Privacy
Privacy policy
Plain language, no dark patterns. This page describes what PawConnect actually stores, who can see it, and how to get rid of it.
Who runs PawConnect
PawConnect is operated by the project team that publishes the PawConnect app. Contact details for privacy matters are on the contact page. Where local law requires a named data controller and postal address, the operator of this deployment supplies it before launch.
What we collect
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Email address and password | To sign you in. Passwords are stored only as a hash by our authentication provider — we never see them. |
| Profile: display name, short bio, district, town, avatar | To show who is listing or enquiring. All of it is optional. |
| Adoption listings: species, age, location, description, photo | To publish the listing and let people find the animal. |
| Contact details attached to a listing | Stored for the listing owner's own reference. They are not shown on any public page, and the database does not expose them to people who enquire — conversations happen in the app instead. |
| Enquiries and messages | To hold the adoption conversation. |
| Lost & found reports and resolution requests | To publish the report and let a moderator review a claimed match. |
| Saved pets and success stories | Shortlists you keep, and outcomes you choose to share. |
We do not collect your contacts, your precise location, your advertising identifier, or your browsing behaviour on this website. There is no analytics or advertising script on this site.
About photos
Photos are resized and re-encoded before upload, and embedded metadata — including GPS coordinates — is removed in the app, before the file leaves your device. Uploaded images live in private storage and are served through short-lived signed links, not public URLs. A link that has already been issued cannot be revoked; it stops working when it expires, within about ten minutes.
Who can see what
- Drafts are visible only to you until you publish them.
- Published listings and lost & found reports are visible to other people using PawConnect.
- Listing contact details are readable only by the owner of the listing. There is no rule that shares them with enquirers; conversations are held in the app.
- Moderation acts on a resolution request and the report it refers to. The moderation functions read those two records only.
- Infrastructure is provided by Supabase, which hosts our database, authentication and file storage on our behalf.
How long we keep it
Data is deleted or anonymised on a schedule rather than kept indefinitely. Current retention periods:
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Lost & found reports (active) | 90 days, then they expire |
| Resolved or archived reports | 90 days |
| Expired reports | 30 days, then deleted |
| Anonymised reports | 180 days |
| Unpublished drafts | 30 days after the last edit |
| Resolution request notes | 90 days from the request, then cleared |
| Closed adoption conversations | 90 days |
| Removed listings (tombstones) | 90 days |
Some of these periods are reviewed and adjusted as the product changes. The values above are the ones currently in force.
Deleting your account
You can delete your account from inside the app, in Profile. Deletion is immediate for access: you are signed out and the account can no longer be used. The data itself is then handled as follows.
- Removed: your profile, your private drafts, your saved pets, your stories, and the contact details attached to your listings.
- Anonymised: your adoption listings are marked as removed and no longer name you.
- Closed: your adoption conversations are closed. Conversations where you were the only other participant are removed; others keep their messages with your identity removed and any contact details in the text redacted.
- Retained in anonymised form: published lost & found reports stay visible for their retention period without your account attached, and their photo reference is cleared.
- Queued for removal: your photos are queued for deletion from storage. Access stops immediately, but the files are deleted when the storage cleanup job next runs — a separate schedule — and a signed link issued before deletion works until it expires (within about ten minutes).
The full process, including what to expect if something goes wrong, is on the account deletion page.
Your choices
- Access and correction: most of your data is visible and editable in the app.
- Deletion: available in the app, without needing our permission.
- Questions or complaints: write to us using the contact page.
Security
Access to data is enforced in the database itself, not only in the app, so a modified client cannot read another person's drafts or contact details. Administrative operations run on the server with credentials that are never shipped to a phone or a browser. No system is perfect; if we ever discover a breach affecting your data we will tell you.
Children
PawConnect is not intended for children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes materially we will update this page and note the change in the app. Continuing to use PawConnect after a change means you accept the updated policy.