Privacy Policy & User Information

Service Providers & Data Sharing

We never sell, rent, or trade your personal information. Our hosting, database and file-storage services process the information needed to run Play for Pets and store accounts, records and uploads. Stripe processes subscription payments. Resend receives recipients' email addresses and the message content needed to send account, payment, support and outreach emails. Browser push services receive the information needed to deliver enabled notifications. Play for Pets staff use account and activity records to provide support, review organizations, moderate screen names, manage rewards and fulfill orders, according to their administrative permissions.

Information We Collect

Account and security information: your name, screen name, member ID, email address, date of birth, phone number, street and mailing address, password hash, account type, subscription status, communication preferences and display preferences such as color-blind mode. We also keep account verification and password-reset tokens and session records. These are used to sign you in, check age eligibility, contact you, protect your account and provide the features you choose. Hosting and database services store these records; email delivery services handle the account messages we send. During pre-launch, we also collect email addresses and ZIP codes and states from people who sign up for launch updates, to plan where we launch and for tax planning, plus shelter-interest organization and contact details so we can contact participating shelters and rescues, the date you agreed to receive launch update or shelter-interest emails, and the date you unsubscribed.

Subscription and payment information: Stripe collects payment details through its checkout. We do not store full card numbers or card security codes. We store Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, tier, trial and billing-period information, cancellation status and paid-subscription history, and retrieve payment amounts, dates and receipt or invoice links from Stripe. These records are used to manage access, show your payment history, award subscription benefits and calculate financial reports. Payment information is processed by Stripe and accessed by authorized Play for Pets staff for account and financial administration.

Shipping and fulfillment: physical patch orders store the recipient's name, street address, optional second address line, city, state, ZIP code, patch ordered, biscuit cost, order dates, shipping status and tracking number. If you choose to save an address, it is stored on your account to prefill future orders. Play for Pets fulfillment staff use patch-order details.

Adoption and foster profiles: we store your fostering availability and questionnaire answers, including housing and ownership, yard, household size, children and their ages, current pets, animal-care experience, activity level, time commitment, reasons for adopting, animal preferences, willingness to care for special-needs animals and preparation steps. Together with your contact details, these help you prepare and send an adoption or foster profile. When you choose to send it about an animal, the receiving organization and our email provider receive the submitted profile and contact information.

Volunteering and outreach preferences: we store whether you are available to foster or volunteer, your available days, location and your choices about organization contact, email categories and push notifications. We keep a dated history of changes to the Rally the Pack, Forage for Volunteers and Search & Link email switches. These are used to match optional outreach to relevant members. An event volunteer request sends your name, email, optional phone number, availability and optional message, plus the event title and date, to the organization through our email provider. It does not include your address, household details or adoption questionnaire. We record who sent a request, the event or animal and organization involved, and the date, to show send history and prevent unwanted duplicate submissions.

Pet Registry and saved pets: we store your registered pets' names, species, breeds, birth dates, original registration dates and removal status, and which animal listings you save with the listing details needed to keep unavailable pets in your saved view. This provides your registry, restores removed pets and keeps favorites across devices. Registry details can be included in your adoption profile when you choose them. Organizations receive aggregate save counts for their listings, not a list of members who saved them.

Organization registration, verification and payouts: we collect organization and contact names, email, phone, website, physical and mailing addresses, EIN or tax ID, mission and activities, founding details, animal types served, ownership or authorization details and site-visit information. Site visits can be in person or by video call; we store the method, date and staff notes. We store uploaded W-9 tax forms, including the tax details and signatures provided in the document. Insurance records contain the insurer, policy type and number, effective and expiration dates, uploaded certificates of insurance, and optional agent or broker name and phone number. We also store the chosen payout method, PayPal email or check payee and mailing address, payout records, review notes and decisions, and acknowledgment versions, dates and accepting accounts. These are used for organization verification, insurance checks, communications and payout administration by Play for Pets staff. Organization names, logos, contact and location details, descriptions, animal listings, events and submitted success stories are shared through the platform's community features.

Pet Emergency Grant (P.E.G.): grant applications and supporting-document uploads are not currently available, so the site does not collect them through a P.E.G. application feature. The current P.E.G. tools store internal pool contributions, sources, notes and administrator change history, not grant applications. Pet Registry information is separate from a grant application.

Activity, rewards and community records: we store login activity, game sessions and answers, scores and completion times, leaderboard results, points, biscuits, Point Bank deposits, raids, patches, referral links and relationships, organization affiliations and boosts, prize drawing entries and results, poll responses and journey progress or feedback. These records operate the games and rewards, calculate standings and organization points, prevent duplicate awards and show activity history. Other participants can see the display name or existing fallback name and results shown on leaderboards and raids. Referrers can see the referral history provided by the referral tools.

Support, reviews and communications: we store support ticket categories and support conversations, including member and staff replies, to handle support requests. We also store cancellation reasons you provide, notification and outreach-send history, screen-name review flags and decisions, and administrative action records. Where a test-account acceptance form requests a signature, we store the submitted signature and acceptance date. These records are used by Play for Pets staff to answer requests, resolve issues, protect the community and keep an audit trail. Relevant message content and recipients' addresses are sent to our email provider when an email is sent. Organization invitation records include the organization name, recipient email, sending administrator, date, delivery outcome and whether an application followed. Organization invitation recipients who ask not to be invited again are kept on a do-not-invite list, with their email address and date, so we do not contact them again.

Content reports members submit, including the reason, optional note and reporting member identity, are stored for staff review. Reporters are not identified to organizations.

Technical and visit information: requests include an IP address and browser information. Referral and QR tracking store hashed IP identifiers, browser or user-agent information, referring page information and timestamps. Landing-page analytics use a random visitor ID saved in your browser's local storage, visit dates and signup-conversion records. We also use a session cookie to keep you signed in and browser storage for preferences and app operation. This information supports sign-in, security, visit and referral measurement, troubleshooting and service improvements; hosting and database services process it, and authorized staff can view the reports.

How Your Information Is Used

We use the information described above to provide and secure the service, manage subscriptions and rewards, review organizations, arrange fulfillment, facilitate the contacts you choose, answer support requests and maintain financial and administrative records. Optional email and outreach preferences help determine which communications you receive. Account verification, password-reset and other essential service messages are handled separately from optional marketing preferences. We also use activity and visit reports, including aggregated statistics, to understand and improve the service.

Information Sharing Between Users & Organizations

Sending an adoption or foster profile shares its questionnaire answers and contact details with the organization receiving it. Sending an event volunteer request shares only the short volunteer-request fields and event details described above. Your email address is used as the reply-to address so the organization can reply directly. These messages also pass through our email provider.

Your location, availability and contact preferences help select recipients for organization event, fostering and volunteer outreach. Organizations receive the recipient counts and send-history information provided by those tools. Public organization content, public game results, and referral history have the sharing described above; communication toggles do not hide information that a separate feature displays publicly or needs to fulfill a request.

Your Privacy Controls

In My Profile → Email Preferences you can manage marketing, organization contact, update and competition preferences, plus separate switches for Rally the Pack, Forage for Volunteers and Search & Link emails. Push-notification preferences are managed separately in My Profile. Every organization outreach and launch update email has a one-click unsubscribe link that works without logging in. Unsubscribing from an outreach email turns off the matching switch, and you can turn it back on in Email Preferences at any time. If you unsubscribe from launch update emails and later sign up for launch updates again, that counts as a new request to receive them. Unsubscribing does not change your fostering or volunteering availability or push choices, and optional preferences do not turn off essential account, security, payment and support messages.

Your Privacy Rights

You can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, give you a copy, correct anything that is wrong, or delete it.

Email support@playforpet.org or write to the mailing address below. We will confirm your identity, usually by asking you to reply from the email address on your account, before acting, and respond within 45 days.

Some records may be kept after deletion when we need them for legal, tax, payment, fulfillment, security or dispute purposes (see Data Retention & Account Deletion), and we will tell you what we kept. We do not treat anyone differently for using these rights.

Push Notifications

When you enable push notifications, we store the browser's push endpoint, subscription encryption keys, associated account and creation date. We use these to send notifications through the push service selected by your browser or device, such as Apple, Google or Mozilla. That service receives the delivery information and encrypted notification payload; we never sell or trade your subscription information.

Push notifications are available to paid subscribers (Puppy, Pet, and Bandit tiers) and may include organization events, fostering and volunteer opportunities, and platform announcements. You can unsubscribe through your Profile page or revoke permission in your browser or device settings. Unsubscribing in the app requests removal of that browser's stored subscription. Changing browser or device permissions alone does not necessarily remove the server record immediately.

Data Security

Passwords are hashed rather than stored as plain text. The app uses server-side sessions, a sign-in cookie and server-side permission checks to control access to account and administrative features. Hosting, database and file-storage services hold the records and uploads needed to operate the platform. While no system can guarantee absolute security, we use these safeguards to help protect your information.

Data Retention & Account Deletion

We retain information as long as needed to provide the service and meet legal and tax requirements. Account deletion does not necessarily remove every financial, fulfillment, security or administrative record that is still needed for those purposes. To ask about deleting your account or personal information, contact us at support@playforpet.org. For paid access ending after this policy takes effect, biscuits, current-week points, patches and member progress are cleared after 30 days without a paid resubscription, while the account remains a free Scout and identity, preferences, consent, payment and order history, past results, referrals, support and audit records are retained; owner, staff and Advocate accounts are exempt.

Age Requirement

Play for Pets is an 18+ platform. We collect date of birth to check age eligibility and do not knowingly accept registrations from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information, please contact us at support@playforpet.org.

Privacy Questions

If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy or how your data is handled, please contact us at support@playforpet.org. We are committed to transparency and will respond to privacy-related inquiries promptly.

Play for Pets, Inc.

PO Box 117

Newport, MN 55055