Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Pawspert is a pet-care platform that connects pet owners with veterinary professionals, groomers, trainers, and other service providers. We operate the Pawspert mobile application (iOS and Android) and the associated backend services.

Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide

• Account registration — name, email address, and password (stored as a one-way hash, never in plain text).
• Pet profiles — pet name, species, breed, gender, age, and weight.
• Booking details — date, time, service type, clinic or provider name, and any notes you add.
• Consultation notes — symptoms, diagnosis, action plans, and follow-up instructions recorded during video consultations.
• Community posts — text and images you voluntarily publish on the community feed.
• Profile information — your city, which helps us surface nearby clinics and services.
• Payment information — we do not store card details. Payments are processed by third-party gateways that are PCI-DSS compliant.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device identifiers and operating system version, used solely for crash diagnostics.
• App usage patterns — which features you interact with, how often, and for how long. This data is aggregated and never linked to your identity for advertising.
• Location data — only when you explicitly grant permission, and only to show nearby clinics and service providers. We do not track your location in the background.

2.3 Information From Third Parties

• If you book a video consultation, session metadata (duration, connection quality) is provided by our video infrastructure partner. No recordings are stored by Pawspert unless a vet explicitly saves consultation notes.
• If a service provider submits notes or prescriptions for your pet, that information becomes part of your pet's health timeline.

How We Use Your Information

We use your data strictly to operate and improve Pawspert. Specifically:

• To create and manage your account and authenticate you securely.
• To display your pet's health timeline, PawPoints balance, and digital Pawsport.
• To connect you with clinics and service providers and facilitate bookings.
• To enable video consultations and store the resulting health notes.
• To award and track PawPoints based on your activity within the app.
• To send transactional emails such as booking confirmations, email verifications, and appointment reminders. We do not send marketing emails without your explicit opt-in.
• To improve the app through aggregated, anonymised analytics.
• To comply with legal obligations, enforce our Terms of Service, and protect the safety and rights of users and third parties.

The Digital Pawsport

Your pet's Pawsport is a QR-code-linked health record. Scanning the QR code returns your pet's profile, health timeline, and consultation notes through a publicly accessible (but non-indexed) API endpoint. This endpoint requires knowledge of your pet's unique Pawsport ID — it is not discoverable by search engines or enumerable.

How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers — clinics, vets, groomers, and other professionals you explicitly book through the app receive booking details and, if you choose to show your Pawsport, the associated health records.
• Infrastructure partners — cloud hosting, database, and email delivery services that process data on our behalf under strict data processing agreements.
• Legal requirements — if required by law, court order, or governmental authority, we may disclose information after taking reasonable steps to notify you unless prohibited from doing so.
• Business transfers — if Pawspert is acquired or merges with another company, your data may transfer as part of that transaction. You will be notified via email and given the option to delete your account beforehand.

Data Retention

We retain your account and pet health data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, your active profile is immediately deactivated and you can no longer log in. A copy of your data is retained in an internal archive for a maximum of 90 days to comply with legal obligations and to support dispute resolution, after which it is permanently purged.

Community posts you have made remain visible after account deletion unless you manually delete them beforehand. Contact support@pawspert.app to request post removal.

Your Rights

Depending on your country of residence, you may have the following rights:

• Access — request a copy of all personal data we hold about you.
• Correction — ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion — request erasure of your personal data (subject to legal retention requirements).
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection — object to certain types of processing, including profiling.
• Restriction — ask us to restrict processing while a complaint is under review.

To delete your account directly from the app, see our account deletion guide →

Security

We implement industry-standard safeguards including TLS encryption for all data in transit, bcrypt hashing for passwords, and role-based access controls on our infrastructure. No system is perfectly secure; if you suspect unauthorised access to your account, change your password immediately and contact us.

We do not store payment card information on our servers. All payment flows are handled by PCI-DSS compliant processors.

Children's Privacy

Pawspert is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, please contact us immediately at pawspert@gmail.com and we will delete the data promptly.

Cookies and Tracking

The Pawspert mobile app does not use browser cookies. We use lightweight, privacy-respecting session tokens stored securely on your device. We do not embed third-party advertising SDKs or cross-app tracking frameworks.

Third-Party Links

The app may contain links to external websites or services (for example, a clinic's own website). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties. We encourage you to review their policies before sharing personal information.

International Data Transfers

Our servers are currently hosted in the European Union (Frankfurt region). If you access Pawspert from outside the EU, your data may be transferred internationally. We apply appropriate safeguards — including standard contractual clauses where required — to protect your information regardless of where it is processed.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you via an in-app banner and, where legally required, by email at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Continued use of Pawspert after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

The "Last updated" date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent revision.

Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please reach out. We take privacy concerns seriously and will respond within 5 business days.