What NE-PULSE collects, and what it doesn't

NE-PULSE is a research project studying whether ordinary phones can detect earthquakes together. It collects the minimum it needs.

Collected

• Motion samples. Raw accelerometer readings (about 50–60 per second) while the NE-PULSE page is open and visible. They are analysed as they arrive and kept only in memory for about a minute.
• Recordings around events. When the network flags a possible earthquake, about a minute of motion from the phones that triggered is stored for research, for up to 365 days.
• Triggers. Each detected motion onset with its computed features (strength, duration, frequency), for up to 180 days.
• Your area. A 1 km square, computed on your phone. Your precise position is never sent.
• A random device ID, the date it joined, how long it has streamed, and the phone type (iPhone, Android, other).
• Class recordings (only with a class code). If you join with a code from your teacher, your phone's raw motion is recorded continuously while the page is open, for that class's research project, under a pseudonym. Kept up to 365 days; deleted with your device. Anyone under 18 needs a parent's or guardian's agreement.
• Placement and labels (only if you fill them in). Where the phone lies (floor, surface, building type) and the moments you mark ("door", "steps" ...) with their time. Never an address. Deleted with your device.
• Telegram alerts (only if you subscribe). Your Telegram chat ID, which 10 km area to alert and your language. A location you share with the bot is turned into that area at once and discarded. If you connect Telegram from the phone page, the bot also knows which phone is yours, only to tell you when it stops listening (daytime, at most every 6 hours). Send /stop to the bot to delete it.
• Your name (only if you add it). Shown on the public list of contributors and in the acknowledgements of the research paper once your phone has listened for an hour. It is stored apart from the motion recordings, which never contain it. Change or remove it on the phone page at any time; leaving the network deletes it. If you joined with a friend's invite link, we note who invited you so they are credited; nothing else about you is shared with them.

Not collected

• No email, phone number, account, contacts, photos, microphone or camera. No name unless you add one yourself.
• No precise location. If you share your browser's location, it is rounded on the phone and discarded.
• Your IP address is not stored. It is used in memory for rate limits and turned into a hashed network prefix whose key changes every day, so it cannot be linked across days or reversed. The detector uses it to count how many different networks an event came from.

What is public

• Maps show phones grouped into 10 km squares. Squares with fewer than three phones are hidden.
• Event pages show triggered areas at the same 10 km resolution and motion averaged by distance. No device ID ever appears.
• Research datasets derived from NE-PULSE contain no device IDs and no location finer than 1 km.

Your control

• Stop streaming at any time: close the page or press Stop.
• Delete everything from your phone page: the device ID, statistics, triggers and stored recordings. Anonymous totals of past events remain.
• Devices that do not connect for 180 days are deleted automatically.

Research use

Data is used to develop and evaluate the detection method and may be published in anonymised, aggregated form in research papers. NE-PULSE is not an official warning service.