Last updated: July 2026
The Untempered Cosmos is designed to leave your data alone. The short version: the app reads your device's location to work out which celestial bodies are above your horizon, and its motion sensors to work out which way you are facing. Both are used, moment to moment, purely to shape what you hear. All of it happens on your device. Nothing is sent to any server, stored, or shared.
Location. When you start a listening session, the app asks the operating system for your current latitude and longitude. On Android the app requests only coarse location, which is all the astronomy needs. It uses those coordinates locally, together with the current date and time, to calculate which stars and planets are visible in your sky right now. The coordinates stay on your device. They are not transmitted, logged, or stored persistently between sessions. If you deny location access, the app cannot run; there is no alternate path that bypasses location.
Motion and orientation sensors. The spatial audio places each celestial body at its real position in the sky around you, so the app reads motion sensors to know which way you are facing. What it reads depends on the platform:
All of this is consumed in real time to steer the audio and is then discarded. Motion and heading data are never recorded, stored, or transmitted, and are not used to infer your activity, movement, or anything else about you.
Audio output. The app generates and plays audio in real time. No microphone access is requested or used.
Headphone connection state. The app observes whether headphones are connected so it can show a small note encouraging headphone listening (the spatial audio design only works on headphones). This is a system-level state, not a user identifier.
Playback notification. While a session is playing, the app shows a standard playback notification with play and pause controls on your lock screen, so audio keeps running when the screen is off. On Android this requires notification permission; if you decline, audio still plays and you simply do not get the lock-screen controls. The notification shows only the title and artwork of the piece.
A single setting stored on your device. The app stores one flag locally to remember that you have already seen the first-run introduction, so it is not shown every time. It contains no personal information, never leaves your device, and is removed when you uninstall the app.
The web version of The Untempered Cosmos at theuntemperedcosmos.com behaves identically. The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages and serves only static files. Cloudflare may log standard request metadata (IP address, user agent) for normal network operations; this is the same as visiting any website, and is governed by Cloudflare's privacy policy. The app code itself, once loaded, makes no further network requests.
The mobile app is distributed through the Apple App Store and Google Play. Those stores handle the download, any purchase, and their own diagnostics under their own privacy policies. The app itself sends them nothing beyond what the platform does automatically for any installed app.
The content is inoffensive and suitable for any age, but the app is not directed to or marketed to children, and it is listed for a general adult audience. It does not knowingly collect data from anyone, of any age, because it does not collect data at all.
If this policy ever changes, the new version will be posted at this URL with an updated date at the top. The current version of the app does not collect data, and any change to that would be considered a significant policy update.
Questions about this policy can go to privacy@theuntemperedcosmos.com.