Terms of Use — What Can Kill Me
Effective date: 9 September 2026
Contact: What Can Kill Me, P.O. Box 300184, Escondido, CA 92030, United States — admin@whatcankillmeapp.com
1. Agreement
These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and What Can Kill Me ("we," "us"), P.O. Box 300184, Escondido, CA 92030, about the What Can Kill Me iPhone app (the "app"). You accept them by checking the box at sign-up. If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the app. Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and is part of this agreement.
2. What this app is
What Can Kill Me shows two kinds of information: hazards reported by members of the public, and data published by government and scientific organizations. It also lets you send a check-in message to people you choose, from your own phone, and lets you save places and areas to watch.
3. What this app is not — read this part
This is not an emergency service. It cannot summon help. It does not know you are in trouble. Nobody is monitoring it on your behalf. In an emergency, call 911 in the United States, your local emergency number elsewhere, or use VHF Channel 16 at sea.
It is not a substitute for judgment, training, or preparation. It is one input among many — the same status as a trail report or a conversation in a parking lot, not a survey of what is actually out there.
Absence of a warning means nothing. If the map shows no hazards in an area, that means nobody has reported one and no agency has published one. It is not evidence that the area is safe. Most of the backcountry has never had a hazard reported in it. This is the single most important thing to understand about this app, and every screen in it is built around saying so.
Reports come from members of the public. They may be wrong, stale, mislocated, exaggerated, or already resolved. A trust score is a rough signal about a contributor, not a verification of a report. A confirmation means another user tapped a button, nothing more.
Third-party data may be delayed, incomplete, or unavailable. The app explains the limits of each source under Map Data, and those explanations are part of these Terms.
Assume the app will not be there when you are out of signal, and plan accordingly. Offline copies are only as current as the last time the app had a connection.
Do not make a life-safety decision on the strength of this app alone.
4. Your account
You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. By creating one you confirm that you are 18 or older. Keep your password to yourself; you are responsible for what happens under your account, and you must tell us if it is compromised. You may change your username once every 30 days; usernames that impersonate an agency, official, or other person are not allowed.
5. Filing reports
When you file a hazard report you agree to:
- report only what you actually observed, as accurately as you can;
- never approach, provoke, touch, feed, corner, or follow a hazard in order to report it — report from a safe distance, or later from memory using Point on the map;
- not file false, malicious, or deliberately misleading reports;
- not use reports to harass anyone, to advertise, to post anything unlawful, or to post anything you do not have the right to post;
- not photograph people in a way that identifies them without their agreement, and not post other people's personal information.
Filing a false hazard report is not a prank. People change routes and turn back on the strength of these.
Reports are public. Every report is visible to every user, with the elements listed in the Privacy Policy. A report filed with "My location" is filed where you were standing. Hiding your username removes your username, avatar, trust score, and photo from what other people see; it does not necessarily make the report anonymous, because the location, time, and description stay public.
6. Your content, and the license you give us
You own what you post. For the content you create — your descriptions, photos, and typed labels — you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store, reproduce, display, and distribute it in and through the app, for as long as it is needed to run the service. That license ends for your descriptions and photos when you delete the report or delete your account, except as needed to finish removing it and for copies in backups until they roll off.
Hazard facts survive as safety data. The facts of a report — the hazard category and specific hazard, the severity, the location, the time it was filed, its status, and its confirmation count — are not personal expression; they are a description of a place. You agree that we may keep showing those facts, de-identified and without your description or photo, after you delete your account, so that a warning other people are relying on does not vanish silently. Withdrawing a report hides it from everyone but you.
You confirm that you have the right to post what you post, and that it does not infringe anyone's rights.
7. Assumption of risk
Outdoor and marine environments are dangerous. Wildlife, weather, water, terrain, fire, altitude, and other people can injure or kill you, with or without warning, whether or not anything has been reported in the app. By using the app you accept those risks as your own. You are responsible for your own safety, for your preparation, and for the decisions you make, and you agree that you will not rely on the app, on any report, on any alert, or on the absence of any report as the basis for a decision about your safety.
Nothing in this section or in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our gross negligence or willful misconduct, or any other liability that cannot be excluded under the law that applies to you.
8. No duty to warn or monitor
We do not verify reports, and we do not undertake to warn you of anything. The app's features — Alert Places, alerts, the alert badge, trust scores, confirmations, Trip Packs, and check-ins — are conveniences that work only when the app is open and connected, and they do not create a duty on our part to monitor any area, any report, any hazard, or your safety. An alert that did not arrive, a report that was not confirmed, and an area with no reports tell you nothing about the actual conditions.
9. Check-ins and trusted contacts
"I'm Safe" and "Need Help" prepare a text message on your own phone. Nothing is sent unless you send it, and the message travels from your phone to your contacts through your carrier, not through us. We do not see the message, we do not know whether it arrived, and we do not act on it. By adding a trusted contact you confirm that you have that person's agreement to receive check-in messages from you, and that you will remove them if they ask.
10. Reporting content, and what we do about it
Reports on the map are written by other people. Some of them will be wrong, and a few will be objectionable.
Telling us. Every hazard report has a "Report this report" control, and its photo has "Report the photo." Use it for anything offensive, sexual, harassing, spam, fabricated — or, most importantly, anything that would get somebody hurt if they followed it. You can also email admin@whatcankillmeapp.com.
What we may do. We review reports of objectionable content and act on them, with priority for anything flagged as dangerous. We may remove content, restrict who can see it, label or reclassify a report, withdraw it from the map, suspend or terminate an account, or decide that the content does not breach these Terms and leave it where it is. We do not rewrite what anyone posted. We do not promise a response time.
What we do not do. We do not remove a hazard warning because one person objected to it. A warning other people may be relying on is not taken off the map by a single complaint.
Blocking. You can block any account from a report it filed. You then see nothing that account has filed under its username. This includes their hazard warnings, not only their words — blocking makes your map smaller, and that is your choice to make. Reports that account filed with a hidden username stay visible, because identifying them in order to hide them would undo the hiding. You can see and undo your blocks under Menu → Blocked Users.
Filtering. The app uses automated tools designed to stop the posting of slurs and sexual content in descriptions, labels, and usernames. They are narrow on purpose — a blocked hazard report is a warning nobody receives — and they will miss things, which is why the reporting route above exists.
If we act against your account we will tell you what for, unless doing so would put somebody at risk or we are legally prevented. You can reply to that notice and we will look again.
11. Prohibited conduct
You agree not to:
- approach, provoke, touch, feed, corner, follow, or otherwise interact with a hazard in order to report or photograph it;
- enter closed areas, private property, or restricted land to report a hazard;
- file false or misleading reports, or confirm a report you have not seen;
- harass, threaten, stalk, or dox anyone, or use reports or check-ins to track another person;
- post content that is unlawful, infringing, sexual, hateful, or that identifies a private person without their agreement;
- impersonate an agency, official, or other person, including through your username;
- scrape, harvest, or bulk-download reports or other users' information, or access the app's servers other than through the app;
- interfere with the app's operation, probe its security, or use it to build a competing dataset;
- use the app for anything unlawful.
12. Copyright complaints
If you believe content in the app infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent:
What Can Kill Me, Attn: Copyright Agent P.O. Box 300184, Escondido, CA 92030, United States admin@whatcankillmeapp.com
Your notice must include: a description of the copyrighted work; where the infringing content is in the app (the report, and what it contains); your name, address, telephone number, and email; a statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner; and your physical or electronic signature. We may remove content that is the subject of a proper notice and terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.
13. Intellectual property
The app, its name, its shield logo, its design, and its own text and graphics are ours, and are protected by copyright and trademark law. Data from government and scientific sources belongs to those sources under their own terms. Content posted by users belongs to those users under section 6. You may use the app for your own personal, non-commercial purposes; you may not copy, modify, distribute, or resell any part of it.
14. Indemnity
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless What Can Kill Me and its owner, staff, and service providers from any claim, loss, liability, and expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of or related to: content you post; your use of the app; your violation of these Terms; your violation of any law or of anyone's rights; or any injury, loss, or damage that results from your reliance on the app or from your conduct while using it.
15. Disclaimer of warranties and limitation of liability
The app is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that hazard information is accurate, complete, or current, that any hazard has been reported at all, or that the app will be available or working when you need it.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of life, personal injury, property damage, or other loss arising out of or related to the app — including reliance on a report that was wrong, on an alert that did not arrive, or on the absence of a report — whether the claim is based on contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or any other theory, and even if we have been told such damages are possible.
Our total liability for all claims arising out of or related to the app will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100).
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain liabilities. Where that is the case, the above applies to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under the law that applies to you.
16. Premium membership
Premium is an auto-renewing subscription bought through the App Store, in monthly or yearly plans. The App Store shows the exact price for your country before you buy, and Apple's App Store terms govern the purchase.
- Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the current period ends; your Apple account is charged within 24 hours of the period ending.
- You manage and cancel subscriptions in your Apple account settings (Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions), not in this app.
- Refunds are Apple's to give under Apple's policies; we cannot issue them.
- Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription. Cancel it first, or Apple will keep billing you.
- We may change what Premium includes. If a change materially reduces what you have paid for, we will tell you before it takes effect.
Premium adds features — more Trip Packs and Alert Places, larger alert circles, and per-place hazard filters — and never hides safety information from anyone. The map is the same for everyone.
17. Availability and changes to the app
We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the app at any time. We do not promise it will be available, accurate, or working when you need it.
18. Ending your access
We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms or if we believe your use puts other people at risk. You may stop using the app at any time and delete your account under Menu → Delete Account; the Privacy Policy says what is deleted and what stays. Sections 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 19, and 20 survive termination.
19. Apple
The app is distributed through Apple's App Store under Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement, and these Terms apply in addition to it. Apple is not responsible for the app, its content, or any claim about it, has no obligation to provide maintenance or support, and is a third-party beneficiary of these Terms with the right to enforce them against you.
20. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of or related to the app or these Terms will be brought in the state or federal courts located in San Diego County, California, and you consent to their jurisdiction. Before filing a claim, you agree to email us and give us 30 days to try to resolve it.
21. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms. We will update the effective date above. For material changes, we will ask you to accept the new Terms in the app before you continue using it, and we will keep a record of your acceptance. Continuing to use the app after a non-material change means you accept it.
22. General
These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the app. If any part is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer this agreement; we may transfer it to a successor of the app.
23. Contact
What Can Kill Me P.O. Box 300184 Escondido, CA 92030 United States
admin@whatcankillmeapp.com