Privacy Policy

We collect information that you provide directly, information generated when you use our services, and technical information from your device.

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To provide and operate our service — booking rides and in-home pet sitting sessions, matching you with available pilots or sitters, confirming and tracking your pet's journey.
• To personalise your experience — displaying your pet profiles, managing multiple pets, and remembering your preferred addresses.
• To send ride updates and notifications — push notifications for booking confirmation, pilot en-route alerts, ride completion, and cancellation updates.
• To enable live ride tracking — your GPS location is used to determine pickup proximity and to display live driver location during an active ride.
• To verify pet health compliance — vaccination certificates are checked to ensure all pets travelling with Petroo meet basic health requirements.
• To process referrals and discounts — applying eligible first-ride discounts, milestone loyalty rewards, and B2B partner referral vouchers.
• To celebrate your pet's birthday — if you have provided a pet date of birth, we display a birthday greeting within the app on that day. A local flag is stored on your device (via AsyncStorage) to ensure the greeting is shown only once per day; this flag never leaves your device and is not transmitted to our servers.
• To respond to safety emergencies — if you trigger the in-app SOS button, your precise GPS location, name, phone number, and active booking ID are immediately shared with Petroo's operations team to enable rapid assistance. SOS data is used solely for this safety purpose.
• To improve our service — analysing ride feedback and ratings to maintain service quality.
• To communicate with you — sending booking confirmation emails and support communications via email.
• To comply with legal obligations — retaining booking records as required by applicable Indian law.

Petroo requests access to your device's precise foreground location (while the app is open). Location access is used to:

• Auto-fill your current location as the default pickup address
• Detect whether you are booking from outside your registered address
• Display live driver location on the map during an active ride

Emergency SOS: If you manually activate the in-app SOS button during a ride, your precise GPS coordinates at that moment are immediately written to our secure database and transmitted to Petroo's operations team as an emergency alert. This is the only circumstance in which your real-time location coordinates are stored on our servers. SOS records are retained for safety audit purposes for up to 1 year and are accessible only to Petroo operations staff.

You may deny location permission at any time through your device settings. If denied, certain features such as auto-detecting your pickup location and the SOS emergency feature will be unavailable, but you can still enter addresses manually.

Petroo requests access to your camera and photo library solely for the following purposes:

• Uploading a profile photo for your owner account
• Uploading photos of your pets
• Uploading vaccination certificates (photos or PDF files) for your pets

All photos and files are uploaded to Cloudinary (a cloud media storage service) using a secure upload preset. Files are stored securely and are only accessible through your account. We do not use your photos for any purpose other than displaying them within the Petroo app.

Camera and photo library access is only triggered when you explicitly tap an upload button within the app. We do not access your camera or photos passively or in the background.

Petroo uses the following third-party services to operate. Each provider has their own privacy policy governing how they handle data.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to any third party for marketing or advertising purposes.

We share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

• With your assigned pilot or sitter — when a ride booking is confirmed, your name, phone number, pet details, and pickup/drop-off address are shared with the Petroo pilot assigned to your ride. When a Petroo Sitter booking is confirmed, your name, phone number, pet details, sitting address, and relevant care notes are shared with the assigned sitter. This is done solely to fulfil the service.
• With Petroo operations staff — our internal team accesses booking data through the Petroo Admin application to manage and confirm rides.
• In a safety emergency (SOS) — when you trigger the in-app SOS button, your name, phone number, real-time GPS location, and active booking ID are immediately shared with Petroo's operations team exclusively for the purpose of dispatching emergency assistance. This data is never used for any other purpose.
• With third-party service providers — as listed in Section 5 above, limited data is processed by our technology partners strictly to operate the app.
• For legal compliance — we may disclose information if required to do so by law, court order, or governmental authority under applicable Indian law.

We do not share your data with advertisers, data brokers, or any other parties not described in this policy.

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with our services. Specifically:

• Account data — retained for the lifetime of your account and for up to 2 years after account deletion for legal and audit purposes.
• Booking records — retained for 5 years as required for business and legal compliance under Indian law.
• Photos and certificates — retained in Cloudinary until you delete them from your profile or delete your account.
• Push notification tokens — refreshed on each app login and removed upon account deletion.
• Pet date of birth — retained as part of your pet profile until you remove the pet or delete your account.
• Emergency SOS records — retained for up to 1 year for safety audit purposes, then permanently deleted.
• OTP records — automatically expired and deleted within 10 minutes of generation.
• Birthday display flags — stored locally on your device only (AsyncStorage); never transmitted to our servers and automatically cleared when the calendar date changes.

Account Deletion: You may permanently delete your account directly within the Petroo app at any time — go to the Me tab → Delete Account. You will be asked to confirm your password before deletion proceeds. Upon deletion, your profile, pet data, booking history, notification records, and all associated personal data are immediately and permanently removed from our systems. Cloudinary-hosted photos and certificates become orphaned and inaccessible. Any active pending or confirmed bookings will be automatically cancelled. Booking records may be retained in anonymised form for legal and audit purposes as required under applicable Indian law. Alternatively, you may email contact.petroo@gmail.com with the subject line "Account Deletion Request" and we will process your request within 30 days.

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement the following measures:

• All data is transmitted over HTTPS / TLS encrypted connections
• User authentication is handled by Firebase Authentication, which uses industry-standard security protocols
• Firestore database access is protected by granular security rules — users can only access their own data
• Passwords are never stored in plain text — Firebase handles all password hashing securely
• Photo and file storage is secured through Cloudinary's access controls
• Booking cancellations are restricted — only the booking owner can cancel, and only while the ride is pending or confirmed

While we strive to protect your information, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We encourage you to use a strong password and to keep your login credentials confidential.

The Petroo app is intended for users who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at contact.petroo@gmail.com and we will delete such information promptly.

Under applicable data protection laws, including the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India), you have the following rights:

• Right to Access — You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Correction — You may update your name, phone number, address, and pet details directly within the app at any time.
• Right to Deletion — You may delete your account and all associated personal data at any time directly from the app (Me tab → Delete Account) or by contacting us. Deletion is immediate and permanent.
• Right to Withdraw Consent — You may withdraw consent for location access or push notifications at any time through your device settings.
• Right to Grievance Redressal — You have the right to raise a complaint with us directly (see Section 14) or with the relevant data protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact.petroo@gmail.com. We will respond to all requests within 30 days.

The Petroo mobile application does not use browser cookies. We use Firebase Authentication's secure session persistence (via AsyncStorage on your device) to keep you logged in between app sessions. This data is stored locally on your device and is not used for advertising or tracking purposes.

We also store a birthday display flag on your device (via AsyncStorage, keyed to the current date) to track whether a pet birthday greeting has been shown today. This flag contains no personal data, is never transmitted off your device, and is automatically invalidated when the calendar date changes.

No advertising SDKs, analytics trackers, or third-party behaviour monitoring tools are embedded in this application.

The Petroo app requests the following device permissions. Each permission is requested only when the relevant feature is first used and is never accessed outside of its stated purpose.

You can revoke any permission at any time through your device's Settings → Apps → Petroo → Permissions. Revoking a permission will disable the associated feature but will not affect unrelated functionality.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you through the app or by email.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Petroo app after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.