Terms and data attribution
Last updated 26 September 2026.
This is not a life-safety channel
Rift is situational awareness. It is not an emergency notification system, and it must not be the only thing between a person and a hazard. Your government's broadcast warning channels exist for that, and they are the authority. If an official warning and this site disagree, the official warning is right.
There is no service level agreement. This is a self-hosted personal project. It can be down, behind, or wrong. That stays true on a paid plan: paying buys the extras listed under Paid plans, not a promise that the site is up.
Limits worth knowing before you rely on anything
These are stated because you would otherwise find them out the hard way.
- An empty result is not an all-clear. If a source is dead, the map
shows nothing rather than an error. Feed health is public at
/api/v1/freshness, with a per-source status. - Only about 7% of active US alerts are carried. The National Weather Service publishes most alerts as zone references with no polygon attached, and only alerts shipping a polygon are ingested today. Measured on the live feed: 19 of 228.
- European alerts have no real geometry. MeteoAlarm publishes region codes without shapes, so those alerts sit on a country centroid with a 100 km radius. Do not use a European alert's coordinates to decide whether something is near you.
- Some alerts are classified as uncertain on purpose. An unrecognised hazard code is published as uncertain rather than guessed at from the headline text.
- Alert text stays in the issuer's own language, including Spanish, French, Russian and Arabic.
Where the data comes from
None of this data is ours. It originates with the agencies and publishers below, who did the work; this site normalises it, classifies it and puts it on one map. Each alert links back to its issuer.
The table lists every source of hazard, conflict and reference data. News publishers are too numerous for a table row each, so they are covered by one row below and named in full in the list that follows it.
| Source | Covers | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| USGS Earthquake Hazards Program | Global earthquakes | US federal work, public domain |
| NOAA National Weather Service | US weather alerts | US federal work, public domain |
| NOAA NHC, SWPC, NTWC and PTWC | Hurricanes, space weather, tsunamis | US federal work, public domain |
| NOAA NDBC, DART buoys | Deep-ocean tsunami buoy readings | US federal work, public domain |
| NOAA Climate Prediction Center | El Nino / La Nina status and indices in the climate section | US federal work, public domain |
| Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) / ECMWF, Climate Pulse (ERA5) | Daily world sea surface and air temperature in the climate section | Copernicus licence: free use with attribution to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, credited beside the chart |
| NASA Precipitation Processing System (PMM Publisher): GPM IMERG and the LHASA landslide nowcast | 3-day rainfall and landslide hazard in the monsoon tracker | NASA open data, US Government work; no restriction, credit requested. The landslide layer is a model estimate, not a report |
| NASA FIRMS / LANCE | Active fire detections | Attribution: "NASA FIRMS / LANCE" |
| NASA EONET | Natural events | Attribution required. NASA states EONET is for visualisation and general information only, and is not official as to spatial or temporal extent |
| EMSC-CSEM SeismicPortal | Recent earthquakes, best in Europe and the Mediterranean | CC BY 4.0. Credit: EMSC-CSEM SeismicPortal, https://www.seismicportal.eu |
| GeoNet / GNS Science | New Zealand earthquakes and volcanoes | CC BY 3.0 New Zealand |
| Environment Canada | Canadian weather alerts | Attribution required |
| Alert Ready (Pelmorex NAAD) | Canadian emergency alerts that are not weather: AMBER alerts, civil emergencies, 911 outages, earthquake early warning | Free to use; provided as is. Each alert is the issuing agency's own message, credited to it on the map |
| JMA | Japan earthquakes, tsunamis, weather | Attribution required |
| DOST-PHIVOLCS | The alert level number of each Philippine volcano PHIVOLCS bulletins, and nothing else | Shown with PHIVOLCS's knowledge and credited to it; their bulletins are the authority |
| INGV, Osservatorio Etneo | The aviation colour code INGV sets for Etna and Stromboli, and when an episode ends | CC BY 4.0, credited to INGV-OE on each event |
| NOAA Aviation Weather Center | Volcanic ash SIGMETs: the ash clouds each country's aviation weather office reports, worldwide | US federal, public domain; each SIGMET is the issuing office's own |
| MeteoAlarm / EUMETNET | 34 European countries | Attribution to the issuing national service |
| MET Norway (Norwegian Meteorological Institute), Locationforecast 2.0 | The weather tab, the weather forecast in Your Area and for the main cities on country panels | NLOD 2.0 and CC BY 4.0. Attribution beside the forecast. The point is rounded to about 1 km before MET is asked |
| European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Disease outbreaks it reports, on the map and in the Doomsday Clock | CC BY 4.0. Source: ECDC. The title is ECDC's; the disease and country are read from its text by Rift |
| World Health Organization (WHO) | Disease Outbreak News notices, on the map | Non-commercial use with acknowledgment, per who.int terms of use. The title and a one-sentence extract are WHO's, with a link to the notice; the country is read from the title by Rift |
| CDC Travelers' Health (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) | Travel health notices at level 2 and above, on the map | US government work, public domain. The title is CDC's; the country is read from it by Rift |
| GeoNames | The main cities whose weather a country panel shows | CC BY 4.0. Attribution beside the city weather |
| Alert-Hub.org and Esri | 18 countries in South America, Africa and Central Asia | Attribution: "Alert-Hub.org and Alerting Authorities, Esri" |
| FEMA OpenFEMA (IPAWS archived alerts) | US local evacuation and shelter-in-place orders, shown a day late in an event's "on the ground" story, never as live alerts | This product uses the Federal Emergency Management Agency's OpenFEMA API, but is not endorsed by FEMA. |
| Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution | The weekly volcanic activity report (Smithsonian and USGS), for the volcanoes on the supervolcano board | Smithsonian terms of use: non-commercial use with citation |
| USGS Volcano Hazards Program | US volcano alert levels | US federal work, public domain |
| NOAA NCEI Significant Volcanic Eruptions Database | Volcano positions and large past eruptions | US federal work, public domain. Cite as: National Geophysical Data Center / World Data Service (NGDC/WDS), doi:10.7289/V5JW8BSH |
| GEM Global Active Faults Database | Fault lines | CC BY-SA 4.0. Attribution and share-alike |
| OpenFreeMap, OpenStreetMap contributors | Base map and place search | ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors |
| Iowa Environmental Mesonet, Iowa State University | NEXRAD weather radar, United States only | Public domain; attribution appreciated |
| NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), with JPL MUR (GHRSST), NOAA GOES and JMA Himawari | Daily sea surface temperature anomaly and infrared cloud map layers | NASA open data; no restriction, credit requested |
| NOAA nowCOAST, with the NWS Ocean Prediction Center | Lightning strike density map layer, Americas, Pacific and Atlantic | US government work; NOAA marks it appropriate for public distribution |
| World Bank | Governance and economic indicators | CC BY 4.0. Attribution required |
| UNDP Human Development Report | Human Development Index | Attribution required |
| Our World in Data | Country energy mix, as shares of primary energy | Our World in Data's own compilation is CC BY 4.0, attribution required. The underlying figures stay under their original terms: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, US EIA, Ember and The Shift Dataportal. The percentages and wording on our country pages are ours |
| Uppsala Conflict Data Program | Armed conflict events and fatalities | CC BY 4.0. Attribution required |
| European Central Bank | Currency rates on the Markets zone | Free use with the ECB cited as the source. Source: ECB euro reference rates; the cross rates shown are computed from them |
| CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities and NIST NVD | Vulnerabilities under active exploitation | US federal work, public domain |
| National cyber agencies: CERT-FR (ANSSI, France), CISA (United States), NCSC (United Kingdom), CERT-EU (European Union) | Cyber warnings shown on the map when two or more agencies warn about the same flaw | CERT-FR: Licence Ouverte 2.0 (Etalab), source and date shown on each warning. CISA: US federal work, public domain. NCSC: contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, © Crown copyright. CERT-EU: CC BY 4.0, © CERT-EU; the text shown is a shortened excerpt of each advisory, linked in full |
| OpenStreetMap contributors, via Geofabrik | Plate reader cameras (US), rebuilt monthly | ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors. The plate reader points are offered under the same licence |
| Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS), ODL network | Gamma dose rate stations in Germany, hourly | Datenlizenz Deutschland, Namensnennung 2.0 (dl-de/by-2-0). Source: Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS) |
| Safecast | Gamma dose rate from Safecast's fixed sensors, mostly Ukraine and Japan | CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication) |
| adsb.lol | Aircraft positions | ODbL. Attribution: "data from adsb.lol" |
| Space-Track.org, US Space Force | Satellite orbital elements | US government data, accessed under a Space-Track account. Redistribution of the raw elements is limited by their user agreement, so only derived positions are shown |
| GDELT Project | Global news event index | Open for any use, attribution requested |
| GDACS, European Commission JRC | Global disaster alerts | Terms under review; not yet cleared for reuse beyond display |
| IODA, Georgia Institute of Technology | Internet outage measurement | Terms under review; not yet cleared for reuse beyond display |
| alerts.in.ua | Ukraine air raid alerts | Terms under review; not yet cleared for reuse beyond display |
| Polymarket | Prediction market prices | Terms under review; not yet cleared for reuse beyond display |
| Commentary on YouTube: Preston Stewart | Video titles and links in an event's "The reporting" list, labelled commentary, when the title names both sides of the story | The channel's own copyright. Read through the YouTube Data API under its terms; titles are refreshed every 6 hours and none is kept past 30 days. Videos play on YouTube |
| Storm news video: NBC News, CBS News, LiveNOW from FOX and the live news broadcasters below | Video coverage on a named storm's panel | Each broadcaster's own copyright. Listed through the YouTube Data API and played in YouTube's embedded player as the broadcaster publishes it there; nothing is recorded, stored or rehosted. YouTube's terms apply to the player |
| Live news video: Sky News, Al Jazeera, France 24, DW News, Euronews, CNA, TRT World, Bloomberg Television, ABC News | The live player in the news section | Each broadcaster's own copyright. Played in YouTube's embedded player as the broadcaster publishes it there; nothing is recorded, stored or rehosted. YouTube's terms apply to the player |
| Road and city photo cameras: Transport for London JamCams (Powered by TfL Open Data); Hong Kong Transport Department traffic snapshots (Hong Kong SAR Government, via DATA.GOV.HK); Fintraffic weather cameras (Fintraffic / digitraffic.fi, CC BY 4.0); Caltrans CCTV (Image courtesy of Caltrans); DriveBC highway cameras (Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia); City of Calgary traffic cameras (Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - City of Calgary); City of Toronto traffic cameras (Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Toronto); York Region traffic cameras (Contains public sector information made available under The Regional Municipality of York's Open Data Licence); Newfoundland and Labrador highway cameras (Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Newfoundland and Labrador); City of Austin traffic cameras (City of Austin, Texas (public domain)); Illinois DOT cameras via Travel Midwest (Illinois Department of Transportation, CC BY-SA 2.0); Madrid traffic cameras (Ayuntamiento de Madrid, CC BY 4.0); CITA motorway cameras (CITA, Luxembourg motorways, CC0); satellite views of named storms (NOAA/NESDIS/STAR, GOES satellite imagery (public domain)); Highway Bureau Taiwan freeway cameras (Highway Bureau, MOTC (THB), Taiwan, Open Government Data License v1.0); Metropole de Lyon Criter cameras (Metropole de Lyon, Criter cameras, Licence Ouverte v2.0 (Etalab)) | A recent photo from a road or city camera beside a country or event near it, where no live video is on air | Each operator's open-data terms, credited beside the photo. Our server fetches the current photo at most once a minute per camera, shows it unchanged, and refuses any photo more than an hour old; nothing is kept past that minute |
| Live webcams: afarTV, MayonStream Lab, Weather Italy, EarthCam, Saudi Quran TV, Istanbul Live, I Love You Venice, Beach Life Cams, NASASpaceflight, Homes in Rio, ANN News, HK360VR, Taipei Travel, GiGAeyes, Now4Rent, Port of Rotterdam, livespotting, Arillas Corfu LIVE streaming | A live camera beside an event or country near it: volcanoes, city centres, a launch site | Each operator's own copyright. Played in YouTube's embedded player as the operator publishes it there, and only while YouTube reports the stream live; nothing is recorded, stored or rehosted. YouTube's terms apply to the player |
| 34 news feeds, named in full below | Headlines used as corroboration for events already in the database | Each publisher's own copyright, used as their public RSS feed offers it: headline, the publisher's own summary, and a link back. Terms under review for anything beyond that |
"Terms under review" means exactly that: the feed is fetched and displayed with a link back to its publisher, and nobody here has yet read a licence that says what else may be done with it. Until one is read, nothing beyond that display is claimed.
News headlines from news publishers appear in three places: as corroboration for an event already in the database; in Top news today, a list of the stories the most independent outlets carried in the last 24 hours, where a story needs three outlets, state media not counted; and as a pin of its own only when several independent outlets report the same plane crash at a place that can be found. A video from a named YouTube creator, read through YouTube's own Data API, shows as an early report, marked as such; it joins the list only when three outlets carry the same story, the video not counted. Each item links to its publisher, and the copyright in it stays with them.
The 34 news feeds, in full
Grouped the way the code groups them. "State-owned" is marked because the site labels those items in the interface too, and a reader is entitled to know who is paying for a headline before weighing it. Two of the 34 are separate sections of one publisher, so this is 34 feeds from 33 newsrooms.
Wires and international
France 24
National broadcasters and newspapers
ABC (Australia), Deutsche Welle, Euronews, Financial Times,
NBC News, RFI, Sky News
Regional
Al Jazeera, AllAfrica, Arab News, Balkan Insight, Buenos Aires Times,
Infobae, Jamaica Observer, The Japan Times, The Jerusalem Post, Kyiv Post,
The Kyiv Independent, Middle East Eye, NDTV, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
Philippine Daily Inquirer Business, The Philippine Star, Premium Times, Rappler,
Tehran Times,
The Times of Israel, Ukrainska Pravda, Ukrinform
State-owned
Global Times (China), RT (Russia), TASS (Russia)
Research and investigative
Bellingcat
Two of these are not fetched from the publisher directly: Euronews and NDTV both arrive through FeedBurner.
Copyright and takedown
If something here is yours and you want it changed or taken down, email [email protected] with the page address and what the material is. It's read by the person who runs the site, and a valid request is acted on promptly.
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These terms are governed by the laws of Alberta, Canada.
Using the public API
The read endpoints under /api/v1/ are open and free. Three requests in
return: identify yourself with a real user-agent, poll no faster than the data changes, and
carry the attribution above through to whatever you build. Keep the "not a life-safety
channel" statement with it if your users will act on what it says.
The data belongs to the agencies listed above under their own terms, not to this site, and it is passed on to you on that basis. If you plan to build something commercial on it, check the terms of the specific sources you depend on: some of the entries above require attribution, one requires share-alike, and at least one has no signed terms document at all.
Software licence
Rift's own source code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0.
No warranty
This site and its API are provided as-is, with no warranty of any kind, and with no liability for any decision taken on the strength of what they showed. Classification can be wrong. Sources can be late, dead or contradictory. That is why the limits above are printed rather than buried.
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