visit our site https://explane.org, we set up a cookie for our web statistics via Google Analytics. Here you can find Google’s privacy policy.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles in the app may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who we share your data with
We will be sharing all collected data via an open access database. This database will be accessible via our site https://explane.org.
For your privacy we will delete the last two digits of your registered longitude and lattitude. This means our visitors can see in which neighborhood your noise registration was made, but can not see at which exact address.
Information about your device will not be available via the open access database. This information might be made available on special request, for example to students who want to research the data.
As far as we know there is no publicly available information which connects the serial number of your smartphone to your person. If you find out otherwise, please don’t hesitate to contact us via info@explane.org.
We will not sell any personal information to third parties.
How long we retain your data
Your noise registrations will be saved ‘forever’. We aim to build a database that can also be used to determine historic trends.
Feedback will be destroyed after we have processed it. We will save the information to a maximum of one year.
What rights you have over your data
If you have send us noise registrations you can request us to delete these registrations from our database. You will need to provide us with your device’s serial number to do so and the proof that it is your device’s number. We are not storing any other personal information.
What third parties we receive data from
We receive data from the OpenSky database and from Google Analytics.