Privacy Policy

Who operates PNW Roads

PNW Roads is an independently operated road, weather, fire, public-safety, wildlife, and public-health information service available at pnwroads.com and through the PNW Roads Android app. PNW Roads is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by any government agency.

Privacy questions and data requests can be sent to admin@pnwroads.com.

Information we handle

• Optional location: If you choose Find My Location or select a state from the opening screen, your device provides latitude and longitude so PNW Roads can match your county. General browsing does not require location access.
• Road reports: A submitted report can include a road or landmark, map pin, observation time, description, optional photographs, and optional name, email address, and mobile number.
• Community map reports: A community report stores its selected road or weather condition, optional detail, incident marker, report and confirmation times, vote totals, and a one-way browser or administrator identifier used to limit duplicate voting. Public map reports appear immediately when reporting is enabled. Administrator-only previews remain private.
• Feedback and support: Bug reports and feature requests can include contact information, written content, page URLs, and optional attachments.
• App testing signups: Tester applications include your name, mobile number, state, county, Android or Apple platform choice, the Google or Apple account email used on your device, and information you choose to provide about prior app-testing experience.
• Traveler accounts and saved trips: If you create a traveler account, PNW Roads stores your display name, email address, a securely hashed password, and the starting point, destinations, trip name, and category choices for plans you choose to save.
• Technical information: Our hosting systems can process IP address, browser or device user-agent information, request timestamps, security logs, session cookies, and similar information needed to operate and protect the service.
• Device storage: The app can use session storage or local storage for preferences such as display mode and install state, and to temporarily carry an unfinished trip into traveler-account sign-in. This device data remains until the app removes it or you clear it.

How location works

Location is optional. PNW Roads requests your current location after you choose Find My Location, select a state from the opening screen, or open the Driving Map with location permission already granted. If permission has not been granted, the Driving Map asks before starting. Before the first request, PNW Roads displays an in-app disclosure so you can choose whether to use location. PNW Roads does not request background location when the app is closed or not in use.

For county matching, coordinates are sent over an encrypted connection to PNW Roads and then to the U.S. Census Geocoder. County-lookup coordinates are not intentionally saved in the PNW Roads application database or used for advertising. Your automatic-county-matching choice can be stored on your device as a preference.

If you capture or enter a map pin as part of a road report, those coordinates are stored with the report so an administrator can review and verify it. You can deny location access and select a state, county, and location manually.

If you intentionally place a community report from the Driving Map, the incident coordinates are stored so the marker can be shown with county and trip conditions. The report retires after four hours unless someone confirms that it is still present. PNW Roads does not store the route you drove to reach the reported location.

Driving Map Location Privacy

Holding the map drops a private destination pin. Your destination pins, saved addresses, and planned trips are not added to public maps or other travelers' accounts. Choosing Save this location stores only the coordinates and name you selected on the PNW Roads server. Signed-in travelers save to their own account and can retrieve those locations on their other signed-in devices. Guest locations belong to the existing anonymous device identity. The installed Android app uses its persistent app identity independently of Chrome site data. Create account and Sign in links let you carry a selected pin into sign-in; saving it to the account requires choosing Save this location after sign-in. Guest locations are not automatically merged into an account. Saved locations are separate from active trips and live GPS updates. You can rename or remove them from Saved locations in the map's destination chooser. Account deletion also removes locations saved to that account. Browser guests need their original device cookie to retrieve saved locations.

Save route to my account stores the named trip's starting point and chosen destinations in My Saved Trips. Loading it recalculates the route and current warnings. These plans are private to that account and return after sign-in on another device. This saves selected plans, not a recording of the locations you drove through.

The speedometer uses device-reported speed without sending speed readings to a server. Speed-zone matching happens in your browser. To obtain public speed-zone data, PNW Roads requests a coarse map area (roughly 3–5 km across) from state, county, and city transportation services in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho and caches road data for up to one hour. These requests contain no exact GPS fix, speed reading, traveler identifier, or planned route. PNW Roads also stores a regional OpenStreetMap road index on its own server, refreshed weekly. This index contains public roads and mapped limits, not traveler locations. Public road-data caches are shared and are not a driving-history record.

When you open the Driving Map with location permission already granted, or choose Allow location, the Driving Map automatically follows your vehicle and repeatedly reads your device location while the screen is visible to update the vehicle marker and current county. Coordinates are sent over an encrypted connection to PNW Roads and the U.S. Census Geocoder for county matching. OpenStreetMap receives map tile requests for the area you view. County lookups are limited to periodic checks rather than every GPS update.

Drive to here searches an address or place using OpenStreetMap geocoding (with Census address lookup as a fallback), then sends your starting location and chosen destination to the OSRM route service to draw a driving route. The planned route is also sent to the U.S. Census boundary service to identify every county crossed and collect warnings for the whole trip. Starting a destination automatically saves the latest planned route on this device and a private recovery copy on the PNW Roads server. In browser-only sessions, signed-in travelers can recover it on another device after signing into the same account, and guests recover it using a persistent, private device cookie. Android app versions with native trip storage also save the latest route and a random installation identity in the app's private persistent storage. This does not require a traveler account or shared-file permission. The app uses that identity for its private server recovery copy, independently of Chrome cookies. Clearing Chrome history, cookies, cache, and site data does not erase the app-owned copy. Clearing PNW Roads app storage or uninstalling PNW Roads removes that local copy and installation identity. The last destination remains available until replaced or ended, even after its active driving session expires. Resume requests your current location and refreshes the route. Clearing cached images and files does not intentionally remove recovery data. In browser-only sessions, clearing all site data removes browser-downloaded copies and the guest cookie identity; signed-in travelers can recover their server copy by signing in again. This browser-only limitation does not apply to the app-owned storage in native Android versions. Android versions with Previous destinations also retain up to 50 chosen final destinations with the date and time of each trip start in private app storage. This list stays on that installation and is not uploaded as a history to our server. Ending a trip keeps these previous destinations; Clear destination history removes the list without ending the current trip. It survives clearing browser data, but clearing PNW Roads app storage or uninstalling removes it. It does not store a history of live GPS updates. Your location consent choice may be remembered on your device.

Your driving history is not saved to your traveler account or the PNW Roads application database. Tracking pauses when the page is hidden and resumes when you return to an active driving session. Stop or closing the page stops live tracking. The latest planned route remains available through Resume Trip; it does not contain a history of GPS updates. You can browse counties without sharing location. Device permissions can be revoked in your browser or operating-system settings.

Trip Planner Location Privacy

When you build a trip, location and destination coordinates are sent to OpenStreetMap geocoding and map services, the OSRM route service, and the U.S. Census Bureau county service.

Building a trip alone does not save it to a traveler account. Save My Trip keeps a named plan. Starting navigation automatically saves the latest destination for recovery, privately under the signed-in account or guest device identity. Loading a saved trip sends its saved locations back through the route and county services so PNW Roads can refresh current drive estimates and alerts.

Gas-price pilot

The gas-price pilot is restricted to administrators. An explicit search sends the selected location or sampled planned route to Google Places. Current GPS is requested only after choosing the GPS search. This feature stores aggregate provider-request totals; it does not save search locations, fuel results, or live GPS history. Results are displayed temporarily and clear after ten minutes. Google's processing is governed by the Google Privacy Policy, incorporated here for this feature.

Traveler Account Privacy

Traveler accounts use a session cookie to keep you signed in. Passwords are stored as one-way password hashes rather than readable passwords. Saved trips are private to the signed-in account and are not intended to be published or shared with other travelers.

You can delete individual saved trips from My Saved Trips. You can also permanently delete your account and all saved trips at any time from the in-app Manage Account link or the public Delete Traveler Account page. Current-password confirmation is required. If you cannot sign in, email admin@pnwroads.com from the account email address.

How we use information

We use information to match nearby counties, route users to appropriate official resources, review and verify road reports, provide private report-status pages, respond to support requests, recruit and coordinate app testers, send official store-testing links and requested status emails, prevent abuse, secure the service, and maintain reliable app operation.

PNW Roads does not sell personal information and does not use submitted personal information for targeted advertising.

When information is shared

Public alerts and public Live Travel Map reports may be posted automatically to the PNWRoads Facebook Page for the affected county, beginning with Mason County, Washington. Posts include public incident text, the incident location, report or confirmation times, source attribution, and a category graphic. Private reporter identifiers, contact fields, IP addresses, account details, and saved trips are excluded. Do not include personal or private information in public incident text. Meta processes posts under its own policies. Updates or retirement may update the Facebook post; copies shared by others may remain.

Information can be processed by service providers that support hosting, security, file storage, and email delivery. A user-initiated county lookup sends coordinates to the U.S. Census Geocoder. When you follow an external official-source link, the destination site receives information according to its own privacy practices.

Verified road details may be rewritten or published as a PNW Roads alert after administrator review. Reporter contact information, IP address, user-agent information, and private tracking token are not intentionally published. Information may also be disclosed when required by law or necessary to protect users, the public, or the service.

Retention and deletion

Road reports, community report audit records, feedback, tester signups, traveler accounts, saved trips, attachments, technical logs, and related records are retained only as long as reasonably needed for review, trip-saving services, testing coordination, verification, safety history, support, security, legal compliance, and service operation. Community reports stop appearing on active maps when they retire; limited report and vote records may remain for abuse prevention, restoration, and operational review. Self-service traveler-account deletion immediately removes the account and saved trips. PNW Roads retains only a non-personal deletion event number, former internal account number, saved-trip count, deletion channel, and deletion time for operational audit purposes. Other records can be deleted, anonymized, or retained longer when required for security, fraud prevention, legal obligations, or an ongoing public-safety record.

You may request access, correction, or deletion by emailing admin@pnwroads.com. Include enough information to identify the submission, such as its tracking URL or the email address used. We may need to verify that you are authorized to make the request.

Security and children

PNW Roads uses encrypted HTTPS connections and access controls appropriate to the service. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. PNW Roads is intended for a general road-travel audience and is not directed to children under 13.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app, legal requirements, or data practices change. The effective date above will be updated when material changes are published.