1. Who is responsible for your data

Petchive is an independently developed application. The data controller for this website and for privacy enquiries is the Petchive developer, reachable at [email protected]. Our legal name and postal address are available on request at the same address.

Your pet journal itself is stored in a CloudKit private database tied to your own Apple ID. That database is operated by Apple, not by us; we cannot read its contents. Its handling is also governed by Apple's Privacy Policy and the iCloud terms of your Apple account.

2. What the app stores

Everything the app stores is content you enter about your pet. There is no registration form, no profile about you, and nothing is uploaded to a Petchive-operated service.

• Pet profiles — name, species, breed, gender, birthday or adoption date, neutering status, weight, notes, avatar photo and any custom fields you define.
• Daily logs — type (feeding, water, litter, weight, vaccine, medication, walk, grooming), date and time, value, tags, free-text notes, and the name of the person who recorded the entry.
• Reminders — title, due date, repeat interval and completion state.
• Photos — images you take or choose are compressed and kept inside the app's own container on the device.
• Preferences — interface language, appearance (light / dark) and similar settings, kept in local user defaults shared with the widget.

Names typed into free-text fields such as “recorded by” are chosen by you and never transmitted to us. We do not ask for your name, email address, phone number, contacts, precise location, advertising identifier or any government identifier.

3. Where data lives and how it syncs

On your device. Records are kept in a Core Data SQLite store inside the app's App Group container. The Home Screen widget and the Apple Watch companion read that same local store; neither sends data anywhere.

In your own iCloud. When you are signed in to iCloud, the app uses Apple's NSPersistentCloudKitContainer to sync the store to the private CloudKit container iCloud.com.smile.petjournal belonging to your Apple ID. This is what keeps your own iPhone and iPad in step. iOS may use a silent background notification to tell the app that new data is available; such notifications carry no journal content to us.

Offline first. You can log without a connection; changes are queued and sync when the device is back online. If you are not signed in to iCloud, or you disable iCloud for the app, everything stays purely local.

No Petchive backend. We do not operate a server, a user database or a content API. There is no server-side copy of your journal.

4. What we do not collect

We have deliberately kept the app free of the usual data-collection machinery:

• No account, login, email capture or contact import inside the app.
• No analytics, crash reporting, attribution, advertising or tracking SDKs; no IDFA and no cross-app tracking.
• No location, contacts, microphone, health, calendar or browsing data.
• No sale, rental, licensing or disclosure of personal data to data brokers or advertisers.
• No profiling, automated decision-making or targeted advertising.

Two narrow exceptions are worth stating explicitly. If you have enabled Share with App Developers in iOS Settings, Apple may provide us with aggregated, anonymised usage and crash statistics — this is controlled and anonymised by Apple, and we embed no analytics code of our own. The App Store also provides aggregate download and sales figures, which contain no journal content. Neither is linked to your pet records.

5. Device permissions

The app asks for permission only at the moment you use the related feature, and continues to work if you decline. You can change every choice later in iOS Settings › Privacy & Security or Settings › Notifications.

• Camera — to take a photo of your pet. The image is processed on the device; there is no background or continuous camera access.
• Photo library (read) — only to let you pick an existing image as a pet avatar or a log attachment. We do not scan or enumerate your library.
• Photo library (add) — only when you explicitly save an exported report image to your album.
• Notifications — reminders are local notifications scheduled on-device. No push server of ours exists and no notification payload contains your journal content.

6. Family sharing

If you use the optional family-sharing feature, the app creates an Apple CloudKit share through the system share sheet. The people you invite can then access the shared journal at the permission level you grant, through their own Apple IDs.

Participant identities and invitations are handled by Apple; we do not receive the invite list and we cannot see the shared records. Only invite people you trust. You can stop sharing or remove participants from within the app, which revokes future access; copies already synced to a participant's own devices and iCloud account are governed by that person's Apple account and by Apple's policies.

7. Exports and data leaving the app

CSV exports, PDF reports and report images are generated entirely on your device, and only when you tap Export or Share. The resulting file is handed to the iOS system share sheet; it goes solely to the destination you choose (for example Files, Mail or AirDrop). We receive no copy and cannot see where you sent it.

Once a file leaves the app, the service or person you chose becomes responsible for it under its own privacy terms. Treat exported reports as personal files and store them accordingly.

8. Purchases

Petchive is free to download. A one-time, non-subscription unlock may be offered for additional pets and family sharing. When enabled, purchase and restore are handled entirely by the Apple App Store through StoreKit 2.

We never receive your payment card number, billing address or other payment credentials. StoreKit provides only the information needed to verify an entitlement (such as the product identifier and transaction status); it is not linked to your journal content. Payment data is governed by Apple's Privacy Policy.

9. This website

This website is static. It has no accounts, no forms, no advertising, and no third-party analytics or tracking scripts. It uses a single browser localStorage entry (pj.lang) to remember the language you selected; that value is not a cookie, is not sent to our server and is not used to identify you.

Like any website, ours is served through a web server and a content delivery network (Cloudflare). These services automatically process standard request metadata — IP address, requested URL, timestamp and user agent — and may set security cookies, for delivery, security and abuse prevention. Access logs are kept for a limited period, are never combined with app data, and are not used for profiling or advertising. Cloudflare's own handling is described in its privacy policy.

If you email us, we receive your email address and the contents of your message. We use them only to answer you and to keep a record of the conversation; we never add them to a mailing list or share them with advertisers.

10. Retention and deletion

Because we hold no server-side copy of your journal, deletion is almost entirely under your control and happens on your devices:

• Individual entries or a whole pet — delete them inside the app; they disappear from the journal and stop syncing.
• All local data — delete the app from the device. This removes the local database and all photos stored in its container.
• iCloud copy — manage or remove it in iOS Settings › [your name] › iCloud › Manage Account Storage, or by switching off iCloud for Petchive. Deleting the app alone does not delete data already stored in your iCloud account.
• Shared journal — stop sharing to revoke participants' future access.
• Email correspondence — ask us to delete it at any time and we will do so, subject to any legal retention obligation.

We keep website access logs only as long as needed for security and operation. No data is retained for advertising or resale.

11. Security

Your records benefit from the iOS app sandbox, device-level encryption at rest, and Apple's encryption and account protections for iCloud. Because the data never passes through a server we control, there is no central store of journals to be breached.

No system is perfectly secure. Protecting your device with a passcode and your Apple ID with two-factor authentication is the most effective step you can take. Do not jailbreak the device if you want these protections to hold.

12. Children's privacy

Petchive is a general pet-care tool and is not directed at children under 13 (or under 16 in the EEA and UK, where that threshold applies). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. We do not ask for an age or date of birth about the user, and the app contains no chat, social feed or advertising.

If you believe a child has provided personal information to us — for example by writing to our contact address — email [email protected] and we will delete it promptly.

13. Your rights and choices

You can access, correct, export or delete your data directly in the app, without contacting us. You can also withdraw device permissions, disable iCloud sync, and stop sharing at any time.

Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR, UK GDPR and the CCPA/CPRA may give you rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability and objection, as well as the right not to be discriminated against for exercising them. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. Since we do not hold a copy of your journal, most requests are best fulfilled using the in-app controls above; for anything else, write to [email protected] and we will respond within the applicable statutory period. For data held in your own iCloud account, Apple is the appropriate party for iCloud-specific requests.

14. Changes to this policy

We will post any revision on this page and update the “Last updated” date above. If a change materially affects how your data is handled, we will also note it in the app or on the website. We will never introduce tracking, advertising or a new category of data collection without updating this policy first.

15. Contact us

Questions, deletion requests or complaints: [email protected].

Website: www.petchiveapp.com · Privacy policy: www.petchiveapp.com/privacy.html.