Privacy policy
The short version
- Your dog's sounds are synced to your account. That means short audio clips, the "words" we group them into, and your tags and notes.
- Talking with no dog sound in it is dropped on your phone and never saved or uploaded. A dog sound that happens while someone is talking is kept, uploaded with the voices that were in it, and marked as overlapping speech. Our server then removes the voices as well as it can and deletes the original clip. It may not catch every word.
- An AI service reads some photos, only if you say yes. The first time you add a vet paper or catch a dog, the app asks before sending the photo to Anthropic's Claude. You can switch this off any time in the Dog tab, under Account.
- Dogodex: photos you take of dogs you meet, the names you add, and the neighbourhood (never exact coordinates) and date of each meeting sync to your account. A card you show or share can be seen by anyone with its link, until you stop sharing it.
- Tricks: short videos of your dog sync to your account. Sound is off by default: unless you turn it on for a video, its audio is removed before it is saved.
- The ideas board is public to other users. What you post there, and the dog photo shown with it, can be seen by them.
- Our diagnostics and crash reports contain no audio.
- You sign in with Apple. We don't run ads, sell your data, or share it with research partners.
- You can delete your data, or your account, in the app.
- Pawty is for adults, 18 and over.
1. Who we are
Pawty is built by Roshan Pati, an independent developer in the United States ([legal entity name and mailing address]). In this policy, "we" means Pawty. Contact: hello@getpawty.com.
2. What Pawty collects
| What | Details | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Your Apple sign-in. We receive a stable account ID from Apple, and your name and email only if you choose to share them (Apple may give us a private relay address instead). We also keep a token from Apple, encrypted and readable only by our server, so that when you delete your account we can tell Apple to end the link between Pawty and your Apple ID. | Our account service (Supabase); the token is used with Apple |
| Your dog | Name, breed and age you type in, and your dog's photo. The photo is also your dog's card (#001) in your Dogodex. | Name, breed, age: synced to your account. The photo syncs with your Dogodex (private storage). |
| Dog sounds | Short audio clips (around 10 to 60 KB each) of sounds the app thinks are your dog, with when they happened, how long, how loud, the type of sound, the detector's scores and labels, and whether talking overlapped. For a clip that overlapped talking, we also keep a record of how the voice was removed (scores, not audio). We also compute a numerical "fingerprint" of each clip to group similar sounds. | Synced to your account. Clips are in private storage. Fingerprints, word grouping and voice removal run on our server (Modal). |
| Dogodex | Photos you take of dogs you meet (and the cut-out sticker made from each), the dog's name and the person's name you type, the breed, traits and rarity the app works out, and the neighbourhood name and date of each meeting. We turn your approximate location into a neighbourhood name on your phone and save only that name, never your coordinates. | Synced to your account. Photos and stickers are in private storage (Supabase). With your permission, the photo is sent to Anthropic to name the breed. |
| Pawty card links | When you show or share a Pawty card, a link is made. Anyone with the link can see the dog's sticker and the card details (name, breed, number, rarity, colour, the first neighbourhood and the date you met). Never your name, the person's name you added, your account or the street photo. Tap "Stop sharing" on the card to remove the link and its sticker copy. Deleting your account removes them too. | Public link on our website (Vercel); sticker copy in public storage (Supabase) |
| Tricks | Videos of up to 15 seconds of your dog doing a trick, with a picture from the video and the trick's name. Sound is off by default: the audio track is removed before the video is saved, unless you switch on "Keep sound" for that video. A video you keep with sound may include voices. | Synced to your account, in private storage (Supabase) |
| Words, tags and notes | The words we group sounds into, what you tag (for example "doorbell"), and notes you write (up to 500 characters each). | Synced to your account |
| Listening sessions | When a session started and ended, how many sounds were kept, how many talking moments were dropped (a count only), the device type (iPhone) and app version. | Synced to your account |
| Vet papers | Photos or PDFs of invoices, vaccine cards, medicine labels and lab results you add, the items read from them, and what you confirm into your dog's record. | Private storage and database (Supabase). With your permission, the paper is sent to Anthropic to be read. Reminders you set are scheduled on your phone. |
| Ideas board | If you post an idea or add your paw to one: the text (up to 140 characters), a snapshot of your dog's photo and name shown as "[dog]'s human", your paws, and any report or block you make. Other users can see an approved idea, its poster's dog photo and name, and the paw count. | Our database (Supabase), visible to other signed-in users once approved. The text and photo are checked by an AI service (Anthropic) and by us before an idea goes up. |
| Diagnostics and crash reports | Small events about how the app is doing and which parts of it get used: app starts, which screens you open, onboarding steps (including the ones before you sign in, held on the phone and sent only after you sign in), listening start and stop, tags saved, Dogodex catches and breed lookups, notification permission and taps, upload problems, sign-in problems, engine health (such as an interruption), and error and crash reports. Each event carries the app version and build, the iPhone model and iOS version, and a random install number made by the app (not your Apple advertising ID or any device ID); it is removed when you delete the app. Our servers add events about the work they do for you (a word being born, a vet paper being read, a breed lookup, a voice clean-up finishing or failing). No audio, no transcripts, and the app strips names, notes, file paths and similar before sending. Only sent while you're signed in. Deleting your account deletes these events; we keep only a daily count of how many accounts were deleted, with no way to tell whose. | Our database (Supabase); error and crash reports also to Sentry |
| Feedback | What you type in Send feedback, an optional screenshot you pick, and the last 200 diagnostic events (event type and timing only). | Our database (Supabase) |
| Android waitlist | If you leave your email on a Pawty card page to hear when Pawty comes to Android: that email, the card link you were on, and whether you were on Android or a computer. No account is made and we store no IP address. We use it once, to tell you Android is ready. To be removed, email us at the address on the support page. | Our database (Supabase) |
| Your choices | Records of what you agreed to, such as whether an AI service may read your photos, and which wording you saw. | Your account (Supabase) and your phone |
Pawty asks for microphone access to listen while a session is running. It asks for camera or photo access only when you add a photo or video of your dog, a vet paper, or a dog you meet. It asks for your approximate location only to name the neighbourhood on a Pawty card: the neighbourhood name is saved, but your coordinates are never stored or sent to us. To turn a location into a neighbourhood name, the phone uses Apple's own location services. It asks to send notifications for the record reminders you set and when your dog has a new word. You can turn each of these off in iPhone Settings.
3. People talking
Pawty is built to hear your dog, not people, but a home has people in it. Here is exactly what happens:
- Live audio is held in your phone's memory for a few seconds while the app decides whether it contains a dog sound. It isn't saved unless it's kept as a dog sound.
- A detector on your phone checks each moment for talking. If it hears talking and no dog sound, that moment is dropped on the phone. It is never saved or uploaded. The app only counts how many were dropped.
- If a dog sound happens while someone is talking, we keep the dog sound and mark it as overlapping speech. That clip may include a few seconds of background voices (a short stretch before and after the sound is included). It uploads like any other dog sound.
- Our server then removes the voices as well as it can. It separates the dog sound from the talking, quiets any talking that's left, and checks the result. If the cleaned clip passes the check, it replaces the original and the original clip is deleted. If the voices can't be removed, the clip's audio is deleted instead. We don't fingerprint a clip until it's cleaned.
- If cleaning hasn't finished after about a day, the original clip is deleted anyway. Delays or outages on our side can make this take longer.
- Voice removal isn't perfect. A cleaned clip may still have a word or two of speech in it.
- No detector is perfect. It can miss talking, and it can mistake other sounds for a dog.
- In Say it back, you can try copying a dog sound. Your attempt is compared on your phone, held only in memory and then discarded. It is never saved or uploaded.
Please let the people you live with, and guests, know Pawty may be listening, and don't run it where people expect privacy. See the Terms of use.
4. How we use your data
- To run the app: group sounds into words, show your Book, keep it on every phone you sign in on, read vet papers and name breeds (if you allow it).
- To improve Pawty: learn how dogs sound, tune and evaluate the detection and grouping, and fix problems. We look at synced clips, words and tags for this. We don't use vet papers for that.
- To keep the ideas board safe: check posts before they go up and act on reports.
- To support you: answer feedback and look into problems with diagnostics and crash reports.
We don't show ads, we don't sell your data, and we don't use advertising SDKs. We don't track you across other companies' apps or websites. The app doesn't try to work out anything about people.
Research sharing is off. There is a switch in the app ("Help dog science") that is off unless you turn it on. Nothing is shared with research partners today. If that changes, we'll name the partners in the app first, and share only under a data agreement and only for people who switched it on.
5. Who else handles your data
These companies process data for us to run Pawty. They aren't allowed to use it for their own purposes beyond providing the service, as set out in their terms with us.
| Company | What they do | What they handle |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in, and file storage. Hosted in the United States (US East). | Everything in the table above that syncs: account, dog, clips, words, tags, sessions, vet papers, Dogodex, tricks, ideas board, diagnostics, feedback. |
| Modal | Runs our server jobs: grouping dog sounds into words, removing voices from clips, reading vet papers and naming breeds. [Modal region] | Dog clips and fingerprints while the job runs; vet paper files and Dogodex photos while they are being read. |
| Anthropic | AI model (Claude) that reads vet papers and names the breed in Dogodex photos, only if you allow it, and checks ideas board posts and photos before they go up. | The photo or PDF you add, only when you add one and have allowed it; the photo of a dog you catch in Dogodex; the text and dog photo of an idea you post. Never dog audio. Anthropic handles this data under its commercial API terms. |
| Sentry | Collects error and crash reports so we can fix bugs. | Error messages, a few stack frames, the app version, and your account ID. No audio, names, notes or file paths. |
| Vercel | Hosts this website and the public Pawty card pages. | The pages you open, and the usual web request details (such as your IP address) in its logs. |
| Apple | Sign in with Apple, location services (to turn a location into a neighbourhood name on your phone), and the App Store. | Your Apple sign-in. Apple's own terms and privacy policy apply to what Apple collects. |
We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect people's safety or our rights.
6. AI reading of photos
- The first time you add a vet paper or catch a dog in Dogodex, Pawty asks before sending the photo to Anthropic's Claude. Say "Not now" and nothing is sent: you type records in yourself, and catches get no breed.
- You can change your mind any time in the Dog tab, under Account. Switching it off stops new photos being sent; it doesn't recall ones already read.
- Photos may show other people (for example a bystander in a street photo) or your own details (on a vet paper). Please only send photos you're comfortable sending.
7. Vet papers
- The photo or PDF is uploaded to private storage that only your account can open.
- If you've allowed it, it is sent to Anthropic's AI model, which reads the items on it (such as vaccines, medicines, visits and weights). You review them and confirm before anything joins your dog's record.
- The paper may show your own details. We tell the model to ignore them, and our server removes patterns such as phone and card numbers, so they aren't saved into the record. The original photo is kept as you uploaded it, in your private storage, until you delete it.
- Pawty doesn't give medical advice or diagnoses. Ask your vet.
8. How long we keep things
- We keep your data while you have an account, until you delete it.
- Delete a sound in the app and it's deleted on your phone right away and from our servers as soon as the phone can reach them (it retries until it works).
- Delete account (Dog tab) removes all of your dog's sounds, clips, tags, words, sessions, records, vet papers, tricks, your Dogodex and card links, your ideas and paws, your dog's profile, your diagnostics and feedback, your choices log, the stored Apple token (after telling Apple to revoke it), and your sign-in with us, on your phone and on our servers.
- Stop sharing on a Pawty card removes just that card's link and its sticker copy.
- Our hosting providers may keep routine backups for a limited time after you delete. [backup period]
- Diagnostics and feedback are kept only as long as we need them to fix problems, and are deleted with your account. Reports Sentry already holds expire under Sentry's own retention.
9. Your choices and rights
- Turn the microphone, camera, location or notifications off in iPhone Settings. Turn off AI reading in the Dog tab, under Account. Keep research sharing off.
- Notifications are only for record reminders you set and when your dog has a new word (at most one a day, never between 9 PM and 8 AM).
- Delete a sound or your account in the app (above).
- To see or get a copy of your data, or to ask us to correct it, email hello@getpawty.com from the address you signed up with, or tell us your Apple sign-in. We'll reply within a reasonable time.
- Depending on where you live (for example California, the EU or the UK) you may have extra rights, such as to access, correct, delete, or object to some uses of your data. Email us to use them. We won't treat you worse for asking.
- Pawty runs in the United States. If you use it from elsewhere, your data goes to the United States.
10. Security
Data is encrypted in transit. Files are in private storage, and database rules let each account see only its own data (apart from ideas board posts and public card links, which are meant to be seen). Diagnostics and feedback can be written by your account but not read back by it, and only we can read them. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise it will never be breached.
11. Age
Pawty is for people 18 and over. It isn't for children, and we don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you think a child has an account, email us and we'll delete it.
12. Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.
13. Contact
Email hello@getpawty.com.