Privacy,
plainly.

The short version

Japan Live View is a reading and viewing site. There are no user accounts, no newsletter sign-up, no advertising network and no analytics tracker. The only personal data the site stores is a list of favourite camera IDs, kept in your own browser.

Video is not loaded until you press play. When you do, the video is served by YouTube, and Google's own privacy terms apply to that playback.

Favourites and local storage

When you save a camera, the camera's registry ID is written to your browser's localStorage under the key jlv.favorites.v1. This list never leaves your device and is not sent to our servers. Clearing site data in your browser removes it.

YouTube embeds

Camera pages use YouTube's IFrame Player API. The player script is only requested after you choose to play a feed. The player is configured with the youtube-nocookie.com host, but YouTube may still set cookies or collect playback and device information once a video is loaded. We do not receive that data.

YouTube's handling of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy and the YouTube Terms of Service.

Status checks and server logs

Camera statuses are requested from our own /api/cameras/status endpoint. The request contains camera IDs and no personal information. To protect the YouTube API quota, the server applies a simple in-memory rate limit keyed by the connecting IP address. That counter is temporary and is not written to a database.

The hosting provider may keep standard server logs — such as request time, path, user agent and IP address — for security and operational purposes. We do not combine those logs with any other data or use them for profiling.

Cookies

Japan Live View does not set its own cookies. Cookies that appear after you start a YouTube video are set by YouTube/Google, not by this site. Blocking third-party cookies may affect video playback.

Third parties

The site links to YouTube and Unsplash. Photography is licensed from Unsplash and served from this domain. Camera thumbnails are loaded from YouTube's image host. Following an external link takes you to a service with its own privacy policy.

Your choices

You can remove saved favourites at any time from the favourites view or by clearing site data. Because we do not hold an account or a database of personal data, there is generally nothing for us to export or delete on your behalf. If you believe we hold information about you, write to hello@japanliveview.com.

Children

The site is a general-audience travel guide and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

If the site adds a feature that changes how data is handled, this page will be updated and the date below will change. Continued use of the site after an update means you accept the revised policy.