Intensity Lab

Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 11, 2026

Intensity Lab ("we," "us," "the Service") provides earthquake ground-motion estimates, seismic intensity notifications, and shaking-animation videos at intensitylab.com. This policy describes what data we collect, how we use it, and your choices.

1. Information We Collect

Account information

If you register for an account, we collect your email address and a password (stored as a bcrypt hash — we never store or have access to your plaintext password). We also generate a unique API key for programmatic access to the API.

Site registrations

Registered users may save one or more locations ("sites") — a name and latitude/longitude — so the Service can estimate shaking intensity at that location for future earthquakes.

Notification preferences

We store your choices about which notifications you receive (site-specific alerts, regional event summaries, digest emails) and how you receive them (email, and in the future SMS), including whether you want seismic station data included.

Usage data

We log API endpoint usage associated with your account for rate-limiting and abuse prevention purposes.

Cookies and analytics

The site sets cookies needed to sign you in and to protect forms, and uses Google Analytics to measure page and animation usage. Each cookie, its lifetime, and how to block it is listed in the Cookie Policy.

Information we do not collect

We do not collect precise device location, browsing history outside this site, or any payment information (the Service does not currently process payments).

2. How We Use Information

  • To create and manage your account and API access
  • To calculate and deliver ground-motion / shaking-intensity estimates for your registered sites
  • To send the notifications you've opted into
  • To prevent abuse of the API (rate limiting)
  • To verify your email address (a one-time verification link sent at registration)

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use your data for advertising.

3. Third-Party Services

  • Google Analytics 4 — used to measure which pages and animations are used, so we can decide what to build next. It sets cookies in your browser and receives your IP address, which Google truncates. We have not enabled Google Signals or any advertising feature, and we do not use analytics data for advertising. See the Cookie Policy for the specific cookies and how to opt out.
  • SendGrid — used to deliver transactional and notification emails.
  • Cloudflare Turnstile — used at registration to prevent automated bot signups; may process technical signals (not tied to your identity) to assess whether a request is automated.
  • USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) — the Service consumes public earthquake event data from USGS ComCat. No personal information is sent to USGS.

4. Google API Services / YouTube Integration

Intensity Lab automatically generates shaking-animation videos for significant earthquakes and publishes them, as unlisted videos, to the Intensity Lab YouTube channel using the YouTube Data API v3. This integration:

  • Uploads video files and associated metadata (title, description, thumbnail) that Intensity Lab itself generates from public earthquake data — no end-user personal data is included in uploaded content.
  • Organizes uploaded videos into playlists, grouped by earthquake event.
  • Operates using OAuth 2.0 credentials authorized by Intensity Lab's own channel owner. This authorization is used solely to publish content to Intensity Lab's own channel — it does not access, read, or modify any other YouTube user's account, videos, or data.

Intensity Lab's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

5. Data Retention

We retain account information for as long as your account remains active. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time by contacting us (see Section 8). Ground-motion estimate data tied to public earthquake events (not tied to any individual user) is retained indefinitely as part of the Service's public dataset.

6. Your Choices

  • Unsubscribe — every notification email includes an unsubscribe link.
  • Notification preferences — manage which notifications you receive from your account settings page.
  • Account deletion — contact us to request deletion of your account and associated registered sites.

7. Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

8. Contact

Questions about this policy or requests regarding your data can be sent to info@intensitylab.com or via our feedback form.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the effective date above.