Privacy policy
First Chair shows snow forecasts, drive times, road conditions and road cams for ski resorts you pick. It has no accounts and does not sell or share personal data.
What stays on your phone
- Home Base. Optional. If you set one, it is stored only on your device (in the system keychain) and never sent to our servers. You can type an address or use your current location, or skip it; the app works without it, minus drive times.
- Your resort picks and settings. Stored only on your device.
Location
Location access is optional. The app asks for it only when you tap "Use my current location" on the Home Base screen; it never asks at launch. When allowed, it reads your position once, while the app is open, to fill in your Home Base. It does not track your location, and alerts never use it. If you decline, you can type an address instead or turn location on later in Settings.
Drive time
To show live drive time, the app sends your home location, rounded to about 1 km, and the resort's location directly from your phone to Mapbox, our routing provider. Mapbox's handling of that request is covered by the Mapbox privacy policy. This request does not go through our servers.
Directions
Tapping "Directions" opens Apple Maps or Google Maps with the resort's main base lodge or day-skier parking as the destination. The app passes only the resort's street address (or its name when no address is known) and a nearby map point; your starting point is handled by the Maps app under its own privacy policy. First Chair does not see or store your route.
Our servers
When the app refreshes, it asks our server for public conditions at the resorts you picked (snow, road status, cams, forecast). The request contains only resort identifiers. Like any web server, ours briefly processes your IP address to answer the request and to limit abuse. It is not linked to you, and the only place it is kept is a short-lived rate-limit counter for feedback, deleted within about a day. Our server runs on Cloudflare, which processes these requests for us.
Road cams
Road cam images and video load directly from the state transportation agency that runs each camera (for example Caltrans or WSDOT), so that agency's server sees your IP address, as with any website.
Feedback you send
If you use "Send feedback" or "Report a problem," we receive your message, the feedback type, the resort it is about (if any), and the app version, operating system version and device model. Your email is included only if you choose to type it in, so we can reply. Feedback is stored on Cloudflare and emailed to our support inbox so we can read and answer it. It is kept for up to 180 days and is never used for marketing. It never includes your home address or your list of resorts. To have feedback you sent deleted sooner, email us at the address below.
Alerts
Alerts are optional and off until you turn one on in Settings, which is when your phone asks for notification permission.
Chain and closure alerts come from our server, within about 10 minutes of a state DOT change on a pass on the way to your resorts. To send them, our server stores two things for each phone that turns them on: a push token (an address Apple or Google issues so a notification can reach the app) and the list of mountain passes to watch. It does not store your Home Base, your location, your resort list or anything that identifies you. The alert is delivered through Expo's push service (Expo, the platform the app is built on, passes it to Apple or Google). Turning the alert off deletes the token and pass list from our server right away; they also expire after 120 days if the app isn't opened, and are removed when Apple or Google report the app is no longer installed.
Closure, opening-day and wind alerts are checked by your phone in the background a few times a day; it asks our server for the same public resort conditions described above and shows the notification itself. Nothing about these alert settings is sent to our servers.
Diagnostics and usage counts
The app may send crash reports (Sentry) and anonymous usage counts (Aptabase), such as how often the app is opened or which resorts are added. These contain no name, address, contact details, advertising identifier or device identifier, and are not used to track you across apps or websites.
The website
First Chair also runs as a website at firstchairapp.com. It works like the app, with these differences: your picked resorts, settings and Home Base are kept in your browser's storage on your device (not in the system keychain) and are never sent to our servers. The website uses no cookies and no advertising or cross-site trackers. firstchairapp.com is served by Cloudflare, which processes your IP address to deliver the pages, and uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits (pages viewed, browser type, country and load times) without cookies, fingerprinting or any identifier that follows you.
Children
The app is not directed at children. Apart from an email address you choose to type into the feedback form, it collects no personal information.
Changes and contact
We will update this page if the app's data practices change. Questions: support@firstchairapp.com.