CityWeave · Auckland City Digital Twin · AG++ studio
CityWeave: Auckland Digital Twin — Privacy Notice
Version 1.9 · effective 7 November 2026
Summary
CityWeave has no accounts, no sign-in and no advertising, and we do not add analytics or tracking cookies. We do not keep a visitor database. Your settings and saved scenarios stay on your own device. To show you the city, your browser connects to our hosting provider and, after you agree and enter, to map, imagery and data providers. Those providers can see your IP address and the area you request. You can ask us what personal information we hold, and you can complain to the Privacy Commissioner.
1. Who is responsible
CityWeave is operated by AG++ Studio, Auckland, New Zealand. No employer or university is involved in it. Contact for privacy questions (we act as our own privacy officer): our contact page
2. What is stored on your device
Your browser keeps your preferences, a record that you accepted the Terms of Use, and any scenario projects you save, using local storage on your device. We do not receive them. You can clear them at any time through your browser settings; if you do, you will be asked to accept the terms again.
3. What happens when you open the twin
- When you open the page, your browser connects to our website host, Cloudflare. Cloudflare provides hosting and a relay that passes some public data requests (for example weather and census data) to their providers on your behalf. Cloudflare records technical data such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested in order to serve and secure the site. We can see this through our Cloudflare account and use it only to run and protect the service, not to identify you.
- Before you tick the box, the introduction screen loads only files from our own website. After you agree, your browser (and our relay) requests map tiles, imagery, 3D and open data and weather data, depending on the features you use, from providers such as OpenFreeMap and OpenStreetMap-based tile services, Esri/ArcGIS-hosted Auckland data (United States), Auckland Council, LINZ and Stats NZ (New Zealand), NOAA and NASA (United States), MET Norway (Norway), and Google Fonts (United States). Reference weather from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (ECMWF ERA5-Land) is prepared in advance and served from our own website files, so your browser makes no request to Copernicus when you view it.
- Address and place search (the box on the map). Place names are matched on your device against a list built into the page. Address suggestions are matched on your device against an address index that we publish on our own website (Auckland Council address points; nothing you type leaves your browser in that case). Until that index is published, suggestions come from Auckland Council's public address service through CityWeave's relay on Cloudflare: after at least three characters and a quarter-second pause, the text you have typed so far and your IP address go via the relay to Auckland Council's service (hosted by Esri/ArcGIS, United States), which handles them under its own terms. The relay forwards only that text, adds no contact details of ours, and keeps only a short-lived cache of the answer at the Cloudflare edge (about ten minutes, keyed to the typed text, not to you). The OpenStreetMap Nominatim service (OpenStreetMap Foundation, outside New Zealand) receives your text only when you press Enter or choose "Search OpenStreetMap"; its usage policy forbids as-you-type queries, so partial keystrokes are never sent to it. Your last five searches are kept in this browser only (local storage; "Clear" in the Recent list removes them) and are never sent to us. "Use my current location" is optional and asks your browser for permission after you choose it. It opens the map at your position and may select a nearby building. The resulting map view loads area-specific imagery and data from the existing providers, and its coordinates can appear in the page URL, shared links and view exports. This location action does not add your position to recent searches. Your browser or device may also use its own location services under its provider’s terms. Address points can be street frontage or a centroid and are not parcel or building records.
- Optional neighbourhood suggestions. Opening the neighbourhood explorer loads public geography from this site. Only when you choose “Use my location” does the neighbourhood finder request a one-time browser location reading, which may be precise. It checks the reading against public boundaries on your device and does not send or save those coordinates. It suggests an area rather than inferring where you live. You can choose manually or change the suggestion. If you confirm a place, the existing map opens a public representative point for that area; normal map-provider requests and view-link behaviour apply to that public point. Your browser or device may use its own location services under its provider’s terms. Green and pink theme choices are a temporary interaction preview, not community findings, and are not submitted or saved.
- Terrain layers. Terrain layers fetch elevation tiles from Amazon Web Services' public Open Data bucket (s3.amazonaws.com, Terrain Tiles by Tilezen), directly from your browser, only after you open Terrain or choose a terrain layer. AWS receives your IP address and the tile addresses (map area) you request.
- Those providers receive your IP address and details of the map area you request, and handle them under their own policies. We do not receive that information from them.
4. Links and sharing
Links to services such as Google Maps or Street View leave the twin only when you click them, and then that service's policy applies. A shared link to the twin contains view settings, such as camera position and layers, in the web address. It is not designed to contain personal information. Take care about who you send links to.
5. Files you import
Files you import are processed in your browser. We do not intentionally upload or store them. Please do not import files containing personal information you would not want exposed.
6. What we collect and keep
We do not ask for personal information in the twin itself, apart from the technical data described in section 3. If you contact us, we collect your name, email address and message so that we can reply, and keep them for 12 months after our last reply and then delete them. Providing them is voluntary, but we cannot reply without them. We do not sell personal information or use it for advertising. Hosting logs are held by Cloudflare under its own retention practices. If a privacy breach is likely to cause serious harm, we will tell the people affected and the Privacy Commissioner as the Act requires.
7. Overseas processing
Cloudflare and the providers named above are based or process data outside New Zealand, including in countries whose privacy laws may not protect your information in the same way as the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. By ticking the box you authorise your browser, and our relay, to send your IP address and the map area you view to those providers for the purpose of showing you the twin. If you are not comfortable with this, please do not enter the twin.
8. Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask for access to personal information we hold about you and ask for it to be corrected (information privacy principles 6 and 7). Contact us through the contact page. We will respond within 20 working days, as the Act requires. We expect to hold very little, usually only a message you sent. For information held by third-party providers, contact them.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner: privacy.org.nz.
9. Children and young people
CityWeave is general-interest and not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children or young people. If you are under 16, please use it with a parent, guardian or teacher, and do not send us personal details without their involvement.
10. Changes
We may update this notice. The version and date at the top will change, and a material change will be shown when you next enter the twin.