PetFena (“we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share your personal information when you use the PetFena marketplace platform as a pet owner or pet sitter.
1. Information we collect
- Account information: name, email address, phone number, date of birth, home address, password, profile photo, and role (owner or sitter).
- Identity verification: a photo of your government ID (driver's license, state ID or passport) and a selfie, collected from both owners and sitters during account setup. See section 2.
- Pet information: pet names, species, breeds, ages, photos, behaviour and health notes, vaccination records, and signed health declarations.
- Sitter information: bio, rates, availability, animals you accept and your experience, the animals living in your home, home photos, proof that your home may host pets, renters or homeowners insurance details and policy documents, and background check results.
- Payout information (sitters): to send payouts, our payment processor Stripe collects your legal name, date of birth, address, the last 4 digits of your Social Security number, and bank account. We send Stripe your PetFena address and keep your payout account's address matching it. We don't store your full Social Security number or bank login.
- Location data: with your permission, we use your device location to show nearby sitters, and we record a sitter's location when they check in to a stay so the owner can see it started where agreed. We also convert addresses into map positions to measure distances. You can turn off location access in your browser or device settings.
- Booking and payment data: dates, times, tiers, prices, taxes, check-ins, visit logs and photos, messages, reviews, stay interview questions and answers, cancellations, refunds, payout status, and payment identifiers from our payment processor. We do not store full payment card numbers.
- Safety and support records: support requests, disputes, emergency cancellation requests and the proof you send (for example a vet note), incident reports, related photos, and, if we put your account on hold or disable it, the reason and when we did it.
- Communications: messages, reviews, support requests, and conversations with our AI assistant.
- Device and usage data: IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, error reports, and a push notification token if you allow notifications, collected to keep the platform secure and working.
- Sitter referral program: if a sitter shares a referral code or link, we record who signed up through it and whether that person went on to complete a first stay, so we can credit the referring sitter.
2. ID photos, selfies and face comparison
Owners and sitters verify their identity with a photo of a government ID and a selfie during account setup, before they can use the rest of PetFena. We use an automated check, provided by an AI service provider, to compare the face on the ID with the selfie, confirm the selfie shows a real person, and check that the name matches your account. Clear matches are approved automatically; anything else is reviewed by our staff. This comparison may involve information some laws treat as biometric data. We use it only to verify your identity and prevent fraud, we never sell it, and we don't use it for advertising. By submitting your ID and selfie you consent to this check. A sitter's verified photo is shown to the owner at drop-off so they can confirm it's the right person. We keep ID photos and selfies only while your account is open and for as long as we need them afterwards to handle safety, payment or legal matters, then delete them; you can ask us to delete them sooner by closing your account.
3. How we use your information
- To create and manage your account and profile.
- To verify identity, housing, insurance, vaccinations and background checks.
- To match owners with nearby sitters and enable bookings.
- To process payments, place and release card holds, calculate sales tax, send payouts, and handle refunds and disputes in line with our Terms and Conditions.
- To send booking confirmations, reminders, review requests, push notifications, and important account notifications.
- To run the stay interview, read vaccination records, and answer questions through our AI assistant.
- To enable chat and review features between owners and sitters.
- To detect fraud, prevent abuse, keep users and pets safe, and comply with legal obligations.
- To stop an account we've put on hold or disabled from being recreated: when someone signs up, we check whether the name and date of birth, or the home address, they enter match an account we've restricted, and we may decline to create the new account if they do.
- To run the sitter referral program: track which sitter's code a new account signed up with, and award that sitter a credit once the referred person completes their first stay.
4. Sharing your information
We don't sell your personal information. We share it only as needed to run PetFena:
- Between owners and sitters for a matched stay: names, profile photos, pet details, booking details, messages, and reviews. We do not share your phone number or email address with your matched owner or sitter — all coordination happens through in-app chat, to keep both of you safe and your stay protected.
- Stripe, our payment processor: to charge owners, hold funds, calculate sales tax from the owner's address, verify sitters' identity for payouts, and send payouts.
- AI service providers (currently Groq): ID photos and selfies for the identity check, vaccination record photos, stay interview questions and answers, and AI assistant conversations, so they can be processed for us.
- Background check provider: a sitter's name, date of birth and address, with their consent, to run a criminal record search.
- Other service providers that host and run PetFena for us: database and file storage (Supabase), web hosting (Vercel), email (Resend), push notifications (Google Firebase), error monitoring (Sentry), and address lookup (OpenStreetMap).
- When required by law, regulation, court order, or to protect our rights and users' safety.
5. What other users can see
- A sitter's listing (name, profile photo, home photos, bio, rates, animals accepted, experience, animals in their home, reviews and verification badges) can be seen by owners, and home photos are publicly viewable by anyone with the link.
- A sitter's verified photo is shown to the owner at drop-off.
- We never show your ID, documents, exact address before a stay is confirmed, or payout details to other users.
6. How long we keep information
We keep your information while your account is open. After you close it, we keep what we need for payments, taxes, refunds, disputes, safety reports and legal obligations (for example payment and tax records, which the law requires us to keep for several years), and delete or anonymise the rest. If we've put your account on hold or disabled it, we keep your name, date of birth and home address for as long as needed to enforce that decision, including checking future sign-up attempts against it, even after other account data would otherwise be deleted.
7. Your choices
- You can update or delete your profile information at any time.
- You can add, edit, or remove pet profiles from your owner dashboard.
- You can turn location access and notifications on or off in your device or browser settings.
- You can ask for a copy of your information, or ask us to correct or delete it, by contacting us. You can delete your account by contacting support or from your Profile. Some data may be retained as described in section 6.
8. Data security
We use industry-standard measures such as encryption in transit, access controls, and row-level security to protect your data. No system is completely secure, so we encourage strong passwords and caution when sharing sensitive details in chat.
9. Children's privacy
PetFena is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
10. Incident and insurance information
PetFena is a marketplace and does not provide pet-care insurance, accident coverage, veterinary coverage, or reimbursement for injuries, illness, property damage, loss, or other incidents connected with a booking. Owners and Sitters are responsible for assessing risk and arranging any insurance or other protection they consider necessary. If you report a safety incident, we may collect and use the report, related messages, booking details, photographs, and contact information to review the report, protect users, prevent fraud, respond to legal requests, and enforce our Terms. Reviewing or retaining an incident report does not mean PetFena accepts responsibility for the incident or provides insurance coverage.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email or through the platform. Continued use after changes means you accept the updated policy.
12. Contact us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact us at info@petfena.com.