🇫🇷 Français 🇩🇪 Deutsch 🇪🇸 Español 🇮🇹 Italiano

Privacy Policy — PetPal

Version 1.1 — effective July 15, 2026

PetPal is your care companion for cats and dogs. The principle is simple: your data stays on your phone, except when you use the AI or household sharing — and when you do, we tell you exactly what leaves, where it goes, and why.

The short version

• Everything you enter in PetPal (profiles, health record, photos, memories, reserve) is stored only on your phone. No server of ours keeps this data.
• Household sharing is optional: if you turn it on, the record goes through your iCloud (Apple) to be shared with only the people you invite — never through our servers.
• When you use the AI (breed recognition, the "Should I worry?" triage), the photo or text involved passes through our relay in Europe and then through Anthropic (United States) to generate the answer. Our servers store none of this content.
• No account, no ads, no trackers, no analytics, zero third-party SDKs.
• Payment for the PetPal+ subscription is handled by Apple: we never see your banking details.
• A random identifier (not Apple's advertising identifier) is used solely to prevent abuse of the AI: 60 calls per day per device.
• You can delete whatever you like right in the app — a memory or an entire profile with its health record — and the "Erase all my data" button (Settings) resets everything. Deleting the app also erases everything: it's all local.

1. Who is responsible?

The data controller is Ayoub Barkia, an independent developer based in France. Contact: ayoub.barkia31@gmail.com. The applicable law is the GDPR.

2. What stays on your phone

All the data you enter is stored locally, in the app's private container (a data file plus your photos):

• Your pets' profiles: name, species, breed, age, weight, sex, neutering status, microchip or passport number, photos.
• Health record: vaccines, vet visits, weigh-ins, expenses.
• Memories: photos and captions.
• Your first name, if you enter it in Settings — it's used only for the "Hello!" on the home screen.
• Emergency reserve, projected costs, streaks, and settings.
• AI-generated results: the breed portrait (summary, traits, care points) and your scan history (breed, confidence level) are kept locally, attached to the profile.

The home screen widget uses a small snapshot (pet's name, reduced photo, next due date, reserve), shared only between the app and the widget, always on your phone.

None of this is sent to our servers — with two exceptions, both at your initiative: the data listed in section 3 when you use the AI, and the record copied to your iCloud if you turn on household sharing (section 7).

3. What is sent to the AI, and why

Two features use an AI. Only the data strictly needed leaves your phone:

a) Breed recognition. A downsized version of the photo (768 px, JPEG) and a species hint (cat or dog) are sent. In the breed scanner, sending happens when you tap the analyze button. During onboarding, the photo you pick is sent automatically as soon as you select it — an on-screen message lets you know at that moment.

b) "Should I worry?" triage. What gets sent: your description, the symptom, its duration, and the pet's context (species, age, breed, neutering status, health history if you entered it) — but never their name. If the AI asks one or two follow-up questions, your answers are sent back to it along with the questions to refine the verdict. One important point: if you check a serious sign, the app immediately shows an emergency verdict computed locally, with no network call at all — the AI isn't even consulted.

In both cases, your app's language is added to the request so the answer comes back in your language.

The data's journey: your phone → our relay function hosted at Supabase (European Union, region eu-west-3, Paris) → Anthropic PBC (United States), which runs the Claude AI model and generates the answer.

• Our relay stores neither the photos nor the texts: it checks the anti-abuse quota, then passes them along. Only usage counters are recorded (device identifier, date, number of calls).
• As with any internet call, Supabase may keep technical invocation metadata, including your IP address (kept for a maximum of 7 days — see section 9). Anthropic, for its part, only sees the outbound IP address of our servers, not yours.
• Sending data to Anthropic constitutes a transfer of data outside the European Union (United States). This transfer is safeguarded by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (Art. 46 GDPR), built into Anthropic's data processing agreement. You can read them here: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/data-processing-addendum — or request a copy from us at the contact address (section 14).
• Anthropic processes this data solely to generate the answer: its commercial terms prohibit it from training its models on content sent through its API, except with the customer's explicit consent — consent we have not given. Anthropic automatically deletes requests and responses from its systems within 30 days (longer only if the content is flagged by its anti-abuse systems, or where legally required). Its commercial terms: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms

4. The anti-abuse identifier

Each device is limited to 60 AI calls per day. To count these calls, the app generates a random identifier (UUID) at the moment of your first AI call — if you never use the AI, it doesn't even exist. It then accompanies every AI call.

This is not Apple's advertising identifier (IDFA): no ad tracking, no cross-referencing with other apps, no link to your name or email — we don't know them.

5. Subscription and payment

The PetPal+ subscription is managed by Apple (App Store / StoreKit). Payment is handled entirely by Apple: we never see your banking details, only the status of your subscription (active or not).

6. Notifications

All notifications (care reminders, follow-up after a triage, weekly recap) are scheduled locally on your phone. No push server. You can turn them off at any time in your iOS settings.

7. Sharing

When you share a monthly recap or a breed card, it goes through the iOS share sheet, only when you choose to. You alone decide what to share, with whom, and through which app.

Household sharing (optional). If you turn on household sharing, the record (profiles, health, treatments, weights, expenses, observations, memories with their photos, reserve, and planned costs) is copied to your private iCloud space and shared only with the people you invite, through Apple’s iCloud sharing. This data is then transmitted and stored by Apple (iCloud), according to your account’s iCloud configuration — never by our servers, which have no access to it. What remains personal (your first name, scan history, completed lessons and moments) is not shared. Any member can leave the household at any time (Settings), and the owner can dissolve it: sharing stops, and everyone keeps their local copy of the record. Apple’s privacy policy applies to iCloud storage: apple.com/legal/privacy.

Nearby (optional, from version 1.1). If you allow it, your location is only used to center the map and sort results (parks, vets, pet shops) by distance. Place searches are handled by Apple Maps (Apple's privacy policy applies) — your location is never sent to our servers and is neither stored nor tracked by PetPal. You can revoke the permission at any time in iOS Settings; the map still works by panning it manually.

8. What we do NOT do

• No user accounts.
• No server of ours storing your record: everything is local, and optional household sharing goes through your iCloud, not through us.
• No advertising, no trackers, no analytics.
• No third-party SDKs in the app.
• No geolocation: the emergency buttons simply open Phone or Maps, handled by iOS.
• We never sell or rent your data. To anyone.

The only permissions requested: camera (to take a photo of your pet), photo library (to pick one), notifications (for reminders).

9. How long we keep what

• Local data: it stays on your phone for as long as you keep the app. You can delete a memory or an entire profile (with its health record, memories, and reminders) right in the app, erase everything at once via Settings → "Erase all my data", or simply delete the app — since everything is local, nothing remains.
• Content sent to the AI (photos, texts): never stored by our servers — it only passes through. Anthropic, which generates the answer, automatically deletes it from its systems within 30 days (up to 2 years only if flagged by its anti-abuse systems, or where legally required — see section 3).
• Usage counters (random identifier, date, number of calls): kept in pseudonymous form, solely to run the anti-abuse quota, and automatically purged after 90 days.
• Household sharing: shared data stays in your iCloud for as long as the household exists. Leaving or dissolving the household (Settings), or “Erase all my data”, deletes the iCloud copy; each member keeps their local copy.
• Technical logs (invocation metadata at Supabase, including your IP address): kept by Supabase for a maximum of 7 days, then deleted automatically.

10. Your rights (GDPR)

You have the right to access your data, rectify it, erase it, request that its processing be restricted, object to its processing, and request its portability. Since almost everything lives on your phone, you exercise most of these rights directly in the app: edit a pet's profile, delete a memory or an entire profile (with its full health record), or erase everything at once via Settings → "Erase all my data". You can also simply delete the app (everything is local) — or write to us if you need help.

The server-side usage counters contain only a random identifier, with no link to your identity — so we can't identify you in them by name. For any request, write to us at ayoub.barkia31@gmail.com. You can also lodge a complaint with the CNIL (www.cnil.fr), the French data protection authority.

11. Minors

PetPal isn't specifically aimed at children and doesn't knowingly collect data from minors. If you're a parent or guardian and believe a minor has sent us data through the AI features, please contact us.

12. Legal bases

• Performance of the service you request (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR): processing of photos and texts by the AI when you use breed recognition or the triage, sharing of the record through your iCloud when you turn on household sharing, and management of your subscription.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR): anti-abuse counters (AI call quota) and our providers' technical logs (including the IP address at Supabase), to protect the service against excessive use and to keep it secure and running smoothly.

13. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes (a new feature, a new processor…), we'll update this page, its effective date, and its version number. The applicable version is always the latest one published here.

14. Contact

A question about your data?

Ayoub Barkia — developer of PetPal

ayoub.barkia31@gmail.com