Pawtner Privacy Policy
Effective date: 2026-10-20 Developer: the Pawtner team ("we", "us")
Pawtner puts a pet on your phone screen. It keeps you company, reminds you of things, keeps your lists, and (with Pawtner Plus) answers questions using an AI. This policy explains what data the app uses, where it goes, and how to delete it. We've tried to keep it short and plain.
In short: - Most of what Pawtner knows about you stays on your phone. - When you use Plus (the AI brain), what you ask goes through our server to an AI provider so it can answer. That includes any extra context the request needs, such as the screen you were on, a notification or a calendar event. - When you use the Pet Studio, your pet photos go to our server and to Google's AI to make your animated pet. - We have no ads, no analytics and no tracking SDKs, and we don't sell your data.
1. What we collect, and what stays on your phone
Stays on your phone (never sent to us)
These live in the app's private storage on your phone: - Your pet, its progress, paws, shop items and settings. - Your journal, moods, daily goals, water and medication check-ins. - Reminders, alarms, lists, and the facts you ask your pet to remember ("I parked on level 3"). - Saved places (like "home") and place reminders, including their GPS coordinates. - A copy of your notifications from the last 24 hours, if you turn on notification access. Older ones are dropped automatically. - Your step count, if you allow it. - Which app is in front of you, used for "Sit with me" and so the pet steps out of the way. It's checked live and never stored. - Photos the pet takes on adventures, and clips you record of your pet, saved to your own Pictures/Movies folders.
Some of this can still leave your phone when you use Plus. See section 2.
Google backup. Pawtner turns on Android's automatic backup so your pet survives a new phone. That means the app's settings storage (your pet, journal, memories, lists, saved places, and your purchase and friend tokens) is backed up to your own Google account under Google's backup terms. Your recent notifications are not included: they stay on this phone. You can turn backup off in your phone's settings.
Sent off your phone
| What | When | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Your questions and requests to the pet, plus the context they need | Only with Plus, and only for requests the app can't handle on the phone by itself | Our AI server, then OpenRouter, then the AI model provider |
| Pet photos (1 to 5), your pet's name | When you make a pet in the Pet Studio | Our Pet Studio server, then Google (Gemini and Veo) |
| Friends display name, your pet's name and kind | When you turn on Friends | Our server, and the friends you add |
| Google Play purchase details | When you buy Plus, paws or Pet Studio items | Our server, then Google Play, to confirm the purchase |
| A random install ID | When you use the Pet Studio, the paw shop, heirlooms or Friends | Our servers |
| Paw shop activity counters: days since install, days you opened the app this week, care streak, paw balance, how many paws you were short, your Plus plan, the hour, and your paw purchases | When you open the paw shop or buy paws | Our server, to choose a personal paw offer (a bonus on paw packs) and to learn which offers people find useful. Kept up to 120 days, never sold or used for ads |
| Approximate location (rounded to about 1 km) | When weather is on | Open-Meteo, a weather service |
We don't collect your email address, your phone number, your advertising ID or your device's hardware IDs.
2. Pawtner Plus (the AI brain)
Plus is a subscription. When you ask your pet something it can't do on the phone by itself (simple commands like timers, lists, reminders, calls and music are handled on the phone), the request goes to our AI server. Our server checks your subscription with Google Play, applies a daily limit, and passes the request to OpenRouter, which sends it to the AI model we use (currently a Claude model made by Anthropic). The answer comes back the same way.
What a Plus request can contain: - What you said or typed, and the last few minutes of your conversation with the pet. - Always: today's goals, the facts you've asked the pet to remember, your lists, and your time zone. These let the pet answer things like "where did I park?" or "what's on my grocery list?". - The text on your screen. When you open the pet to talk (the talk button, the Quick Settings tile or hands-free), and you've turned on the "Pawtner (page lock + read screen)" accessibility helper, the app reads the text of the app you were in. If you then ask the AI something within the next 10 minutes, that screen text goes along with your question, so "summarize this" works. Without Plus, screen text is only read aloud on the phone. - Only when the pet needs them for your request: your recent notifications (for "what did I miss?" or a reply draft), calendar events, the names of your notes and their text, contact names (when calling or texting someone), and the names of your installed apps (to open one). - Automatic messages: for Plus subscribers, when a reminder, a calendar event, a place reminder, a medication reminder or a goal nudge is due, the app sends that one item to the AI so your pet can say it in its own words. If the AI can't be reached, the pet uses a plain message instead.
What our server keeps: our AI server doesn't store your messages or the AI's replies. It only passes them through. It keeps a count of your requests for today (deleted after 2 days) and a cached copy of your subscription status (deleted after 40 days).
Reporting AI answers: if your pet ever says something offensive, harmful or wrong, use ⚑ Report (in the pet's long-press menu right after it answers, or Settings → Report something the AI said). The report (what was asked, what the AI said, and your reason) goes to us for review and is deleted after 90 days.
AI providers: OpenRouter and the model provider handle requests under their own terms and privacy policies. AI answers can be wrong. Please check anything important.
3. Pet Studio (make your own pet)
When you make a pet, you choose 1 to 5 photos with Android's photo picker (Pawtner never gets access to your whole gallery). Before uploading, the app resizes them and saves them as fresh JPEGs, which removes hidden data like the photo's GPS location. Then: - The photos and your pet's name are stored on our Pet Studio server (Cloudflare). - The photos go to Google's Gemini API, which describes your pet and draws it. Google's Veo turns the drawings into short animations. ElevenLabs makes your pet's barks or meows from a short written description of its voice (ElevenLabs never sees your photos). - The finished pet (drawings, animations, sounds, and a short written description of your pet) is stored on our server so it can be downloaded to your phone and taught new tricks later.
We use these services only to make your pet. We don't use your photos for anything else.
4. Friends
Friends is optional and free. When you turn it on, we store your display name (which you choose), your pet's name and kind, your friend code, your friend list, roughly when you were last active, and your heirloom collector rank. Friends you add can see your display name, your pet's name and kind, when you were last active, and your collector rank. There's no chat. "Vibes" and gifts come from fixed lists. Messages waiting in your inbox are deleted once delivered, or after 14 days.
Leaderboards. If you've turned on Friends, your best score in each Pawtner game (this week and all time) is stored with your Friends profile, and your friends see it on the leaderboards, next to your display name and pet.
Pets nearby. Only while you're on the Friends screen and tap "Look for pets nearby", your phone uses Bluetooth Low Energy to send out a random code from our server that changes every 15 minutes, and listens for other Pawtner phones' codes. It sends the codes it hears to our server, which tells it whose pet is near. Friends' pets then visit each other (once a day, and we keep the date you met for that). People you haven't added only see your pet's name and kind, never your name, and can ask to be friends. If they ask, you see their display name and pet so you can choose; when you ask someone, they see yours. Friendships made in person count right away; ones made by code need a day before a meeting earns a visit. We never use Bluetooth for your location, never send device names or addresses, and stop as soon as you leave the screen. Codes are deleted when they expire, the record of which codes your phone heard after a day, and friend requests after 30 days. When you delete your account, everything above goes with it; vibes you already sent stay in friends' recent list on their phones.
5. Purchases
Payments are handled by Google Play. We never see your card details. To confirm a purchase, our server sends the purchase token to Google Play. We keep a record of each purchase we've confirmed (a scrambled form of the token, the product, the order ID and your random install ID) so the same purchase can't be used twice and so we can honor refunds and credits.
6. Permissions and what each one is for
Every permission is optional, except showing over other apps (the pet needs that to appear on your screen at all). You can change them any time in Android Settings.
| Permission | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Display over other apps | So the pet can live on your home screen and over your apps |
| Notifications | Reminders, alarms, timers, and "your pet is ready" |
| Microphone | Talking to your pet, and (if you turn it on) hands-free "Hey [pet name]". Speech is turned into text by your phone's speech service: on the phone itself when it can be, or otherwise your phone's standard speech service (often Google's), which may process the audio online. Pawtner doesn't record or keep audio. With hands-free on, it listens only while the screen is on (or only while charging, if you choose that), and a notification shows when it's listening |
| Contacts | Calling and texting people by name ("call mom"), and noticing messages from your starred contacts |
| Phone (make calls) | Placing a call you asked for. There's a moment to say "stop" first. Without this permission, the dialer opens with the number filled in |
| Calendar (read) | A heads-up before events, and answering "what's on today?" |
| Location (approximate) | Local weather |
| Location (precise, and "all the time") | Reminders when you arrive somewhere ("remind me to buy dog food at Petco") and saving places like "home". Android's location system wakes the app near the place. Your location history isn't recorded or sent to us |
| Physical activity | Counting your steps for the pet's adventures (stays on your phone) |
| Alarms and full-screen alerts | Alarms you set with the pet, which ring on time and show over the lock screen |
| Do Not Disturb access | The "goodnight" routine turns Do Not Disturb on, and "good morning" turns it off |
| Notification access | "What did I miss?", reply drafts, package and flight updates, and controlling music that's playing |
| Accessibility (the "page lock + read screen" helper) | Lets the pet stay on one home screen page and step out of the keyboard's way, and reads the text of the app you're in when you open the pet to talk or say "read this" (see section 2) |
| Usage access | "Sit with me": noticing when you drift to a social feed during a focus session |
| Run at startup | Bringing the pet and your reminders back after a restart |
7. How long we keep things
- On your phone: until you delete it, use "Delete my data" or uninstall. Notifications are kept for 24 hours, package and flight updates for 5 days, and place reminders expire after a week.
- AI requests: not stored by our server. Daily request counts are kept for 2 days, and subscription status for 40 days.
- Pet Studio: your photos and your pet's files are kept until you delete them with "Delete my data" (or ask us to), so your pet can be re-downloaded and learn new tricks.
- Friends: your profile, friend list and game bests are kept until you delete them. Undelivered inbox items are kept up to 14 days, nearby codes 15 minutes, friend requests 30 days, and the dates you met friends nearby until you delete your account.
- Purchase records: kept as long as needed to prevent the same purchase being used twice, to honor refunds and credits, and to meet legal and tax requirements.
- Server logs: our hosting provider (Cloudflare) keeps short-lived technical logs of requests to the Pet Studio server to keep it running.
8. Deleting your data
- In the app: go to Settings → Delete my data. This erases everything Pawtner has stored on your phone and asks our servers to delete your Pet Studio pets and photos, your Friends account, and the records linked to your install ID. We may keep minimal purchase records where the law requires it, or to stop the same purchase being used twice, but they won't be linked to your pets or friends.
- Without the app: use https://pet-studio.cozystudio.workers.dev/delete-account or email the developer email on our Google Play listing. Tell us your friend code, if you have one, and/or your Pet Studio pet's name and roughly when you made it.
- Uninstalling deletes everything on the phone, but not your Pet Studio pets or Friends account on our servers. Use "Delete my data" first.
- Your Google backup copy is managed in your Google account settings.
- To cancel Plus, use Google Play → Payments & subscriptions.
9. Sharing
We don't sell your data or share it for advertising. We share data only: - with the service providers that run Pawtner for us, as described above: Cloudflare (hosting), DigitalOcean (the Friends database, in the US, encrypted in transit), OpenRouter and the AI model provider (Plus answers), Google Gemini and Veo (Pet Studio), ElevenLabs (pet sounds), Open-Meteo (weather) and Google Play (purchases); - with friends you add, limited to the Friends profile described in section 4; - with other apps when you ask, for example opening Maps for directions, your music app, your browser for a search, or your messaging app with a drafted text; - if required by law.
10. Children
Pawtner isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you think a child has used the Pet Studio or Friends, contact us and we'll delete the data.
11. Security
All connections between the app, our servers and our providers are encrypted (HTTPS). The app never holds AI or service keys. Our servers hold them. Purchase tokens are stored on our servers in scrambled (hashed) form where they serve as identifiers. Pet Studio files are only given back to the install that made them, and your original photos are never served back from our server. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your data safe and to collect as little as we can.
12. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your data, or to object to how it's used. Most of your data is on your phone, where you can see and delete it. Settings also lets you export your journal and a full backup. For anything on our servers, contact us.
13. Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update the effective date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app.
14. Contact
Contact: the developer email on our Google Play listing