Privacy Policy

1. About This Policy and the Platform

Collaro is an online marketplace that helps dog owners (“Owners”) discover and book independent care providers (“Providers”). We provide the technology that connects Owners and Providers; we do not provide dog-care services ourselves and we do not employ Providers.

This Policy applies to all users of the Platform, including Owners, Providers and administrators, and covers information we process through the mobile application, our application programming interfaces (APIs) and related communications such as email and push notifications.

Capitalised terms that are not defined in this Policy have the meaning given to them in our Terms of Service.

2. Information We Collect

We collect the information described below so that the Platform can function, so that Owners and Providers can find and trust one another, and so that bookings can be arranged and managed.

• Account information: your name, your email address, the role you choose (Owner or Provider), your preferred language, your email-verification status and your notification preference. If you register with an email and password, we store your password only as a one-way cryptographic hash (bcrypt); we never store it in readable form.
• Google sign-in information: if you sign in with Google, we receive and store a Google account identifier, your name and email address from Google, and a link to your Google profile picture (which remains hosted by Google and is not copied to our storage). We do not receive your Google password.
• Email-verification and password-reset codes: we generate a one-time code and store only a hashed version of it; the code itself is sent to your email address and is never retained after it is used, replaced or expires.
• Provider profile information (Providers only): your public display name, a phone number, a postal address (street, city and country), a precise map location (geographic coordinates) for your service point, a written biography, and an optional image gallery.
• Dog information (Owners): for each dog you add — its name, breed, approximate age, size, optional free-text notes, whether it is healthy, and, where it is not, free-text medical notes. You may also add a photo of each dog. Medical and health notes are sensitive information; see “Sensitive Information”.
• Identity-verification data (Providers on the PRO plan): if you choose to use the verification feature, you submit an image of a government-issued identification document and a selfie. These images are sent to our AI provider (OpenAI) for an automated check and are NOT stored — we retain only the outcome (verified or not), the reasons for any rejection, and the time of the check. See “Identity Verification”.
• Booking information: the bookings you create or receive, including the selected service, the booking’s dates and times and the time zone in which they are scheduled, the dogs involved (and their profiles), the agreed price, the parties and the booking status.
• Subscription and payment information (Providers only): your plan (Free or PRO), its status and billing period, and a counter of bookings accepted in the current period. Payments on the Platform are used solely for the optional PRO subscription (see “Payments”) — payment for bookings is always arranged directly between the Owner and the Provider and never passes through the Platform. To process a (simulated) subscription charge, the app transmits the card details you enter — card number, expiry, security code and cardholder name — to our servers, but we do not store the full card number, security code or cardholder name. For a saved payment method we retain only the card brand, the last four digits, the expiry month and year, and an opaque reference token; the saved method you paid with may be kept as the card your subscription renews on. For each charge we keep an internal audit record of the amount, currency and generated transaction references.
• Messages: the content and metadata (sender, timestamps, read status) of messages you exchange with another user or with our support team through the in-app chat.
• Reviews and ratings: the star ratings and written reviews you submit about a Provider, and the reviews submitted about you as a Provider.
• Reports: if you report a Provider, the reason you select, your written description and any evidence photographs you attach.
• Device and technical information: a per-installation device identifier generated on your device, push-notification tokens for your devices, authentication tokens that keep you signed in, and app settings such as your chosen language and display theme.
• Location information: a Provider’s chosen service coordinates (stored as part of the provider profile). For Owners, your device’s location is read only when you actively use a map feature and ask to use your location; it is processed in the moment to show nearby Providers and is not stored on our servers. See “Location Information”.

3. How and Why We Use Your Information

We use your information only for legitimate purposes connected with operating the Platform, including to:

• create and manage your account and authenticate you when you sign in;
• display Owner and Provider profiles, dog profiles, services, prices, reviews and ratings to the relevant users;
• show Providers on a map and calculate distances when you use a map feature;
• enable the booking workflow, including requests, acceptance or rejection, cancellations, the two-sided confirmation of direct payments, and automatic completion;
• operate Provider subscriptions (Free and PRO), including plan limits, upgrade charges and automatic renewals;
• enable in-app messaging between an Owner and a Provider connected by a booking, and between you and our support team;
• operate the identity-verification feature and the “Verified” badge (available on the PRO plan; a badge already earned persists);
• send you service-related communications — verification codes, subscription billing notices, the completed-service summary and report updates by email, and booking, payment-confirmation, plan-change, review and chat updates by push notification (if enabled) — and other important notices;
• operate ratings, which influence how Providers are ordered and filtered in search results;
• maintain the safety, security and integrity of the Platform, moderate reports, prevent and investigate fraud and abuse, and enforce our Terms of Service;
• keep an internal audit record of money- and booking-related actions for accounting, security and record-keeping purposes; and
• comply with applicable legal obligations and respond to lawful requests.

4. Sensitive Information

Some information you provide is sensitive, and we want to be clear about how it is handled.

• Dog health and medical notes: if you mark a dog as not healthy, you are asked to describe its condition. These free-text health notes, together with the rest of the dog’s profile, are disclosed to a Provider when you send that Provider a booking request — that is, before the Provider accepts. A Provider you request will therefore see this information even if they later decline or do not respond. Only include details you are comfortable sharing with the Provider you are requesting.
• Identity documents and biometric data: the ID image and selfie you submit to the verification feature are sent to our AI provider (OpenAI), which analyses them to check the document and whether the selfie plausibly matches it. This may involve automated facial analysis, performed transiently solely to compute the result. The images are not stored by us, are not used to train the provider’s models, and are never shown to other users — see “Identity Verification”.

5. How and Why We Use Identity Verification

Identity verification is a feature available to Providers on the PRO plan who wish to display a “Verified” badge. You are never required to verify your identity to browse or use the Platform, and a badge you have already earned remains on your profile even if you later leave the PRO plan.

If you choose to use it, you submit an image of a government-issued identification document together with a selfie. Our server runs an automated check and returns a decision. We want to be transparent about what this feature is and is not:

• The check is fully automated and is performed by our AI provider (OpenAI). We send it your ID image and selfie, and it assesses whether the document appears to be a national ID, passport, or driver's license and is readable, whether the selfie is a clear photo of a single real person, and whether the two plausibly show the same person. The badge is granted only when these automated checks pass.
• It is NOT a full KYC process, a government-database check, a document-authenticity or anti-forgery check, or a “liveness”/anti-spoofing check, and it does not involve manual human review. It can make mistakes in both directions. The “Verified” badge means our automated checks passed — not that we have independently confirmed your legal identity.
• Your ID image and selfie are sent to the provider solely to perform this check and are NOT stored by us; the provider processes them transiently to compute the result and, under its API terms, does not use them to train its models. We retain only the result (approved or rejected), the reasons for any rejection, and the time of the check.
• Because the images are not retained, they are never shown to other users; only your verification status (verified or not) is visible to others.
• We do not sell or rent this data, and we do not use it for advertising or profiling.
• The verification result stored on your account is retained while your account is deleted (so the account can be restored) and is removed only if you ask us to permanently erase your data, as described in “Account Deletion and Data Retention”.

6. How Information Is Shared and What Other Users See

The Platform is a marketplace, so some information is shared with other users so that bookings can take place. We share only what is necessary, and we never sell your personal information.

• Public Provider information: once a Provider is listed, their display name, profile photo, biography, services and prices, average rating and reviews — and also their phone number, full street address and exact map location (shown as a pin, together with a distance from the viewer) — are visible to other users of the app, including people who are browsing without an account. Providers should bear this in mind when choosing the address and location pin they publish.
• Reviews: reviews and ratings are public and are attributed to the Owner who wrote them, including that Owner’s name and profile photo.
• Information shared with your booking counterpart: when you request or receive a booking, the Owner’s name and profile photo and the selected dogs’ full profiles (including any health and medical notes) are shared with the Provider, and the parties can exchange messages.
• Information visible to administrators: our administrators can access account details (such as name and email), bookings, subscriptions and their charges, reports and verification status in order to operate the Platform and moderate reports. Administrators cannot read messages exchanged between Owners and Providers; they can only see messages in support conversations they take part in.
• Information not shown to other users: your password, your email address (Owners’ email addresses are not shown to counterparties), your identity-verification images (which are sent to our AI provider for the check and are not retained by us), your full payment-card details, your subscription details, and an Owner’s device location.
• Service providers (sub-processors): we use the trusted third parties listed under “Third-Party Services” to host data, store images, send email and push notifications, and provide maps and geocoding. They process information only as needed to provide their service to us.
• Legal and safety disclosures: we may disclose information where required by law, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our users, the public or the Platform.

7. Payments

Payment for bookings is never processed by the Platform. The price of a booking is agreed and settled directly between the Owner and the Provider — for example in cash — according to their own arrangement. The Platform does not process, hold, transfer or collect any of that money and stores no payment instrument for it; it only provides a two-sided confirmation in which one party records that the payment was made and the other confirms it. That confirmation is a record only and does not move any money.

The only payments made through the Platform are Provider subscription payments for the optional PRO plan (see the Terms of Service, “Provider Subscriptions”). At this launch stage no subscription payment processing takes place at all: PRO cannot be purchased in the app and no payment card can be entered or saved, so we collect no card details from you. PRO that we grant manually during this period involves no payment information of any kind. If a card was saved on your account before this, you can still see it and remove it from Manage Subscription. When subscription payments are enabled, processing will begin as a simulated flow in which no real money moves and no real card is charged, but upgrading and entering a card will transmit the card details to our servers to simulate the charge; a card you upgrade with is then saved to your account automatically as the subscription's renewal method — automatic renewal requires a saved method, and the upgrade flow discloses this. We do not store the full card number, the security code or the cardholder name; for a saved card we keep only the brand, the last four digits, the expiry and an internal reference token.

Once subscription payments are enabled, a PRO subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period using the saved payment method it was purchased with (or, if that method was removed, another saved payment method). If you cancel, you are not charged again and keep PRO until the paid period ends; if a renewal charge cannot be completed, your account moves to the Free plan and nothing further is charged. After a failed renewal you can retry the charge with your saved payment method or update your payment method from Manage Subscription; a successful charge returns your account to PRO and starts a new billing period. While subscription payments are not enabled none of this happens: nothing renews, no charge is attempted, and a PRO period simply ends on its date with the account moving to the Free plan.

If and when real payment processing is introduced, it will be handled by one or more third-party payment processors, additional terms will apply, and we will update this Policy before any such change takes effect.

8. Third-Party Services

We rely on a limited number of third-party services to operate the Platform. They act as our service providers and may process your information to provide their service to us; their own processing, where they act as independent controllers, is governed by their respective privacy policies.

• Cloudinary — image storage and content delivery for uploaded images (profile photos, dog photos, provider galleries and report evidence). Uploaded images are served from content-delivery links that are not individually access-restricted, which means anyone who has an image’s link can view that image. Identity-verification images are NOT uploaded to Cloudinary — they are sent to our AI provider for the check and then discarded (see “Identity Verification”).
• OpenAI — used only for the optional identity-verification feature: when a Provider submits an ID image and a selfie, those images are sent to OpenAI to perform the automated check. They are not stored by us and, under OpenAI’s API terms, are not used to train its models (see “Identity Verification”).
• Google — used to authenticate you if you choose “Continue with Google” (Google confirms your identity to us and provides basic profile information: identifier, name, email and a profile-picture link) and, together with Waze, as an optional external navigation app (see below).
• Waze and Google Maps — when you choose “Get directions” to a Provider, the app opens one of these external navigation apps on your device and passes the Provider’s destination coordinates to it; your use of that app is then governed by that app’s own privacy policy.
• An email delivery service (SendGrid, a Twilio service) — used to send verification codes, subscription and billing notices, completed-service summaries, report notifications and support messages.
• Expo push notification service — used to deliver push notifications to your devices using device push tokens.
• Photon and Nominatim (OpenStreetMap-based geocoding services) — used, via our servers, to turn an address you type into coordinates and vice versa.
• Overpass API (an OpenStreetMap-based service) — used, via our servers, to look up public dog parks near a map location; your approximate (coarsened) map-center coordinates are sent to it for this query.
• OpenStreetMap, CARTO and a public code-delivery network (unpkg) — used to display interactive maps; map tiles and the mapping library are fetched directly by your device when a map is shown.
• Firebase Cloud Messaging — used only as the delivery transport for Android push notifications (not for analytics).

We do not use advertising networks, and we do not use analytics, telemetry, crash-reporting or product-tracking SDKs in the application.

9. How Uploaded Images Are Handled

Most images you upload — profile photos, dog photos, provider gallery images, and report evidence — are stored with our image hosting provider, Cloudinary, and are delivered from public content-delivery links. This means those images may be viewable by anyone who has the direct link, even if the surrounding content is not otherwise public. Identity-verification images are the exception: they are never uploaded to our image host — they are sent to our AI provider for the automated check and then discarded (see “Identity Verification”).

We do not currently remove embedded metadata (such as any location or device data your camera may store) from images before they are uploaded. If you do not wish to share such metadata, please remove it before uploading or disable it on your device.

When you delete an image, we make a best effort to delete the corresponding file from our image host; copies may persist for a period in caches outside our control, and externally hosted images (such as a Google profile picture) are not stored or deleted by us. When you delete your account, your uploaded images are retained so the account can be restored (see “Account Deletion and Data Retention”); they are removed only if you ask us to permanently erase your data.

10. Location Information

• Providers: the service location you set is stored as part of your profile at the precision you choose, is shown publicly as a map pin and used to calculate distances, and is used to determine the time zone in which your services are scheduled and your bookings’ dates and times are shown. We do not blur or approximate it, so choose your pin accordingly.
• Owners: when you open a map feature and choose to use your location, the app reads your device’s current location once, in the foreground, to centre the map and find nearby Providers. This location is used in the moment and is not stored on our servers. If you decline the location permission, the map simply opens at a default area.

We do not track your location in the background, build a location history, or use your location for any purpose other than the map, distance and time-zone features described above.

11. Cookies, Tokens and On-Device Storage

The Platform is a mobile application and does not use browser cookies. To keep you signed in and to operate the app, we use authentication tokens and on-device storage.

On mobile devices, your sign-in tokens are stored in the operating system’s secure keystore. If you use the Platform through a web browser, secure storage may not be available and tokens may be stored in ordinary browser storage instead.

We also store, in ordinary on-device storage, a per-installation device identifier and your preferences (such as language and display theme) and your device’s push token. The device identifier is generated on your device, is used to keep one active session per device and to deliver notifications to the right device, and is not a hardware identifier or advertising identifier. Signing out and clearing the app’s storage removes this locally stored information from your device.

12. Notifications and Communications

We send two kinds of messages. Essential service emails — such as your verification code, subscription billing notices (a payment receipt, a failed renewal, an upcoming price change), the completed-service summary, and report updates — are part of the service and cannot be switched off while you have an account. Push notifications carry your day-to-day booking and payment-confirmation activity, changes to your plan such as it ending or services being hidden, new reviews and new chat messages; they are optional, and you can turn them on or off with a single switch in Settings. Because those updates are delivered by push only, turning push off (or declining the permission) means you will not be notified of them outside the app — they remain visible in the app at any time. There is currently no separate per-category control, and we do not send marketing or promotional notifications.

Push notifications may include limited details such as a counterpart’s name and an amount; they do not include your verification code or the content of chat messages. The full text of support-conversation messages may be delivered to you by email.

13. Data Storage, Hosting and International Transfers

Your information is stored in our database (MongoDB) and, for images, with our image hosting provider (Cloudinary). Depending on where our infrastructure and our service providers are located, your information may be processed in countries other than your country of residence.

Where information is transferred internationally, we take steps to ensure it remains protected in a manner consistent with this Policy and applicable law.

14. How We Protect Your Information

We apply technical and organisational measures designed to protect your information, including: storing passwords only as one-way bcrypt hashes; storing verification codes and session refresh tokens only in hashed form; short-lived access tokens with rotating, revocable refresh sessions; authentication, role and ownership checks on access to data; rate limiting and security headers; limits on upload size and type; and configuration checks that prevent the production service from starting with insecure secrets. In our production environment, connections between the app and our servers are protected with transport encryption (HTTPS/TLS).

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. As noted above, uploaded images are served from public links. You are responsible for keeping your password and device secure and for activity that occurs under your account.

15. Account Deletion and Data Retention

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. Deleting your account deactivates it rather than erasing it: the account is hidden from other users and can no longer be used until it is restored. To protect commitments in progress, deletion is not available while any of your bookings is accepted and not yet concluded — cancelling an accepted booking normally requires the other party’s approval, so please wait for those bookings to complete, or cancel them by mutual agreement, first. (If the other party has already closed their account, you can cancel such a booking on your own — see the Terms of Service, “Cancellations”.) Any pending booking requests that have not yet been accepted are automatically cancelled, any open payment-confirmation request you are involved in is closed, and an active PRO subscription stops renewing — it simply runs to the end of its already-paid period, with no further charges and no refund for that period.

When you delete your account, we KEEP your data — including your name and email, your dogs and their photos, your provider profile and its images, your services, your identity-verification result, your profile photo, your reviews and your messages — so that the account can be restored later. While your account is deleted it is deactivated and hidden: it does not appear anywhere on the Platform, it is not searchable or visible to other users, and it cannot sign in or act normally. On records that involve someone else and are retained (for example a past booking, its invoice, or a previous conversation), your name is shown to that person as a generic “deleted user” while your account is deleted. Your saved payment methods are the exception — they are removed on deletion (you can add a card again after restoring, once online payments are available).

To restore your account, sign in with your existing credentials and verify a one-time code we email to your account address; verifying it re-activates the account with your data intact. While your account is active, we retain your information for as long as needed to provide the Platform. Sign-in sessions expire automatically after a period of inactivity. We may retain certain information where necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, and enforce our agreements.

If you would like your data permanently erased rather than deactivated, or you would like a copy of it, you can ask us by contacting us at contact@collaro.app.

16. Your Privacy Rights

Subject to applicable law, you may have the right to access the personal information we hold about you; to correct or update it; to request its deletion; to object to or restrict certain processing; to data portability; and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

You can exercise many of these rights directly in the app — for example by editing your profile, dogs and other content, or by deleting (deactivating) your account in Settings. For permanent erasure of your data, or any other request, contact us at contact@collaro.app. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request, and we will respond within the time required by applicable law. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

17. Legal Bases for Processing

Where data-protection law applies to you (including the Israeli Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981 and, for users in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the General Data Protection Regulation), we rely on the following legal bases:

• Performance of a contract: to provide the Platform and carry out the bookings you request.
• Consent: for example, when you choose to use your device location or to upload identity-verification documents. You may withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing already carried out.
• Legitimate interests: to keep the Platform safe and secure, prevent fraud and abuse, moderate reports, and operate and improve our services, balanced against your rights.
• Legal obligation: to comply with laws that apply to us, including record-keeping and responding to lawful requests.

18. Children’s Privacy

The Platform is intended for adults. You must be at least 16 years old to create an account, and by using the Platform you confirm that you meet this requirement. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we can take appropriate action.

19. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to the Platform or to legal requirements. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date and version above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice within the app. Your continued use of the Platform after an update takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Policy.

20. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal information, you can contact us at:

• Operator: Collaro, operated by Ofek Levi
• Privacy: contact@collaro.app
• Support: contact@collaro.app
• Postal address: Israel, Rosh HaAyin, Yorrm Hatuka 36

We will do our best to resolve any concern you raise.