Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 2026

Introduction

PetSpot ("we," "us," "our," or "Company") operates the PetSpot mobile application (the "App"). This Privacy Policy explains our information practices and your choices regarding your data.

Two things are worth knowing before anything else, because they surprise people: every photo you upload is sent to a third-party service that analyses it (section 3), and anyone you send a sighting link to can see the exact spot the photo was taken (section 4).

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information You Provide

• Account Information: Your email address, username, display name, optional bio, and profile picture.
• Sign-in with Google or Apple: If you choose one of these instead of email, that provider confirms your identity to us and gives us your email address and, on the first sign-in only, your name. We do not receive your password. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address Apple generates, not your real one — note that this is also the address you would need to use on our deletion page.
• User-Generated Content: Photos you upload, the names you give pets, and metadata associated with each sighting.
• Location Data: Precise latitude/longitude coordinates where you spot an animal, taken from your device at the moment of capture.
• Social Activity: Comments you write, reactions you leave, accounts you follow, accounts you block, and reports you submit about other users' content. Blocks and reports record who they concern, and reports are visible to our moderators.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Guest Account: The App creates an anonymous account and a device identifier the first time you open it, before you sign up. This is what lets you try the App without an account. If you sign up later, that same account becomes yours — nothing you spotted is lost.
• Device Information: Device type, OS version, app version, and a unique device identifier used to apply upload limits.
• Usage Data: Features accessed, time spent in the App, and interactions with content, collected through an analytics provider.

2. How We Use Your Information

• Provide and improve the App's core functionality (sighting identification, mapping, collection)
• Determine whether an uploaded photo contains an animal, and generate a sticker from it
• Apply upload limits and detect abuse
• Analyze user behavior and app performance
• Send transactional emails (e.g., sign-in links, email confirmation)
• Review reported content and enforce our Terms of Service
• Comply with legal obligations

3. Automated Analysis of Your Photos

When you upload a photo, we send it to a third-party automated image analysis service to determine whether it contains an animal, identify the species, and score the image quality. That decides whether your sighting is accepted, and what the App tells you if it is not. We cannot offer the App's core function without this step.

This means your photo leaves our systems and is processed by another company on our behalf, under their terms as well as ours. Photos that are rejected are analysed in exactly the same way as those that are accepted.

Separately, the cut-out that becomes your sticker is produced on your device, using your phone's own system features. That step sends nothing anywhere.

4. What Is Public

Your sightings are not shown to other people by default. The map inside the App shows your own sightings and nobody else's. There is no public feed or shared map of everyone's spots.

Sharing a sighting is something you do deliberately. When you share a link to one of your sightings, anyone who has that link can open it — including people without the App. They will see the photo, the sticker, the species, the pet's name, when it was spotted, and your profile alongside it.

A shared link reveals the exact location. The coordinates are not blurred, offset, or reduced in precision. Please keep that in mind before sharing a sighting taken at your home, your workplace, a school, or anywhere else you would rather not reveal. A link cannot be recalled once sent, but deleting the sighting or your account removes what it points to.

Your display name, username, bio, avatar, and carded pets can be seen by other users — for example next to a comment you leave, or by someone opening a sighting you shared. The Public binder toggle in Account & Settings controls whether other people can see your carded pets. Turning it off does not retract links you have already shared.

5. How We Store Your Data

Your account data and sighting records are held in a managed database, and your photos and stickers with a cloud object storage provider. Both use industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest.

International transfers. Our service providers may store and process your information in countries other than the one you live in. By using the App you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed in countries whose data protection laws differ from those where you live.

6. Data Sharing & Third Parties

We never sell your personal data. We share it with service providers only where it is needed to operate the App, and only for these purposes:

• Hosting our database, user accounts, and email delivery
• Storing photos, stickers, and profile pictures
• Rendering maps
• Product analytics
• Delivering app updates
• Automated analysis of uploaded photos, as described in section 3

These providers may process data only on our instructions, and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

We may also disclose information where required by law, or to investigate abuse and enforce our Terms of Service.

7. Your Privacy Rights & Choices

• Access: You may request a copy of your personal data.
• Deletion: You can delete your account from within the App, under Account & Settings. If you have uninstalled the App, you can also delete it at getpetspot.com/delete-account. Either way this permanently removes your profile, sightings, photos, stickers, and comments from our systems.
• Correction: You may update your name, username, bio, and profile picture at any time.
• Go private: The Public binder toggle stops other users seeing your carded pets (section 4).
• Location: You can revoke the App's location permission in your device settings at any time. A sighting uploaded without location will not appear on the map.
• Blocking: You can block another user, which hides your content from them and theirs from you.

The App does not currently offer an in-app opt-out from analytics. If you would like your analytics data removed, email us and we will handle it.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@getpetspot.com.

8. Data Retention

We retain your account data for as long as you maintain an active account. Sightings and photos are retained unless you delete them. When you delete your account, your photos and stickers are removed from storage as part of that deletion. Deleted data may persist in encrypted backups for up to 30 days before being overwritten.

Abandoned guest accounts. A guest account that has not been used for 90 days is deleted along with everything in it. A guest account has no email address attached, so there is no way for its owner to recover it or for us to warn them first — keeping that data indefinitely would mean holding photos and locations that nobody can reach or exercise any right over. Signing in converts the same account into a permanent one, and this no longer applies to it.

9. Security

We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure.

10. Age Requirement and Children's Privacy

PetSpot is for users aged 16 and over. The App is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If we become aware that we have, we delete the account and its data immediately. See also our Terms of Service and Child Safety Standards.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email or in-app notification.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at:

PetSpot Privacy Team
Email: privacy@getpetspot.com