Last updated: July 24, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Petchi collects, uses, stores, shares, and deletes information when you use our mobile application, website, and waitlist. Some features require information such as photos or precise location; we only access it after you choose to use the feature and grant the corresponding device permission.
Depending on the features you use, Petchi may collect the following categories of information:
When you register, we may collect your name, email address, account identifier, and login provider. We may also store information you add to your pet's profile, such as your dog's name, photo, virtual model, and game progress.
Petchi uses your camera or selected photos to create your dog's virtual model, add a profile or waitlist photo, and scan food barcodes. Photos sent to our servers are processed and stored only as needed to provide the feature you requested or when you explicitly agree to upload them.
When you start a walk and grant location permission, Petchi collects and stores precise GPS data that makes up the route, the distance traveled, and the resulting walk record. These records may reflect physical or fitness activity. We use this information to show your walk history, calculate distance, update progress, and award in-app rewards—not for medical diagnosis. Location collection is linked to an active walk that you initiate and ends when you finish the walk or disable location access. We do not sell location data or use it for targeted advertising.
We store actions you take with your virtual pet, including play sessions, feeding events, walks, earned rewards, and related game progress. This allows us to maintain your pet's status and provide the interactive features of Petchi.
When you feed your pet by scanning a food package, we store the scanned barcode, the feeding event, and, when available, product information associated with that code. This helps identify the food and update your pet's activity. Scanning a barcode does not give Petchi access to your payment card or store transaction details.
Only if you separately opt in, Petchi may use product barcode and feeding-event information generated after your choice to create aggregated and anonymized reports about pet-food product popularity and feeding frequency. We may license or sell these reports to pet-food manufacturers and other commercial partners. Reports do not include contact information, account, device or pet identifiers, photos, location or routes, exact individual timestamps, or user-level records. Participation is off by default, does not affect Petchi's core features, and can be turned off at any time for future processing. We contractually prohibit recipients from attempting to reidentify users, combining the reports to identify them, using them for individualized advertising, or redistributing them outside the agreed purpose.
We may collect device, operating system, app version, IP address, crash, diagnostic, and feature-interaction information to operate, secure, troubleshoot, and improve Petchi. This may also include information collected by service providers integrated into the app.
If you join the waitlist, we collect the email address, dog's name, photo, and consent information you submit so we can register your place and send launch updates.
We use the information collected about you to:
Petchi does not sell or rent personal information, precise location, or individual barcode and feeding records. With the optional consent described in Section 2.6, we may license or sell only aggregated and anonymized reports about products and feeding frequency. Separately, we may disclose information to providers that help us operate the service, such as cloud hosting and storage, authentication, analytics, crash reporting, customer support, and security providers. They may process information only to provide services to us and must protect it appropriately. We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect users or the service, or as part of a corporate transaction subject to applicable safeguards.
We retain account, pet, walk, location, gameplay, feeding, and barcode information while your account is active and for as long as reasonably necessary to provide Petchi. We delete or anonymize information when it is no longer needed, unless we must retain it for legal, security, fraud-prevention, or dispute-resolution purposes. Backup copies may remain for a limited period according to our backup cycle before being overwritten. Once information has been irreversibly anonymized and incorporated into an aggregate report, it can no longer reasonably be linked to or removed for a specific user.
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data. You can stop future location collection through your device settings; doing so disables walk tracking but does not delete previously saved walks. Aggregated insights: the commercial-insights option is disabled by default and can be enabled or disabled in the app's privacy settings. Turning it off prevents future feeding records from being included, but does not affect reports that were already irreversibly anonymized. Account deletion: you can request deletion of your account and associated data in Profile > Settings > Delete Account, or email our support team. You can withdraw marketing consent by contacting us or using the unsubscribe option when available.
Before accessing the camera, photos, or location, Petchi requests the relevant device permission and explains the feature that needs it. You may deny or revoke a permission in your device settings, although the corresponding feature may stop working. Starting a walk is your instruction to record that walk until you end it. Consent for aggregated commercial insights is requested separately, uses clear affirmative language, and is never preselected.
We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information, including access controls and encrypted transmission where supported. No storage or transmission method is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
We do not knowingly collect personal information or precise location from children under 13, or the minimum age established by applicable law, without verifiable parental consent. If you believe a child provided this information without authorization, please contact us so we can review and delete it.
We may update this Privacy Policy as Petchi changes. We will publish the revised version with a new effective date and provide additional notice when required by law.
If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at: lmponceb@gmail.com or visit our Support Page.