PetHour™ (“PetHour”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) operates the marketplace platform at pethour.app that connects pet owners with independent pet care providers. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, how we use it, with whom we share it, and what rights you have over it.
PetHour is a marketplace platform only. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any Sitter or Owner you interact with through the platform. When you share personal information — including pet medical data or your home address — with another user for the purpose of a booking, you do so at your own discretion and risk.
When you create a PetHour account we collect your name, email address, and password hash. After signup you may optionally add a profile photo, biography, and service area. A verified mobile phone number is required for all members as a security and trust measure — it confirms you are a real, reachable person, prevents duplicate accounts, secures account recovery, and lets an Owner and Sitter reach each other during an active booking. Providing your number does not subscribe you to any ongoing text messages; those are separately optional and off by default, as described in Section 2.9.
Identity verification is mandatory for all members before booking features are unlocked. Verification is performed through Stripe Identity, which processes a government-issued ID document and a selfie image on our behalf. PetHour does not store government ID images — only the outcome (verified/not verified) is recorded on your account. Stripe’s handling of identity documents is governed by Stripe’s own privacy policy.
If you add pets to your account we collect the name, species, breed, age, weight, known behavioral traits, reactivity, bite history, medical conditions, medication details, vaccination records, dietary requirements, emergency contacts, and veterinary information you choose to provide. This information is shared with Sitters you book. You are solely responsible for the accuracy and completeness of pet profile information. Incomplete or inaccurate pet profiles may create safety risks that PetHour cannot be held responsible for.
We record booking requests, confirmations, cancellations, completion events, and dispute records. Payment is processed by Stripe — we do not store full card numbers, CVVs, or bank account credentials. We retain transaction amounts, timestamps, Stripe payment identifiers, and platform fee records for billing, audit, and dispute resolution. If you and another member choose to arrange or pay for care off the platform (Terms, Section 4.2), that transaction is not processed by PetHour and we hold no record of it — we cannot see, store, refund, or mediate a payment that never passed through the platform.
For GPS-tracked walk services, the Sitter’s device transmits location data during the active walk. This data is stored on our servers, associated with the booking, and made available to the booking Owner as a route summary and metrics. We do not sell or share GPS data with third parties. GPS data is also used as input for AI-generated visit reports.
Photos, videos, and voice notes captured by Sitters during a visit are uploaded to our file storage (Azure Blob Storage). These are accessible to the booking Owner and used to generate AI visit reports and monthly pet memory highlights via the Anthropic Claude API. Anthropic does not retain this media for training purposes under our service agreement.
If you purchase an optional background check, the screening is performed by our third-party partner Checkr. We receive only the outcome (pass/fail) and the resulting badge status — we do not store, view, or have access to the underlying report, criminal records, or personal identifying documents submitted to Checkr. Checkr’s handling of your data is governed by Checkr’s own privacy policy.
To deliver push notifications, we collect and store Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) web push tokens associated with your browser session. In Phase 2 (mobile app), we will collect FCM device tokens for iOS and Android. These tokens are used solely to route push notifications to your devices. You may revoke push notification permission at any time from your browser or device settings. Revoking permission will invalidate your token and stop push delivery; SMS delivery (if enabled) will continue independently.
No mobile information — including your phone number and your SMS consent — will be shared with or sold to third parties or affiliates for their own marketing or promotional purposes. All text messaging opt-in data and consent is expressly excluded from any data sharing. Mobile information is shared only with the vendor that delivers our messages on our behalf (Twilio), which may not use it for any other purpose.
Phone verification (required). When you enter your mobile number and tap Send Code, you request and consent to receive a single one-time passcode by SMS. We may also send a passcode when you sign in from a new device or reset your password. These are transactional security messages, not marketing, and are required to use the platform. Message and data rates may apply.
Ongoing text messages (optional). Verifying your number does not enroll you in any ongoing text messages. Ongoing SMS is off unless you affirmatively opt in by checking the box — presented unchecked — during phone verification, or by enabling it later in Preferences → Notifications → Text messages (SMS). There is a single opt-in:
| Category | What you receive | Typical frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Bookings, visit updates & messages | Booking requests, confirmations, cancellations, Sitter assignment, walk start and end alerts, new messages from your Sitter or Owner, and Last Minute Request dispatch alerts — including calls and texts routed through a temporary private (masked) number so you and the other party can reach each other during an active booking or care bundle without sharing real numbers (see Section 2.14). | Varies with your activity; typically 0–10 messages per week. |
PetHour does not send marketing or promotional text messages, and does not send account-security alerts by text. Those (offers, referral bonuses, product news, sign-in and payout-change alerts) are sent by email only. Consent to receive booking text messages is not a condition of creating an account or of purchasing any goods or services. If you decline, you receive the same information by email and in-app notification. Note that opting out of SMS for Last Minute Requests means you will receive those alerts by push notification only, which may reduce your ability to respond within the required time window.
Cost and frequency. Message frequency varies as described above. Message and data rates may apply under your plan with your mobile carrier. PetHour does not charge you for text messages. Our messages are supported on major US carriers, and carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
How to stop messages. Reply STOP to any PetHour text message to cancel all further messages — you will receive one confirmation message and then no further texts. Reply START to resume messaging — if you had turned booking texts on before, they resume automatically. Reply HELP for support information, or email support@pethour.app. You may also turn booking texts on or off at any time in Preferences → Notifications → Text messages (SMS).
Consent records. When you grant or withdraw consent we record the date and time, the exact wording you were shown, the method used, and the originating IP address. We retain these records for at least four years so that your choices can be honored and demonstrated to a carrier or regulator on request. See Section 6 for retention details.
PetHour stores the in-app messages members send one another — within a booking’s conversation, a Care Bundle’s scheduling room, and (where enabled) a pre-booking conversation started from a member’s profile. For each message we store its text, timestamps, read status, and the conversation it belongs to. Starting a new pre-booking conversation requires a verified identity and a confirmed phone number. This content may be reviewed by PetHour support staff in connection with a dispute or a report of misconduct, and to enforce our Terms. It is not shared with third parties for their own purposes and is retained for 24 months after the associated booking or bundle is completed, expired, or cancelled (or, for a pre-booking conversation, 24 months after the last message). You can turn off receipt of new pre-booking messages, and block or report another member, at any time.
We maintain a wallet ledger recording all credits and debits to your platform wallet, including gift certificate redemptions, referral rewards, promotional credits, and booking payments. Gift certificate records include the issuer, recipient email, amount, redemption status, and timestamps. This data is retained for 7 years for financial compliance.
When you join through someone’s referral link, we record the link between the two accounts — who referred whom, and when. We use that link for two purposes: to release referral credits when they are earned, and to enforce the arms-length rule in our Terms (Section 7), which requires us to check, at the moment a booking completes, whether the referrer is a participant in that booking. That check compares account identifiers on a single booking; it does not profile you, and it produces no output other than whether one credit is released.
We do not infer, record, or act on any household, family, or personal relationship between users. The referral link is the only relationship we hold, and it exists only because one of you followed the other’s invitation. Referral records are retained for 7 years alongside the credits they govern; the link is visible to the referrer (in their referral list) and to the person referred (on request), and is not shared with other users or third parties.
We collect standard server logs including IP addresses, browser type, pages visited, referring URLs, session duration, and error events. We use this data to maintain platform security, detect fraud, and improve the service. Log data is retained for 90 days.
During an active booking or care bundle, we may assign a temporary phone number (through Twilio) that relays calls and text messages between the pet owner and the sitter, so that neither party’s real primary number — nor an owner’s emergency-contact number — is disclosed to the other. The temporary number is released once the service is complete or cancelled and may afterwards be reused for other users. We retain only routing metadata about these relayed communications (which party contacted which, when, and whether by call or text) — never the contents of the messages. No masked number is assigned before a booking or bundle exists: pre-booking contact between members is limited to in-app messaging (Section 2.10), and a masked number is provided only after a booking or bundle is confirmed.
If you join an Elite business as a team member, we record that membership, the date it began, and the date and outcome of each booking the automated rotation assigns you — including declines. We use those records for exactly three purposes: to run the rotation itself (which selects whoever has waited longest for a turn), to calculate the flat amounts owed to you, to the business and to PetHour on each completed job, and to show the whole team how work has been shared out. That last one is deliberate: the transparency is what lets any member verify that nobody is being favoured or starved. We also record the dispatch fee the business posts for each service and any changes to it, and we notify you when a fee that affects your pay changes.
Your assignment history is visible to the business you work for and, in summary form, to your fellow team members. It is not shown to pet owners or to any third party. We separately record which member performed each reviewed booking; the review itself counts for the business, and this record exists so that a member who later leaves keeps a verifiable account of the work they did. Membership and assignment records are retained for 7 years alongside the payments they explain.
We do not use your data for behavioural advertising and we do not sell your personal data to any third party.
We share personal data only as necessary to operate the platform:
All third-party providers are contractually bound to process your data only for the purposes we specify and in accordance with applicable data protection law. We do not share your data with data brokers, advertisers, or other marketplaces.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All text messaging opt-in data and consent is expressly excluded from any sharing described above — your mobile number is disclosed only to Twilio for the sole purpose of delivering the messages you asked for. See Section 2.9.
PetHour may disclose personal data — including your identity, account, and transaction information — to law enforcement, regulators, and our payment partners where required or permitted by applicable law, including in response to a subpoena, court order, or other lawful request; to detect, investigate, prevent, or report money laundering, fraud, sanctions violations, or other unlawful activity; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of PetHour, its users, or the public. Where the law requires or permits it, we may report suspected suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities, and we may be prohibited from notifying you that we have done so. See the Terms of Service, Section 19, for how we handle suspected financial crime and fund holds.
Some optional PetHour features rely on Google APIs. This section explains exactly what Google account data we access, how we use it, and the strict limits we place on that use.
calendar.readonly and calendar.events). We use this access solely to keep your PetHour availability and your calendar in sync as you configured it. You can disconnect at any time from your calendar settings, which revokes our access.We do not access Gmail, Google Drive, Google Contacts, Google Photos, or any other Google Workspace or Google Photos data, and we request no scopes for them.
PetHour’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
You have the right to:
To exercise any right, email us at support@pethour.app. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity before processing a request.
We use only essential session cookies required to operate a Blazor Server application and maintain your authenticated session. We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party analytics cookies. Firebase Cloud Messaging may use a service worker registered in your browser to handle background push notifications — this is required for push delivery and is not a tracking mechanism.
All data is transmitted over HTTPS/TLS. Passwords are stored as hashed values using ASP.NET Core Identity — we cannot recover your password. Payment and card data are handled exclusively by Stripe and never transit our servers in raw form. Visit media is stored in access-controlled Azure Blob Storage. Production data access is restricted to authorised personnel only. We review and test our security posture regularly.
Despite these measures, no internet-based service can guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. In the event of a data breach that materially affects you, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.
The platform may link to or integrate with third-party services (Stripe, Checkr, Firebase, Twilio, SendGrid, Azure). PetHour is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third party. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any service you use in connection with PetHour. Your use of Stripe Identity for identity verification and Checkr for background checks is subject to those providers’ own terms and privacy policies.
PetHour is not directed at children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. Owner accounts require a minimum age of 18; Sitter accounts require a minimum age of 18. If you believe a child under 18 has created an account, contact us at support@pethour.app and we will delete the account promptly.
We may update this policy as the platform evolves. Material changes will be communicated by email and displayed prominently on the platform at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of PetHour after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy. If you do not agree to a material change, you should stop using the platform and request deletion of your account before the change takes effect.
Questions or requests regarding this Privacy Policy: support@pethour.app