The short version. We collect what the app needs to work — your account, profile, photos, messages and location — and nothing for advertising, analytics or tracking. Other users see an approximate location, never your exact one. Your private album and chat photos are never on a public link. You can delete everything from inside the app.
2. What we collect
3. How we use it
4. Who can see what
5. Service providers
6. Location
7. Photos and videos
8. Health and sensitive information
9. Messages
10. Safety and moderation
11. Retention and deletion
12. Security
13. Your rights
14. Age
15. International users
16. Tracking
17. Changes
18. Contact
1. Who we are
PupBoy is operated by PupBoy LLC, a California limited liability company ("PupBoy", "we", "us"). This policy covers the PupBoy mobile app and pupboy.com. It does not cover the PupBoy Apparel store, which has its own policy.
2. What we collect
Everything below is collected only to make the app work, is linked to your account, and is never used for tracking. This is the same list we declare on the App Store.
| Data | What it is | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | Your login and where we send verification and reset codes | You, at signup |
| Name | Your display name (a handle, not your legal name) | You |
| Precise location | Your device's GPS position while the app is open | Your device, with your permission |
| Photos and videos | Profile photos, gallery videos, private album, and anything you send in chat | You |
| Other user content | Your bio, pack details (role, category, experience, play style, gear), and your messages | You |
| Health information | Optional fields: HIV status, PrEP use, last test date, vaccinations. You choose whether to fill any of these in. | You, optionally |
| Sensitive information | Optional ethnicity field; and, by the nature of the app, information about sexual orientation and interests | You |
| User ID | The account identifier we assign you | Us |
| Device ID | The Apple push-notification token for your device, so we can deliver notifications | Your device, with your permission |
What we don't collect: no analytics or usage tracking, no crash-reporting SDKs, no advertising identifiers, no contacts or address book, no browsing history, no payment information (the app is free; the apparel store is separate), no cookies in the app. We also keep ordinary server logs (IP address, request time) for security, which are deleted on a rolling basis.
3. How we use it
- To run the app: sign you in, show your profile to others, find people near you, deliver messages and notifications.
- To keep the community safe: review photos, act on reports, enforce the Pack Rules and Photo Policy, prevent abuse and ban evasion.
- To send you transactional email: verification codes, password resets, and notices about your account. We may also send occasional PupBoy news to your email; every such email has an unsubscribe link and you can opt out at any time.
- To comply with the law.
We do not use your data for advertising, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with data brokers.
4. Who can see what
- Other users see your display name, public photos and videos, bio and pack details, your online status, an approximate location and a rounded distance (see section 6), and any health or sensitive fields you chose to fill in.
- People you approve can see your private album, until you revoke them.
- The person you're chatting with sees your messages and the photos you send them. Nobody else does.
- Our moderators see photos in the review queue and the content of reports. They do not browse private chats.
- Nobody sees your email address, your exact location, or your password (we store only a one-way hash).
5. Service providers
We use a small number of providers to run the service. Each processes data only on our instructions.
| Provider | Purpose | Data | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Hosting and storage | All app data | United States |
| Mailgun | Sending email | Email address, email content | United States |
| Apple (APNs) | Push notifications | Device token, notification text | Apple's infrastructure |
| Apple Maps | Map display, on your device | Map tiles requested by your device; we don't receive this | Apple's infrastructure |
We may also disclose data if required by law, to respond to valid legal process, to protect the safety of users or the public, or as part of a merger or acquisition (in which case this policy continues to apply to your data).
6. Location
- We use your precise location, while the app is open, to find people near you and place you on the map for yourself.
- Other users never receive your precise location. Before your position is shown to anyone else it is offset by roughly 150–400 metres in a fixed, secret direction, and distances are rounded to the nearest 100 metres. The offset is the same each time, so repeated checks can't be averaged back to your real position.
- You can turn off Show my distance in your profile. Then other users see neither a distance nor a map marker for you. You'll still see them.
- We keep only your most recent position, not a history.
- You can revoke location permission in iOS Settings at any time; the map and nearby features will stop working.
7. Photos and videos
- Every photo you upload is re-processed before storage. Hidden metadata your phone embeds — including GPS coordinates — is removed.
- Public profile and gallery photos are reviewed by a person before other users can see them.
- Private album photos and photos sent in chat are stored separately from public media and are only ever delivered to the specific people entitled to see them, through authenticated requests. They are never on a public web address.
- Private album photos are also reviewed before anyone other than you can see them.
- You can delete individual photos at any time; deleting your account deletes all of them.
- We can't prevent someone you've shown a photo to from screenshotting it. Sharing someone's images without permission is a ban under the Pack Rules.
8. Health and sensitive information
Pack details include optional fields for HIV status, PrEP use, last test date, vaccinations, and ethnicity. Because PupBoy is a community for gay and queer pup play, using the app at all says something about your sexual orientation and interests.
- Every health field is optional. Leave any of them blank and nothing is shown.
- These fields are shown on your profile to other users exactly as you entered them, and nowhere else.
- We never use health or sensitive information for advertising, marketing, analytics or profiling, and never share it with anyone except as you display it on your profile or as required by law.
- You can change or clear these fields at any time in Profile → Edit Pack Details.
9. Messages
- Messages are stored on our servers so they can be delivered and shown to both participants. They are encrypted in transit; they are not end-to-end encrypted.
- If you have notifications on, the first part of a new message may be shown in the notification on your lock screen. You can turn notifications off in iOS Settings.
- Deleting a conversation removes it from your view. Deleting your account deletes your messages and the photos you sent.
- Our staff do not read private conversations, except where a message is reported to us or we are legally required to.
10. Safety and moderation
- When you report someone, our moderators see the report, the reason, and the reported profile. Your identity as the reporter is not shown to the person you reported.
- Blocking hides you and the other person from each other everywhere in the app, in both directions, and removes any favourites, sniffs or album access between you.
- Accounts that break the Pack Rules may be warned, suspended or banned. We keep a record of bans so they can't be evaded by re-registering.
- Content involving minors is removed and reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and law enforcement as required by law.
11. Retention and deletion
- We keep your data for as long as your account exists.
- Delete your account from Profile → Delete account. Your profile, photos, private album, messages, sniffs, favourites and tokens are deleted from our live systems immediately, and from encrypted backups within 30 days.
- We may keep limited records after deletion where the law requires it or where needed to enforce a ban or respond to a legal claim.
- Server logs are kept for a short rolling period for security and then deleted.
12. Security
All traffic between the app and our servers is encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are stored only as salted one-way hashes. Private media is stored outside any public web directory and served only through access-checked requests. Access to production systems is restricted to the people who operate the service. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your data we will notify you as required by law.
13. Your rights
- See and change your data: everything you've entered is visible and editable in the app under Profile.
- Delete: Profile → Delete account. No email required.
- Get a copy: email packleader@pupboy.com from the address on your account and we'll send you an export of your data within 30 days.
- Opt out of marketing email: use the unsubscribe link in any such email, or email us.
- California residents (CCPA/CPRA): you have the right to know what we collect, to delete it, to correct it, and to not be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.
- EU/UK residents (GDPR): we process your data to perform our contract with you (running the service) and, for safety and legal compliance, on the basis of legitimate interests and legal obligation. Health and sexual-orientation data are processed on the basis of your explicit consent, which you give by entering them and can withdraw by clearing them. You have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, and the right to complain to your supervisory authority.
14. Age
PupBoy is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18; if we learn we have, we delete the account and its data.
15. International users
Our servers are in the United States. If you use PupBoy from elsewhere, your data is transferred to and processed in the United States. For users in the EU, UK and Switzerland we rely on standard contractual clauses and the protections in this policy for those transfers.
16. Tracking
We don't track you across other companies' apps and websites, we don't use advertising identifiers, and we don't include third-party tracking SDKs. The app therefore does not ask for App Tracking Transparency permission. We honour this regardless of any "Do Not Track" setting.
17. Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll tell you in the app or by email before the change takes effect. The date at the top shows the current version.
18. Contact
Email: packleader@pupboy.com
Mail: PupBoy LLC, California, United States
We answer privacy requests within 30 days.