Privacy Policy

Who we are

PawMe is a dog-care app for iOS, Android and the web (app.pawme.io), with a public website at www.pawme.io. PawMe is operated by Pato Gómez, an individual developer based in Mexico (“PawMe”, “we”, “us”). We are the data controller (in Mexico, the responsable) for the personal data described here.

For anything about privacy, write to privacy@pawme.io. This policy covers the PawMe apps, the web app and the website. Our Health Data Policy explains in more detail how we treat your dog’s health records, and our Terms of Service cover using PawMe.

The short version

Sharing care in a family

You can invite another adult to a family using a private code that expires after seven days and can be accepted by one person. Owners and co-owners have exactly the same permissions: they can see, add, correct, delete and export that family's dogs, care, walks and routes, records, contacts, memories and files, and manage invitations and members. Each person signs in with their own account. Your other families, sign-in details, recovery email, personal settings, consent and push tokens remain separate.

Care keeps the original author and separately records corrections. Removing a member or leaving a family ends server access, including new file links and exports, without deleting shared history. The last owner or co-owner cannot leave without deleting their account and the family. Previously downloaded copies and already issued time-limited links cannot be recalled. PawMe does not share a live family location.

What we collect and why

PawMe only collects what each feature needs. Here is everything, grouped by feature. Most of it is information about your dog that you choose to add.

Your account

• Sign-in. You sign in with Apple or Google. There is no PawMe password. We receive your email address (with Apple this may be a private relay address) and an account identifier from Apple or Google. Our sign-in service also keeps the basic profile details the provider sends (for Google, typically your name and a link to your profile picture), when you signed in, and technical sign-in logs such as IP address and browser or device type. PawMe’s own screens do not use your name.
• Recovery email (optional). If you add one in Settings, it is stored but is not yet verified and cannot currently restore account access.
• Preferences. Your weight and distance units, and your time zone. The time zone (for example “America/Mexico_City”) is read from your device so reminders, birthdays and “today” happen at your local time. It is not your location.
• Consent records. Which version of these policies you accepted, and when. We keep this to show that you agreed.

Your dogs’ profiles

Name and optional last name, breed, sex, birthday (or an estimated one), adoption (“Gotcha”) day, allergies you note, a profile photo, and, if a dog passes, the date you record for Memorial Mode. We use these to show your dogs’ profiles, ages and life chapters, and to send birthday and Gotcha Day reminders.

Daily care, reminders and the Treat Jar

The care you log (feeding, water, medication doses, mood, enrichment activities and their duration, baths and similar), the care plans and reminder times you set, and the treats PawMe awards for logging. We use these to show your day, send your reminders, build your Weekly Brief, and keep your Treat Jar and streaks. These are calculated automatically from your own logs by fixed rules. They are informational only and never make decisions about you.

Health records and documents

Vaccines, medications, vet visits and notes, weight entries, preventive-care items (like flea treatment or nail trims), and documents you upload (for example a vet PDF or a photo of a record). This is your dog’s health information, not yours. See the Health Data Policy.

Walks

Walk type, start and end time, duration, which dogs came, an optional note, and the name of a dog walker if you log a walk someone else did. Walk events you log (such as pee, poop, water, something eaten from the ground or play) are saved with their time, any detail you type, an optional photo and, when GPS is tracking, an approximate position (rounded to about 11 m). On a phone, for a walk you time yourself: the distance, the route outline, and the step count your phone measures. Details are in Location during walks.

Memories

Photos, captions, an optional title and place name that you type, the date, milestone flags, tags, and which dogs are in each memory. We use them to show your memories and your dogs’ Life Map. A memory’s place is only ever the text you type. We never read it from the photo. You can also save a memory during a walk without ending it: it is an ordinary memory, not linked to the walk or its route, and its place is never filled in from your location. A walk-event photo and a memory photo are separate, and neither is copied into the other.

Enrichment questionnaire (optional)

Your answers about your dog, such as energy level, home, time available, how they handle being alone, and mobility. They are stored with your dog’s profile and used only to suggest enrichment activities that suit your dog.

Contacts and other people’s details

If you save a contact’s name, clinic, phone number and email (such as your vet), or type a dog walker’s name, that information is about someone else. We store it only so you can use it in PawMe (for example, printing your primary contact on your records export). Please only add details the person would expect you to keep.

Notifications and devices

Your in-app notifications (what they were about, and whether you read or dismissed them). If you turn on push notifications, the push token Apple or Google issues for your phone, the platform (iOS or Android), and your device’s name or model, so we can deliver reminders and you can tell your devices apart. See Notifications.

Privacy requests

When you export your data or delete your account, we log the request type and time so we can prevent abuse by rate-limiting repeated requests.

Technical data

Like any online service, our hosting providers process your IP address, device or browser type and request details when your app talks to our servers, and keep them in short-lived logs for security and troubleshooting. The mobile app also checks for updates with Expo, sending a random installation ID, platform and app version. We do not use this data to identify you, profile you or follow you across other apps or websites.

Location during walks

• Only during a walk you start. PawMe uses your phone’s location only between the moment you start a walk’s timer and the moment you pause or end it. It never collects location at any other time.
• “While using the app” permission only. We never ask for “Always” location. If you lock your phone or switch apps during a walk, measuring continues until you end the walk. iOS shows the blue location indicator. Android shows a “Walk in progress” notification for as long as it runs.
• What is saved. When you save the walk, we store the distance and a route outline (a simplified line of coordinates, up to a limited number of points) with that walk. Position readings are kept on your phone while the walk runs and are not sent to PawMe until you save. If you show the street map during the walk, the map provider receives the area you view (see Optional street maps). A walk logged for a dog walker, or on the web, has no location at all.
• Steps. With your permission (Motion & Fitness on iOS, Physical activity on Android), PawMe reads the step count your phone measures during the walk and saves the total with the walk.
• Optional street maps. The local route outline uses no map provider. You can separately enable Apple Maps on iOS or Google Maps on Android to view your route on streets, during a walk you are recording or after it. See Optional street maps below.
• Your choice. PawMe works without location. You can still log walks by time. You can change the permission at any time in your phone’s settings, and delete a walk (and its route) in the app.

A route can show where you walk, which may be close to where you live. PawMe keeps it isolated to you and the owners and co-owners of the family the walk belongs to. Enabling street maps additionally exposes the area you view to that provider.

Optional street maps

Street maps are off until you enable them after reading the map notice. Your choice and its date/version are stored for your account on that device, and you are asked again when the notice changes. You can turn maps off beside the route or in Settings, and hide the map on the walk screen at any time. Turning them off stops PawMe from loading further map views; it does not erase information already received by the provider. The local outline, metrics and recorded walk remain available. Showing the map during a walk may not be offered on every device.

To display streets, the provider processes the geographic area requested and network/device information. Recorded route coordinates are supplied to its native map component to draw the overlay. PawMe does not give the map provider your account ID, dog names, health records, event notes or sign-in credentials. We do not claim that loading a map involves no location disclosure. The map never requests your location itself and does not navigate. If you show it during a walk you are recording, it displays the area around your route as you walk, so the provider receives the areas you view in near real time, which reveals approximately where you are. Hiding the map, locking the phone or leaving the walk screen stops further map loading; recording continues. Co-owners do not see the walk's route, position or events until you end and save it (a memory you choose to save during the walk is shared with your family straight away).

In a family, street maps are offered only for walks you recorded yourself. Walks recorded by other owners or co-owners always use the local route outline, so turning maps on never sends another member’s route to a map provider.

On iOS, street maps use Apple’s MapKit framework. On Android, Google Maps SDK can process IP address, device and SDK metadata, a pseudonymous SDK identifier, crash diagnostics and map interactions. These providers process information under their own terms and privacy policies, including outside your country; they are not described here as processors acting only on PawMe’s instructions.

Apple Privacy Policy · Apple Maps Terms · Google Privacy Policy · Google Maps Terms

Photos, camera and files

• PawMe uses the camera or your photo library only when you choose to add a photo, and only the photos you pick. We never scan your library.
• Photos you take or pick in the app are re-encoded before upload, which removes hidden metadata such as the GPS location where the photo was taken. On the web, a few formats the browser can’t re-encode (such as HEIC) upload unchanged.
• Files you attach as documents (such as a PDF from your vet) are stored as you provide them.
• On a phone you can add one photo to a walk event: with the camera during the walk, or later from the walk with the camera or your library. It is re-encoded like other photos. Until its walk and event are saved, it waits in PawMe’s private folder on that phone. Then it moves to private storage with that walk, visible to the owners and co-owners of its family. PawMe does not save it to your photo library and does not analyze or interpret it, although some Android camera apps keep their own copy. On the web you can view or remove it. Removing the photo, its event or its walk unlinks it straight away, and its file is deleted from storage the next time a member of that family opens that family in PawMe. It is included in your data export. When you prepare a records PDF, you can choose saved walk events and include their notes and photos. Included photos are embedded in the file and remain readable without PawMe or an internet connection. PawMe cannot withdraw a copy you have shared outside the app.
• Photos and documents are kept in private storage and are only viewable through short-lived links issued after checking that they belong to a family you are an owner or co-owner of.

Notifications

Push notifications are off until you turn them on in Settings. They are delivered through Expo’s push service, which passes them to Apple (iOS) or Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging (Android). A notification names your dog and the kind of care, and for a reminder the name you gave it (for example, “Time for Cosmo’s dewormer.”). It never includes values like weights, doses or notes. Notifications can appear on your lock screen, so you may want to hide previews in your phone’s settings. Turning push off, signing out on that phone, or deleting your account removes the phone’s push token.

What stays on your device

Some things never leave your phone or browser: your sign-in session (in the iOS Keychain or Android Keystore on phones, or your browser’s storage on the web), a walk or enrichment timer that is still running, and the note you type on a records export. The records PDF itself is created on your device, and goes only where you send it.

PawMe does not use advertising or analytics cookies. The web app uses your browser’s storage only for what is strictly needed to keep you signed in and remember unfinished drafts.

Our website and the waitlist

The website (www.pawme.io) has no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. If you join the waitlist, we store the email address you enter, and the time you joined. We use it only to tell you about PawMe’s availability, and you can ask us to remove it at any time. Waitlist emails are kept separately from app accounts.

Legal bases (EU and UK)

If the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation applies to you, we rely on:

• Contract: to provide PawMe as you use it: your account, dogs, records, walks, memories, reminders, exports and deletion.
• Consent: for optional device features (location, motion, camera, photos, push notifications), optional street maps and the waitlist. You can withdraw consent at any time in your phone’s settings, in the app, or by emailing us. This does not affect anything done before.
• Legitimate interests: to keep PawMe secure and working (security logs, abuse prevention, rate limits), to review safety reports and protect the people who use it, and to answer your messages.
• Legal obligation: to keep records of your consent and to respond to privacy requests and lawful demands.

Under Mexico’s data protection law, we use data to provide the features you ask for. Street maps are an optional purpose you can decline while continuing to use PawMe. We do not use your data for marketing or advertising.

Safety, reports and blocking

You can report shared content, a family member or a whole family from the app. A report stores your account ID, the family and the item or member you reported, the reason you chose, your explanation, the date and the review outcome. We do not copy photos, GPS routes or entire records into a report: support looks at the reported material where it already is.

• Who sees a report. Other family members, including the person you report, cannot see your report, and PawMe does not tell them who reported them. Authorized PawMe support can read the full report and inspect the reported material. You can see your report’s reference and status in the app, and your own reports are included in your data export; internal reviewer notes stay private to support.
• Review and alerts. We review reports within 48 hours. Each new report sends an alert to our support inbox with only its reference, the kind of item, the reason category and the time: never names, your explanation or the content. Reporting is not an emergency service.
• If you are reported. A report about you contains your account ID or the item you added, and what the reporter wrote about it. We do not tell you who reported you. You can ask about a restriction at hello@pawme.io, or request access to the personal data we hold about you at privacy@pawme.io; we answer in a way that also protects the reporter’s safety.
• What support can do. A report on its own changes nothing. After reviewing it, support may restrict a whole family or restrict one person’s access to the families they share with other people. A restricted family’s dogs and records are hidden in the app and nobody can invite or remove members, although everyone can still leave. A person’s restriction stays on every family they shared when it began, even if the others leave later. A restricted person keeps using any family where they are the only member, but cannot invite anyone or join another family. Under any restriction, everyone can still export their own data and delete their account; for a restricted family, the export includes only content recorded as added by that person. A restriction lasts until support lifts it.
• How long we keep it. A report waiting for review is kept until it is reviewed, even if the family it concerns is deleted in the meantime; only the reporter deleting their own account removes the reports they filed. A reviewed report, with its explanation and reviewer notes, is deleted 90 days after its review, or sooner when the reporter’s account is deleted. While a restriction is active we keep a minimal record of it (the account or family it applies to, the action, the reason category and the decision date, with no explanation or content) until support lifts it or that account or family is deleted.
• Blocking. A block stores both account IDs, the date and the member’s name as shown when you blocked them. It remains until you unblock or either account is deleted. Blocking does not erase shared history. You can still report someone you blocked, but not the content of a family you have left, so report content first.

What we never do

Who helps us run PawMe

We use a small number of service providers (processors). They handle data only on our instructions, to run PawMe, and never for their own advertising or marketing:

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety. If PawMe were ever transferred to a new owner (for example to a company that takes over the app), your data would move with it under this policy, and we would tell you first. Apple and Google also handle your data under their own privacy policies when you use their sign-in, app stores and devices.

International transfers

PawMe is run from Mexico and our database is in the United States, so your data is processed outside your country if you live elsewhere. When personal data from the EU, UK or Switzerland is transferred, we rely on our providers’ data processing terms, including the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK addendum) and, where a provider is certified, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. Under Mexican law, sending data to providers who process it only on our behalf does not need your separate consent.

How long we keep data

• While your account is open, we keep what you add so PawMe can show your dogs’ history, including after a dog passes (Memorial Mode).
• When you delete your account (Settings → Delete account), we delete your personal account, notifications, push tokens and consent records. Families where you are the last owner or co-owner are deleted with their dogs, records and files. When another owner or co-owner remains, the shared family records and files remain available to them and your account attribution is anonymized. A failed cleanup can be retried; provider backups follow the retention rules below.
• Items you delete one by one. Removing a vet document deletes its file immediately, and removing a walk event’s photo deletes its file as described in Photos, camera and files. Some other items you delete, such as a record, a memory or a dog’s profile, are hidden from the app straight away but stay in our database (and, for memories, their photos in storage) until their family is deleted. Deleting one member account preserves shared records when another owner or co-owner remains. If you want a specific item erased permanently sooner, email us and we will help you exercise that right.
• Notifications are deleted automatically 30 days after they are created.
• Safety reports, restrictions and blocks follow the periods in Safety, reports and blocking.
• Backups and logs. Our providers keep short-term backups and technical logs for recovery and security, which roll off on their own schedules. Deleted data can remain in them until then. If we ever restored a backup, we would re-apply deletions made since.
• Waitlist emails are kept until you ask us to remove them or we no longer need them to announce PawMe.
• Emails you send us are kept as long as needed to help you and to show how we handled a privacy request.

Security

• Every table enforces row-level security in the database, so an account can only read its own account settings and the data of families it is an owner or co-owner of. This is tested automatically on every change we make.
• Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and encrypted at rest by our database provider.
• Photos and documents live in private storage, reachable only through short-lived, permission-checked links.
• On phones, your sign-in session is kept in the operating system’s secure storage.
• There are no passwords to leak. Sign-in is handled by Apple or Google.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your personal data ever happens, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your rights and how to use them

In the app, any time

• See and correct: everything you add can be viewed and edited in the app.
• Export: Settings → Export my data downloads a complete, machine-readable (JSON) copy, with time-limited links to your photos and documents. Export is available in the web app at app.pawme.io.
• Delete: Settings → Delete account permanently deletes your personal account straight away. Families where you are the last owner or co-owner are deleted with their dogs, records and files; families with another owner or co-owner keep their shared data (see “How long we keep data” above).
• Withdraw permissions: switch off device permissions in your phone’s settings, notifications in PawMe’s Settings, or street maps beside a route or in PawMe’s Settings.

Apple and Google sign-in are separate accounts, each with its own PawMe data. Deleting one does not delete the other. After deleting, you can also remove PawMe from your Apple ID or Google account settings.

By email

For any other request, write to privacy@pawme.io from the email on your account (or tell us which account it is). We may ask you to confirm it’s you. We answer within 30 days, and always within the time the law that applies to you sets (for example one month under the GDPR, 45 days under California law, and 20 business days under Mexican law). Requests are free.

EU, UK and similar laws

You have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. You may also complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office), though we’d appreciate the chance to help first.

California and other US states

We collect the categories of information described above: identifiers (email, account ID), the content you add (including your dogs’ records and photos), precise geolocation during walks you start, and technical information. We use them only to provide PawMe. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not use sensitive information such as precise location to infer anything about you. You have the right to know, access, correct and delete your information, and we will not treat you differently for using these rights. You may use an authorized agent, and we may ask them to show your permission.

Mexico (ARCO rights)

Under the Federal Law on the Protection of Personal Data Held by Private Parties, you can exercise your rights of Access, Rectification, Cancellation and Opposition (ARCO), revoke your consent, and limit the use or disclosure of your data. Email privacy@pawme.io with your name, the email on your PawMe account, the right you want to exercise, and a clear description of the data involved. We may ask for something that confirms your identity. We will reply within 20 business days and put a granted request into effect within 15 business days after that. If you disagree with our response, you can go to the Mexican data protection authority.

Children

PawMe is for adults (18 and over). It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has given us personal data, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change how PawMe handles your data, we will update this page and the date at the top. For a material change, we will tell you in the app and ask you to review and accept the new version before continuing to use PawMe.

Contact

Pato Gómez (PawMe), Mexico · privacy@pawme.io