Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Facebark™ ("we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, and protects your information when you use our mobile application and services.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information You Provide

Data Type	Purpose
Email Address	Account creation, login, password reset, important notifications
Password	Account security (stored as a secure hash, never in plain text)
Name	Your name and your pet's name for profile display
Pet Information	Species, breed, age, sex - for your pet's profile
Photos & Videos	Profile pictures and content you choose to share
Messages	Direct messages you send to other users
Posts & Comments	Content you share on the platform

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device Information: Device type, operating system version (for app compatibility)
• Usage Data: Features you use, interactions within the app (to improve the service)
• Push Notification Tokens: Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) device tokens to deliver push notifications. When you first launch the app, you'll be asked to enable notifications. By accepting, you consent to FCM processing your device token. You can revoke this at any time in your device settings. See Firebase Privacy and Google's Privacy Policy for details.
• Real-Time Connection Data: When using messaging features, we collect WebSocket connection metadata (connection timestamps, message delivery receipts, typing indicators) to ensure reliable real-time communication
• Website Analytics: When you visit our website (facebark.com), our servers automatically log the page you visited, the domain of the referring website (query strings are stripped), your browser's user-agent string (used to classify your device type as desktop, mobile, tablet, or bot), and a pseudonymized, daily-rotating hash of your IP address (used to estimate daily unique visitor counts). We do not store your raw IP address. This data is used solely for internal analytics to improve the website experience.

1.3 Information from Third Parties

If you sign in with email and password, we store your email and a securely hashed version of your password. If you sign in with Google or Apple, we receive your email address and name from those services. We do not receive your password from third-party sign-in providers.

1.4 Location Information

If you choose to enable location features:

• Home Location: You can optionally set a home location to see nearby pet profiles and local community content
• Location Precision: You control the precision level - exact location, neighborhood (approximately 1 mile radius), or city (approximately 5 mile radius)
• Nearby Searches: If enabled, your approximate location may be used to show your profile in "Find Profiles Nearby" searches by other users
• Vets Nearby: If you use the Vets Nearby feature, your current GPS coordinates are sent to our servers and forwarded to Google Places API (Google LLC) to find nearby veterinary clinics. If precise location is not available, your saved home location coordinates may be used instead. These coordinates are used only to perform the search and are not stored separately by Facebark
• Control: You can disable location features entirely in your privacy settings at any time

1.5 Multi-Profile Account Structure

Facebark™ allows you to create up to 5 pet profiles under a single account:

• Each pet profile functions as a separate identity on the platform
• Profile data (posts, messages, followers) is isolated per profile
• You can switch between profiles within the app
• Other users cannot see that your profiles are linked to the same account
• Deleting your account deletes ALL profiles and their associated data
• Deleting a single profile only removes that specific profile's data

1.6 Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use minimal tracking technologies to operate the app:

• Authentication Tokens: We use secure tokens (stored in your device's keychain) to keep you logged in. These are not cookies and cannot track you across websites.
• Local Storage: The app caches images, profile data, and feed content locally on your device to improve performance. This data is stored in the app's sandboxed storage and is automatically deleted when you uninstall the app.
• No Advertising Cookies: We do not use cookies or tracking technologies for advertising purposes.
• No Cross-Site Tracking: We do not track your activity across other apps or websites.
• Website Analytics: When you visit facebark.com, we collect standard server-side analytics as described in Section 1.2. No cookies or client-side tracking technologies are used on the website.

1.7 Dr. Whiskers AI

When you use Dr. Whiskers for pet health information:

• Your questions are processed in real-time to generate helpful responses
• Conversation history is stored in your account so you can reference past discussions
• Your queries are not used to train AI models
• AI responses are informational only and do not affect your account standing or access to features
• If you save a veterinarian to your profile, this information (vet name, address, and any notes you add) may be used to personalize Dr. Whiskers responses
• AI-generated summaries of veterinary clinics are clearly labeled as AI-generated content
• You can delete your AI conversation history at any time in Settings

2. How We Use Your Information

• Provide the Service: Create your account, display your profile, enable messaging
• Improve the App: Understand how features are used, fix bugs, develop new features
• Communicate: Send password resets, important account notifications, follow notifications
• Safety: Detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms
• Show Relevant Advertisements: We may use your activity, interests, and profile information to show you relevant advertisements within the app
• Power AI Features: Dr. Whiskers uses your questions to provide helpful pet health responses (your queries are not used to train AI models)

2.1 Advertising on Facebark

To keep Facebark free, we may in the future show you advertisements. Here's how it would work:

• How Ads Would Be Shown: We may use your activity, interests, and profile information within Facebark to show you relevant advertisements
• What We Don't Do: We do not currently sell your data to advertisers or share it with data brokers or advertising partners. If we introduce advertising in the future, advertisers would receive aggregated, anonymized reports about ad performance (e.g., "1,000 users saw this ad"), not your personal information. We will update this policy before any such changes take effect.
• No Cross-App Tracking: We do not track your activity across other apps or websites for advertising purposes

3. How We Share Your Information

3.1 With Other Users

Your pet profile, posts, and comments are visible to other Facebark users. Direct messages are only visible to you and the recipient. When you follow another profile, that profile owner can see your profile name and photo.

3.2 With Service Providers

We use trusted service providers to operate the app. These providers act as data processors on our behalf and are contractually obligated to protect your data:

Provider	Purpose
Google Cloud Run	Application hosting (us-west2 region)
Google Cloud SQL	PostgreSQL database storage
Google Cloud Storage	Photos and videos storage
Firebase Cloud Messaging	Push notification delivery
Upstash Redis	Real-time messaging infrastructure (typing indicators, read receipts, WebSocket routing)
SendGrid	Email delivery (password resets, notifications)
Sentry	Error monitoring and application performance tracking
Google Gemini AI	Powers Dr. Whiskers AI assistant to answer pet health questions and generate veterinary clinic summaries
Google Places API	Provides veterinary clinic search results, ratings, hours, and photos for the Vets Nearby feature

Google Cloud Platform processes data according to the Cloud Data Processing Addendum and Data Processing Terms. Google may use sub-processors to deliver services; see Google Cloud Sub-processors for details.

3.3 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or to protect our rights, safety, or property.

4. Data Retention

• Active Accounts: We retain your data while your account is active
• Account Deletion: When you delete your account, your data is removed from our production systems immediately
• Backups: Deleted data may persist in encrypted backups for up to 90 days for disaster recovery purposes, after which it is permanently deleted
• Legal Holds: Data may be retained longer if required by law or for pending legal matters
• Website Analytics: Website analytics logs (page views) are automatically deleted after 90 days

5. Your Rights

6. Data Security

We protect your data using industry-standard security measures:

• Encryption in Transit: All data transmitted between your device and our servers uses TLS 1.2+ encryption, enforced by Google Cloud Load Balancer with managed SSL certificates
• Encryption at Rest: All data stored in Google Cloud SQL and Google Cloud Storage is encrypted at rest using Google-managed encryption keys
• Password Security: Passwords are hashed using PBKDF2 with SHA256 and 390,000 iterations (industry standard)
• Database Security: Database connections use Cloud SQL's secure unix socket interface without exposing public IPs
• Access Controls: Google Cloud IAM service accounts with least-privilege access

Google Cloud Platform maintains compliance certifications including SOC 2/3, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, and GDPR. See Google Cloud Compliance for details.

While we take security seriously, no system is 100% secure. Please use a strong, unique password for your account.

7. Children's Privacy

Facebark is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If we learn we have collected such information, we will delete it promptly.

7.1 Teen Users (Ages 13-17)

For users between 13 and 17 years old:

• Parental Permission: You must have permission from a parent or guardian to use Facebark
• Advertising Consent: We will obtain your direct consent before using your personal information for targeted advertising, as required by law
• Opt-Out Rights: You may opt out of targeted advertising at any time in your account settings
• Parental Access: Parents or guardians may request access to, correction of, or deletion of their teen's personal information by contacting support@facebark.com

8. International Users

Facebark is operated from the United States. Your data is stored on Google Cloud Platform servers located in the us-west2 region (Los Angeles, California, United States).

If you are located outside the United States, your data will be transferred to and processed in the US. For users in the European Union, United Kingdom, or other regions with data transfer restrictions, we rely on:

• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) with our service providers
• Google Cloud's compliance with the EU-US Data Privacy Framework
• Your explicit consent when you create an account

We have conducted Transfer Impact Assessments (TIAs) and determined that, combined with SCCs and Google Cloud's security measures, adequate protection exists for your data. For more information, see Google Cloud GDPR Compliance.

9. California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

California residents have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

• Right to know what personal information is collected
• Right to delete personal information
• Right to correct inaccurate personal information
• Right to opt-out of sale of personal information (we do not sell your data)
• Right to limit use of sensitive personal information
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising your rights

9.1 California's Shine the Light Act

Facebark has not disclosed personal information to third parties for third parties' direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year.

9.2 California Consumer Privacy Act

California residents may request certain information about our collection and use of personal information over the past 12 months, including the right to, subject to certain exceptions:

• Opt-out of the selling or sharing of your personal information

9.3 Right to Access Information

California residents have the right to request that we disclose certain information about our collection and use of their personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and verify your request, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you over the past 12 months
• The sources of the personal information we collected about you
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling your personal information
• The categories of third parties with whom we shared that personal information
• The categories of personal information that were sold or disclosed for a business purpose
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you

California residents may only access their information twice within a 12-month period.

9.4 Right to Delete Information

California residents have the right to request that we delete their personal information, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and verify your request, if we determine no exception applies, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records.

We may deny your request if retaining the information is necessary for Facebark or its service providers to:

• Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information; provide a good that you requested; take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you
• Detect security incidents; protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activity or prosecute those responsible for such activities
• Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality
• Exercise free speech; ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights; or exercise another right provided for by law
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code, § 1546 et seq.)
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement, if you previously provided informed consent
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your interactions with us
• Comply with a legal obligation
• Make other internal or lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it

9.5 Right to Correct

California residents have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate personal information that Facebark has collected.

9.6 Right to Opt-Out

California residents have the right to opt-out of the selling or sharing of their personal information. As of the date of this policy, Facebark does not sell or share personal information with advertising partners. If this changes in the future, we will update this policy and provide a clear opt-out mechanism. To help you understand our data practices, we have provided the following charts summarizing what personal information we have collected, sold, shared, or disclosed in the past 12 months.

Categories of Personal Information Collected, Sold or Shared for Cross-Context Behavioral Advertising or Disclosed for a Business Purpose within the past 12 months

Category of Personal Information	Collected	"Sold" or Shared in the Past 12 Months	Categories of Third Parties to Whom Sold or Shared	Disclosed for a Business Purpose in Past 12 Months	Categories of Third Parties to Whom Disclosed
Individual Identifiers	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	Service Providers
Categories Described in California Consumer Records Act, CA Civil Code §1798.81.5	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	Service Providers
Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Commercial information	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Biometric information	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Internet or other electronic network activity	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	Service Providers
Geolocation data	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	Service Providers
Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	Service Providers
Professional or employment-related information	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Education information	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Inferences drawn from any of the information identified above	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Categories of "Sensitive" Personal Information Collected, Sold or Shared for Cross-Context Behavioral Advertising or Disclosed for a Business Purpose within the past 12 months

Category of Sensitive Personal Information	Collected	Shared or Sold in the Past 12 Months	Disclosed for a Business Purpose in Past 12 Months
Social Security, Driver's License, State ID, or Passport Number	No	N/A	N/A
Account Log-in and Password	No	N/A	N/A
Financial Account, Debit Card, Credit Card Number and account access information	No	N/A	N/A
Precise Geolocation	Yes	No	Yes (Service Providers)
Racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs or union membership	No	N/A	N/A
Contents of email, text messages unless We are intended recipient	No	N/A	N/A
Genetic Data	No	N/A	N/A
Biometric Information for purpose of identification	No	N/A	N/A
Personal information collected and analyzed concerning a consumer's health	No	N/A	N/A
Personal information collected and analyzed concerning a consumer's sex life or sexual orientation	No	N/A	N/A

9.7 How to Exercise Rights

To exercise your rights under California law, a resident must submit a verifiable consumer request to us by going to Settings in the app or contacting us at support@facebark.com.

The person making the request must:

• Provide sufficient information to allow us to verify that the person submitting the request is the person, or the authorized representative, of the person whose personal information is implicated by the request
• Describe the request with sufficient detail to allow us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it

Only a California resident, or a person authorized to act on the resident's behalf, may make a consumer request to Facebark related to the resident's personal information. A California resident may also make a consumer request on behalf of their minor child.

We cannot respond to a request if we cannot verify the consumer's identity or the requestor's authority to make the request. You do not have to create an account to submit a consumer request. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.

9.8 Response Timing and Format

If a California resident sends a verifiable consumer request as set forth above, we will respond within 45 days. If we need additional time, we will inform the person making the request of the reason for the extension and the length of the extension. We will deliver our written response by e-mail.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding receipt of the verifiable consumer request. Alternatively, the response will explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request.

For data portability requests, we will provide the sought-after personal information in a form that is readily useable and should allow the consumer to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to a verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell the requestor why and provide the requestor with a cost estimate before completing the request.

9.9 Non-Discrimination Notice

Facebark will not discriminate against any consumer for exercising any of their rights under California law. Unless permitted by law, if a consumer exercises any of their rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, we will not:

• Deny the consumer goods or services
• Charge the consumer different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties
• Provide the consumer a different level or quality of goods or services
• Suggest that the consumer may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services

9.10 Additional State Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Montana, Texas, Oregon, Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, or Tennessee, you have additional rights under your state's privacy law, including:

• Right to confirm whether we process your personal data
• Right to access your personal data
• Right to correct inaccuracies in your personal data
• Right to delete your personal data
• Right to obtain a copy of your data in a portable format
• Right to opt-out of targeted advertising (you can adjust ad preferences in Settings)

9.11 How to Submit Consumer Requests

You may submit privacy rights requests through any of the following methods:

• Web Form: Submit a request at facebark.com/privacy/request
• Toll-Free Number: Call +1 (855) 773-8571
• Email: support@facebark.com with "Privacy Rights Request" in the subject line

10. Data Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected users and relevant regulatory authorities in accordance with applicable law. We will provide information about the nature of the breach, the types of data involved, and steps we are taking to address the incident.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes through the app or by email. The "Last Updated" date at the top indicates when changes were last made.

Facebark™ is a trademark of Facebark, Inc. © 2026 Facebark, Inc. All rights reserved.