Privacy Policy

The short version

• We keep what you tell us about your dog, and your email address to run your account.
• We never sell your information and there are no ads.
• You can delete your account from Settings at any time. That deletes what's in it, apart from a few records we keep for a short time or for accounting, explained below.

Who runs DiscoverMyDog

DiscoverMyDog (the app and the website discovermydog.com) is run by Deekshith Salian, an individual based in Mangaluru, Karnataka, India. For anything about your privacy, write to hello@discovermydog.com.

What we collect

• Your account: your email address. Your password is handled by Amazon Cognito, and we never see it. If you continue with Google, Google gives us your email address, first name and profile photo. If you continue with Apple, Apple gives us your email address (or a private relay address, if you choose Hide My Email) and, the first time only, your name.
• About you, only if you add them: your name and a profile photo. If you continue with Google before adding a photo, your Google profile photo becomes it, once; you can change or remove it in Settings. Your name and profile photo are shown to the family of any dog you share or join, as they are in your account now.
• Your dog: name, breed, age group, birthday (month and year, if you add it), energy, what they love, and any photos you add.
• What you record: discoveries, notes, moments, guesses and ratings.
• Feedback you send from the app, any screenshots you attach to it, and whether you're happy for us to reply. If you report an AI answer, we get that answer and the question you asked. If you report a discovery or moment someone in your family added, we get it, its words and the reason you chose. If you send feedback without an account, we keep the email address you give for a reply, if you give one, and a scrambled one-way code made from your internet address, used only to stop floods of messages.
• While you're signed in, the days you open the app. They're kept with your account, to know when it was last used and on how many days, and they go when you delete it.
• If you buy DiscoverMyDog+: which plan you have, and when it started, renews or ends. The App Store or Google Play takes the payment, and we never see your card or bank details.
• The app doesn't ask for your phone's location, and it doesn't read your contacts or anything from other apps. Like any online service, the services we use can see the internet address your phone connects from, which can show roughly where you are; below, we say which ones use it.
• Reminders are scheduled on your phone itself. If you turn notifications on, we also keep a notification token for your phone and your phone's time zone, to send you family and payment notifications through Expo's push service, only between 8am and 8pm where you are. The token is deleted when you turn notifications off, sign out or delete your account.

How we use it

• To run the app: save your dog's story and keep it in sync across your phones.
• To notice patterns and write insights about your dog from what you recorded.
• To answer your questions in Ask, and write insights, using AI.
• To improve the app, using your feedback and simple counts of how it's used.
• To reply to feedback, only if you said we may.

Emails we send

• Only emails about your account: a code to confirm your email address when you sign up, a code to reset your password if you ask for one, and a short welcome email after you create your account.
• A reply from us, only when you write to us or ask us to delete your account. If you send feedback from the app and say we may reply, a copy of your note by email right away, then our reply.
• No newsletters and no marketing emails. We never sell your email address, and we share it only with the services that send our account emails for us.
• Sign-up and password-reset codes are sent by Amazon Web Services to the address you signed up with.
• The welcome email, and the copy of feedback you said we may reply to, are sent through Resend, a third-party email delivery service. Resend receives your email address and the email itself: the welcome says your account is ready and doesn't mention your dog by name; the copy holds the note you wrote and any screenshots you added to it. We use Resend for these two emails only, and it keeps them and their delivery records for 30 days.

AI features

• Ask answers and insights are written by AI models from Google (Gemini). They're optional: the app asks before the first one, and nothing goes to Google until you say yes.
• We send a summary of what you've recorded about your dog, their breed, age group and energy, and your question. In Ask, we also send up to 10 earlier messages from the same chat, so the answer can follow the conversation, and the notes you wrote on your recent discoveries, so the answer can use your own words. When you ask about one discovery from its result, we also send what you recorded in it: when it happened, its steps, your guess, what your dog did and your note. On a dog shared with family, that summary includes what everyone in the family recorded about the dog, never their names, notes or photos.
• From everything we send (your question, the chat and your notes too), we take out your dog's name, your own and your family's names, and any email address, where we can. A nickname or a misspelled name may not be caught. We never send your photos or your account's email address.
• We use Google's paid service: under its terms, Google doesn't use what we send to improve its products. It keeps it for up to 55 days, only to check for misuse and where the law requires, and authorized Google staff may look at anything its checks flag.
• Your Ask chats, your questions and the answers, are kept on your phone only, so you can read them again: the last 50, never backed up to your account and never shared with your family. They're deleted when you delete them in the app (one at a time, or all in Settings › Privacy & AI), delete the dog they're about, sign out, reset the phone or delete your account. If someone else signs in on your phone, your chats are put aside with the rest of what's yours on it, where their account can't see them, and come back when you sign in again.
• We keep a count of your Ask questions and insights with your account (when each was, and its size and cost), to apply the daily limit. It goes when you delete your account.
• AI answers are never a diagnosis. For health or behavior concerns, talk to a vet or a qualified behaviorist.
• You can turn AI features off at any time in Settings › Privacy & AI.
• Your choice to use AI features is saved on each phone separately. Turning it off on one phone doesn't change another phone.

Usage information (optional)

• Share Usage Data is optional. The app asks once, after you finish a discovery ("Help improve DiscoverMyDog?"), and nothing is sent before you answer. You can change it any time in Settings, under Share Usage Data.
• When it's on, the app sends simple usage events to PostHog, an analytics service we use to see which parts of the app get used. An event is a note like "a discovery was finished" or "a reminder was turned on", with plain details such as the kind of discovery or a count. It also notes which screens you open, and rounded-off groups such as how many dogs and discoveries you have, whether you're signed in, whether you have a free or Plus plan, or about how long ago you installed the app.
• Each event also carries the app version, your phone's operating system and version, its make, model and screen size, and a random ID that PostHog makes for this install. Like any online service, PostHog can see the internet address your phone connects from. We ask it not to use that to work out your location.
• These events never include your name, your email address, your dog's name, your notes, your photos, or an account ID. We don't give PostHog your identity, and the random ID starts over when you sign out, delete your account or turn this off.
• Turning it off stops it right away. Nothing more is sent, and anything that hadn't been sent yet is thrown away. Your choice is saved on this phone only, and a new install asks again.
• This choice covers the usage events above. It doesn't cover what we keep with your account, such as the days you open the app, or crash reports.
• Our app and website don't respond to browsers' Do Not Track signals. Apart from Google Analytics on our website, described below, we don't let other companies follow what you do across other apps and websites.

Crash reports and server logs

• Crash reports are separate. If the app hits an error or crashes, technical details are sent to Sentry so we can find and fix the problem: what went wrong, your app and phone version, and the internal ID our server uses for your account (not your email address), never your notes or photos. Web addresses and email addresses are taken out of error messages before they're sent. Sentry can see the internet address your phone connects from too; we've set it not to keep it. Sentry also gets performance data, like how long screens and requests take and when the app is opened, with web addresses cut short so they never include a private link.
• Our servers keep logs of requests and errors, to keep the service running and safe. We keep what you write, your photos and your email address out of them. Errors on our servers also go to Sentry, with email addresses taken out.
• These are needed to run the app, so the Share Usage Data switch doesn't turn them off.

Sharing with family

• If you share a dog, the people you invite can see that dog, its discoveries with their notes and photos, and your name and profile photo. If you join someone's dog, its family sees your name, your profile photo and what you add.
• Anyone in the family who turned notifications on is told when someone joins or leaves, or adds a discovery, with that person's name, the dog's name and the answer they picked, never their notes or photos.
• Moments you keep stay private to you, unless you choose to share one with the family: then they can see it, with its words and photos, until you stop sharing it, delete it, leave or are removed, or delete your account. If you leave or are removed, your moments with that dog are hidden from you, and come back if you're invited again.
• What you add stays with that dog if you leave or are removed, until you delete your account or the dog's owner removes it. The owner can remove anything added to their dog, and anyone in the family can report something someone else added. You can also hide everything one person adds; what you report or hide is kept with your account, so it stays hidden on all your phones.
• If you delete your account, everything you added to someone else's dog is deleted. If someone in the family reported something you added before then, the copy in their report stays with their account. If the owner deletes the dog or their account, the dog is deleted for everyone in its family, with the moments each person kept with it.

Who else is involved

• Amazon Web Services hosts the app, its database, your photos and sign-in, and sends your sign-up and password-reset codes, in its US East (Ohio) region.
• Google powers the AI features, as described above.
• Google Analytics counts visits to our website, discovermydog.com (pages viewed, the page you came from, kind of device and browser, rough location), never for ads. The app itself doesn't use Google Analytics, and the website pages the app opens don't load it, so nothing is sent to Google from them. It isn't loaded on a device set to a European time zone either. On other visits it uses cookies to tell new visits from repeat ones, except where Google places the visit in the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland: there it stores no cookies on your device, though Google still receives the visit. You can also block it in your browser's settings.
• PostHog receives the optional usage events described above, only when Share Usage Data is on.
• Sentry receives crash reports, as described above.
• Resend sends our welcome email and the copy of your feedback, as described under Emails we send.
• Expo delivers the notifications our server sends, through Apple's and Google's notification services. It gets your phone's notification token and each notification's words (names, your dog's name and a short line about a discovery or a payment), never your notes, photos or email address. On Android, Google's notification service (Firebase Cloud Messaging) gives each install a random ID when the app opens, so notifications can reach the phone once you turn them on.
• Expo also delivers fixes to the app: when the app opens, it asks Expo whether a newer version of its code is ready, sending the app's version, your phone's operating system, a random ID for this install and, if the app couldn't start the last time, the error that stopped it, never your account, your notes or anything about your dog. Like any online service, Expo can see the internet address your phone connects from.
• RevenueCat handles DiscoverMyDog+ purchases for us. It gets the internal ID our server uses for your account and the details of your purchase from the App Store or Google Play (which plan, when it renews or ends, and the store's country and currency), the app's version and the country your internet address is in, never your email address or anything about your dog. When you delete your account, we ask RevenueCat to delete its record of you.
• We share with each service only what it needs, and each must keep your information secure and confidential, protecting it at least as well as this policy does.
• These services handle your information for us under their own terms. Some of those terms also let a service use it, usually combined with other information or with what identifies you removed, to improve its own service. We never sell your information or share it for advertising.

Where your information is handled

Our servers, database and photo storage are run by Amazon Web Services in the United States (Ohio). The other services above may store or handle what they receive in other countries too: PostHog, Sentry and Resend keep it in the United States, and Google may handle AI requests in any country where it has facilities.

Keeping it safe

Information sent between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit, and our database, its backups and the photo storage are encrypted when stored. On your phone, the app keeps its copy of your dog's story in its own storage, which other apps can't read. Each account can only read its own data and the dogs shared with it, and access on our side is limited to running and fixing the app.

How long we keep it

• What's in your account: until you delete it, or delete your account. After that, it may remain in encrypted backups for up to 14 days before it's gone for good. We keep a note that the account was deleted (its internal ID, with no email address, name or photo), so your other phones know to clear it.
• When you delete something, a blank marker stays in its place, with no words or photos, so your other phones (and your family's, for a shared dog) remove it too.
• Server logs, which record technical details of requests and errors (we keep what you write, your photos and your email address out of them): 30 days.
• Crash reports in Sentry: 30 days. Deleting your account doesn't remove them sooner.
• Usage events in PostHog, sent only while Share Usage Data is on: our PostHog plan keeps them for 1 year. They carry no account ID, so deleting your account doesn't reach them.
• Website visits in Google Analytics: as long as our Google Analytics account is set to keep them, never more than 14 months.
• Feedback you send without an account, with the email address you gave for a reply: until you ask us to delete it, at hello@discovermydog.com.
• If you bought DiscoverMyDog+, a record of each purchase (which plan, when, and the store's country and price, under a random ID, never your email address or anything about your dog) is kept after you delete your account, as accounting and tax rules require.

Your choices

• Delete your account in Settings. That removes your records, your photos and your login. Without the app, see discovermydog.com/delete-account.html.
• Change your name, profile photo and your dog's details in the app. Edit or remove individual discoveries, moments and dog profiles in the app. Something you added to a dog someone shares with you can be removed while you're still in its family.
• Turn reminders and notifications off in Settings, or in your phone's settings, at any time.
• Turn AI features off at any time in Settings › Privacy & AI; nothing more is sent from that phone.
• Turn Share Usage Data on or off in Settings at any time.
• Ask us for a copy of your information, or anything else about your privacy, at hello@discovermydog.com.

Children

DiscoverMyDog is for people 13 and over. It isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top, and tell you in the app if the change is important.

Contact

Use Send feedback in the app, or write to hello@discovermydog.com.