Privacy
Privacy policy
Who is responsible
The controller for the processing of personal data is Fly4Fun GmbH, Gässli 5, CH-7307 Jenins, reachable at info@aviation-helper.com. We process personal data under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). Where persons in the EU are concerned we additionally observe the GDPR.
This website
The website is a static site without accounts, forms or cookies. Fonts and images are served from our own server; no third-party content is embedded, except for an optional introductory video that only transmits data to the video platform once you play it.
On each visit the web server records in its log files the IP address, date and time, the page requested, the browser and the referring page. These data serve the operation and security of the server and are deleted after 30 days.
If you e-mail us, we store your message and contact details in order to reply.
The Aviation Helper app: what data we process
The app is club software. The data in the app belongs to the respective club, which records it to manage its flight operations. Fly4Fun GmbH operates the app on behalf of the clubs and processes the data only as far as operation requires.
- Account: e-mail address, name, language. Sign-in runs through our identity service (Keycloak); passwords are stored there in hashed form, we never see them.
- Membership: role and classification in the club, licence number, validations (check flight, medical, licence), emergency contacts entered by the member.
- Flight operations: reservations, logbook entries, training record, theory lessons, flight assignments, vouchers, invoices and payment status, instructor availability.
- Guests and voucher buyers: For trial and sightseeing flights the club stores name and contact details of guests and of voucher buyers as a club contact, without an account; contacts without activity are deleted after three years.
- Electronic signatures: Whoever signs a solo flight authorization, the closing of a training record or the DTO annual report in the app leaves the image of the signature together with name, time, method (drawn, stored or on the instructor's device), a verification code, the checksum of the signed document and the shortened browser identifier – without IP address. The signature stored in the profile is visible only to the person themselves and only they can use it. The signature is kept as long as the signed document.
- Flight paths and photos for training: If a club switches on flight path recording, the app receives the positions (time, location, altitude, device address) of the club's aircraft entered for it and buffers them for at most 24 hours, without linking them to any person. All that stays with the lesson is the map image that the pilot or instructor frames from the flight. Students, instructors and club owners can add up to three photos to each lesson; the app downscales them and removes all embedded data in the process, including the location where they were taken. Flight path images and photos are visible only to the student, the instructors and the owners of the club.
- Notifications: push subscriptions of your devices, your settings per notification type, and a record of sent SMS (recipient and occasion, without message text) for the club's cost control.
- Records: evidence of answered lesson requests, deleted reservations (with reason), created FADP disclosures and changes to records (who, when).
Who sees the data
Within the app, members of a club see the reservations and availabilities of their club. The club owner additionally sees member data, invoices and accounting of their club. Instructors see the training records of their students. Guest details of a flight assignment are visible only to the assigned pilot. Data of other clubs is never visible.
As operator, Fly4Fun GmbH has technical access to the database but uses it solely for operation, troubleshooting and support at a club's request.
Service providers and data transfers
Where the data is stored: The app, its database and this website run on servers in Germany; the mail server that sends invitations, invoices and notifications is hosted with the same provider in Germany. Germany is part of the European Economic Area and appears on the Swiss list of countries with adequate data protection (Annex 1 of the Data Protection Ordinance), so disclosure there requires no additional safeguards. Text messages are sent through the provider smsup.ch and push notifications through the infrastructure of the browser vendors (Apple, Google, Mozilla) – both may also process data outside the EEA.
To run the service we use providers that process data on our behalf: hosting of the app and database, e-mail delivery (invitations, invoices, notifications), SMS delivery (only if a member enables SMS notifications) and the push services of the browser vendors (Apple, Google, Mozilla) through which push notifications are delivered. Push notifications contain only the title and text of the message.
Two transfers only take place if a club or member sets them up: handing over logbook entries to capzlog.aero (the member stores their own key for this) and displaying a club's Dropbox folder (the club connects its own Dropbox account).
Flight paths: The positions come from the Open Glider Network (glidernet.org), an open network of ground stations that publishes the signals of FLARM devices and transponders. The app only listens there to the aircraft a club enters for it and whose holder has allowed tracking in the network's device database; in doing so it tells the network nothing but the device addresses of these aircraft. When a flight path is framed, the browser loads the map tiles directly from swisstopo (national map) or, outside Switzerland, from OpenStreetMap; the map service sees the IP address of the device and the map section loaded, but no data from the app.
Garmin watch: whoever pairs the AviationHelper app on a Garmin watch links it to their account with a code. The watch fetches its appointments through the Garmin Connect app on the phone and sends flight sessions the same way: block and landing times, number of landings and, for aircraft with an hourmeter, the confirmed value. The watch measures the GPS position only during a running flight session, to detect these times; positions do not leave the watch. We store the paired watches (model, time of pairing and of the last connection) and the flight sessions sent.
How long we keep data
Reservations, logbook and invoices are kept as long as the club uses the app – they are the club's flight and billing history, and invoices are subject to the statutory retention period of ten years. Records of lesson requests, deleted reservations and sent SMS are deleted automatically after two years. Server logs after 30 days. Flight sessions from the Garmin watch after 90 days, disconnected watches after 30 days; a watch that has not connected for 180 days is disconnected automatically.
Aircraft positions from the Open Glider Network are deleted automatically after 24 hours. Flight path images and lesson photos are kept as long as the flight or the training record they belong to; while the record is open, the pilot, an instructor or the club owner can delete them.
When a member leaves the club, the club sets the membership inactive; the history is kept for billing. An account without any membership can be deleted.
Your rights
You have the right to access your data, to rectification, to erasure (unless a retention obligation applies) and to receive it in a common format. For club members, access is built into the app: the club owner creates the full data disclosure under Art. 25 FADP as a PDF. For anything else, write to info@aviation-helper.com.
If you believe we process your data unlawfully, you may contact the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).
Security
All connections are encrypted (TLS). Access to the app requires sign-in; permissions are checked server-side, not only in the user interface. Secrets such as the club's bank details are visible to the club owner only.
Changes
We update this policy when the app or the legal situation changes. The current version is always on this page; the date above shows its status.