Privacy Policy

PetLLM turns a photo of your dog into an animated 3D pet you can chat with and take on walks. This policy explains what the PetLLM app and website collect, why, who we share it with, and how you can delete it. We do not sell your personal data and we do not use it for advertising.

1. What we collect

• Account details — username, email address and password (stored hashed), or your Apple / Google account identifier and email if you sign in with them.
• Pet photos — the photos (up to three) you take or pick when creating a pet. They are sent for processing (see section 3). We keep them with your pet, saved again without location or other metadata, and show them on your pet's card; they are deleted when you release the pet or delete your account. We also keep what is generated from them: an AI reference image, a thumbnail, the 3D model and its animations.
• Pet profile and game data — your pets' names, breed, stats, treats, levels, inventory and preferences.
• Location and walks — while you are on a walk, the app uses your precise location to move your pet on the map and record the route. If you allow it, recording continues while the app is in the background, so a walk isn't cut off when you lock your phone. We save each finished walk (a simplified route, distance, duration, steps and items found) to your account. Location is not collected outside walks.
• Voice and chat — when you talk to your pet, speech is converted to text by Apple's speech recognition (Apple may process the audio under its own privacy policy). We receive only the text, never the audio. Chat messages with your pet are stored with your account so the conversation can continue.
• Contacts (optional) — only if you tap Invite from contacts and allow access. Names stay on your phone. The app sends your contacts' phone numbers and email addresses to our server, which matches the email addresses against PetLLM accounts and then keeps only keyed, one-way hashes of the numbers and addresses (never the originals), so a contact who joins later can be suggested to you as a friend. When you invite a contact, the message is sent from your own Messages or Mail app; we don't see it or store who you invited. Friend requests and messages you send to friends are stored too.
• Invites — your personal invite code, who joined with it, and whether they counted toward a reward (a verified account and a first pet). If you join with a friend's code, they see your username and your progress (joined, verified, pet created). To stop invite rewards being claimed twice, we keep a one-way hash of your email address and of a random ID the app stores in your phone's keychain; it is used for nothing else and is kept after an account is deleted, unlinked from you. Opening an invite link on our website counts one anonymous page view (no cookie, no ID).
• Purchases — when you buy treats or premium, Apple processes the payment. We receive the purchase record (product, transaction and subscription status) via RevenueCat — never your card details.
• Diagnostics — crash reports and performance data (device model, OS version, app version, error traces) via Sentry, to find and fix bugs.
• Usage statistics — which screens you open and which features you use (for example starting a walk, creating a pet or opening the shop), how long you spend in the app, and errors you run into. They are tied to your account and, before you sign in, to a random ID the app creates on your phone. They never include your location, photos, messages or contacts. You can turn them off in Profile → Privacy → Usage statistics, which also deletes what we kept.
• Website — if you join the waitlist, your email address. The website uses PostHog for page-view analytics and Cloudflare Turnstile to block spam sign-ups.

2. How we use it

• To create, animate and show your 3D pet
• To power pet conversations, walks, friends and the game itself
• To run invites: find contacts who already play, credit invite rewards, and prevent invite abuse
• To deliver purchases and premium features
• To keep the service secure, fix bugs and improve performance
• To understand which features are used and where people get stuck, so we can improve PetLLM (usage statistics)
• To send account emails (verification, password reset) and, if you joined the waitlist, product updates you can unsubscribe from

3. Third-party AI services

Before your first pet photo is uploaded, the app asks for your permission. If you agree, your photo and data derived from it are shared with these AI providers, only to create your pet:

• OpenAI — analyses the photo (breed, colours, pose) and generates a reference image of your pet. OpenAI also generates your pet's chat replies from the messages you send. Under OpenAI's API terms, this data is not used to train their models by default.
• Meshy — turns the reference image into a 3D model.
• AnythingWorld — rigs and animates the 3D model when needed (many breeds are animated on our own servers instead).

Each provider processes the data under its own privacy terms. If you decline, no photo is sent and you can still use the rest of the app.

4. Other service providers

We also rely on: Railway (servers and file storage), MongoDB (database), Redis (cache), Apple and Google (sign-in), RevenueCat and Apple (purchases), Sentry (crash reporting), Resend (account emails), PostHog and Cloudflare (website). They process data on our behalf only to run PetLLM. We may disclose data if required by law.

5. Retention and deletion

We keep your data while your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in the app: Profile → Danger zone → Delete Account. This permanently deletes your account, pets, generated images and 3D models (except files also used by other pets or our shared breed templates, which no longer link to you), walks, chats, friends, synced contact hashes, purchase records and usage statistics, and revokes Sign in with Apple. Friends you invited keep their rewards; the invite records keep only the hashes described above, with no link to you. Usage statistics are kept for 90 days, and a daily summary of activity for 13 months. Both are deleted when you delete your account or turn usage statistics off. Crash reports expire under Sentry's retention period. Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription — cancel it in your Apple ID settings.

You can also email hello@petllm.com to delete your data, access a copy of it, or correct it.

6. Your choices

• Location, contacts, camera, photos, microphone and speech recognition are each asked for separately and can be turned off in iOS Settings.
• You can decline the AI photo processing consent.
• You can turn off usage statistics at any time in Profile → Privacy.
• Depending on where you live (for example the EU/UK under GDPR, or California), you may have rights to access, correct, delete or port your data and to object to processing. Contact hello@petllm.com and we will respond within 30 days.

7. Children

PetLLM is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has given us data, contact hello@petllm.com and we will delete it.

8. Security and transfers

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and stored with access controls. Our providers may process data outside your country, including in the United States.

9. Changes and contact

We will update this page when our practices change and notify you in the app or by email for significant changes. Questions: hello@petllm.com.