Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how CritterTrust, LLC ("CritterTrust," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects information about you when you use our website (crittertrust.com, crittertrust.app), our mobile application, and related services (collectively, the "Service").
CritterTrust, LLC is an Ohio limited liability company with its registered address at 1633 Graceland Drive, Fairborn, Ohio 45324, United States. If you have questions about this policy or your personal information, contact us at privacy@crittertrust.com.
By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
1. Who the Service is for
The Service is intended for adults 18 years of age or older. The Service is currently offered only to users located in the United States, and our pet sitting marketplace operates within specific US metropolitan areas.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@crittertrust.com and we will delete it.
If you are accessing the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States. Our handling of your information is governed by US law. Sections 10 and 11 of this policy describe additional rights for residents of California and for residents of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
2. Information we collect
We collect information in three ways: information you provide directly, information collected automatically, and information received from third parties.
2.1 Information you provide directly
When you join our waitlist on crittertrust.com, we collect your email address so we can notify you when the Service is available in your area. If you continue to our Founding Sitter questionnaire hosted on Google Forms, we additionally collect your full name, phone number, city or service area, years of pet sitting experience, estimated monthly revenue range, services you offer, animal types you care for, which platforms you currently use and what frustrates you about them, your current invoicing method, and your interest in participating in our feedback community. This information is used to evaluate you for our Founding Sitter program and to improve our product. See Section 5 for how we use this specific data.
When you create a sitter account, we collect your first and last name, email address, phone number, profile photo, business name (if any), public bio, service area, pricing information, and availability. To process background checks and payments, we also collect identifying information required by our verification and payment partners (see Section 3).
When you create a pet owner account (typically by booking a sitter through our app), we collect your first and last name, email address, phone number, home address, and information about your pets. Pet information may include species, breed, age, weight, medical conditions, medications, behavioral notes, feeding instructions, veterinarian contact information, and photos.
When you communicate with us or with other users through the Service, we collect the content of your messages.
When you make or receive a payment through the Service, our payment processor collects payment method information directly from you. We do not store your full credit card or bank account numbers on our systems.
2.2 Information collected automatically
Location data. When you are a sitter with an active visit, we collect GPS coordinates at visit check-in and check-out to verify the visit location. If you explicitly opt in to continuous location sharing during a visit, we collect GPS coordinates throughout the visit duration. You can disable location permissions for the app at any time through your device settings, though this will prevent you from verifying visits.
Device and usage information. We collect limited technical information about your device and how you use the Service, including device type, operating system version, app version, push notification tokens, and timestamps of key actions such as sign-ins, bookings, and visit completions. This information is used to operate the Service, diagnose errors, and prevent abuse.
Photos. When you upload photos to the Service (for example, profile photos, pet photos, or visit report card photos), we store them on our infrastructure and make them available to the other party in the relevant sitter-owner relationship. Photos from visit report cards are only shared with the pet owner whose pets were cared for during that visit.
Cookies and similar technologies. Our website uses only essential cookies required to operate basic functionality such as form submission and session continuity. We do not use third-party advertising cookies, analytics cookies, or tracking pixels on our website. We honor Do Not Track: if your browser sends a DNT signal, we will not set any non-essential cookies during your session.
2.3 Information received from third parties
Background check results. When a sitter initiates a background check, we receive a pass-or-fail status from our background check verification partner. We do not receive or store the underlying background check report, including criminal history details, identity documents, or address history. That information is held by our verification partner subject to their own privacy policy and their obligations under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Authentication providers. If you sign in using Apple or Google, we receive your name and email address from those providers to create your account. We do not receive your password, contact list, photos, or other information from those accounts.
3. Third parties who process your information
We use the following third-party service providers to operate the Service. Each has been selected for its data protection practices, and each operates under its own privacy policy.
| Service | Role | Information processed |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase, Inc. | Database, authentication, file storage | All information you submit or upload to the app, stored on our behalf |
| Stripe, Inc. (including Stripe Connect) | Payment processing, sitter subscription billing, owner-to-sitter payments | Payment method details, bank account information for payouts, transaction amounts |
| Checkr, Inc. | Background check verification for sitters | Sitter full name, date of birth, Social Security Number, address history, government-issued identification details |
| Resend | Transactional email delivery (account confirmations, magic sign-in links, booking notifications, report cards, invoices) | Recipient email address, email content |
| Netlify, Inc. | Website hosting and waitlist form handling | Sitter waitlist email address (notification only); website visitor IP addresses required for hosting operations |
| Google LLC | Founding Sitter questionnaire (Google Forms) and Google Fonts loaded by our website | Founding Sitter questionnaire responses; visitor IP and user agent when loading fonts |
| Apple Inc. and Google LLC | Push notification delivery to iOS and Android devices | Push notification tokens and notification content |
| 650 Industries, Inc. (Expo) | App distribution and over-the-air updates | App installation and update telemetry |
We do not sell your personal information to any third party. We do not share your personal information with advertisers, data brokers, or marketing networks.
4. How we use information
We use the information we collect to:
- Provide, operate, and maintain the Service, including creating and managing your account, processing bookings, delivering messages, and generating visit report cards;
- Verify sitter identity and background so that pet owners can make informed decisions;
- Process payments, generate invoices, and remit payouts to sitters;
- Send you transactional communications, including booking confirmations, visit updates, report cards, invoices, payment receipts, magic sign-in links, and important account notices;
- Respond to your questions, feedback, and support requests;
- Improve the Service and develop new features, including analyzing usage patterns in aggregate;
- Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms of Service;
- Comply with our legal obligations, including tax, accounting, and regulatory requirements; and
- Enforce our rights and the rights of our users.
We do not use your information to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you, other than routine fraud screening performed by our payment processor.
5. Founding Sitter program — special handling
If you complete our Founding Sitter questionnaire, we recognize that some of the information you provide — specifically your monthly revenue range, the platforms you currently use, and your feedback about those platforms — is commercially sensitive to you.
We handle this information with additional care:
- We will not share individually identifying Founding Sitter responses with any third party, including competing platforms.
- We will not publicly attribute quotes, feedback, or statistics to you individually without your explicit prior consent.
- We may share aggregated, de-identified insights from Founding Sitter responses (for example, "of our candidate pool, X% reported monthly earnings above $2,000") in product materials or public communications.
- Your responses are retained while you are an active Founding Sitter candidate or participant, and for a reasonable period afterward for product history and internal reference. You may request deletion of your questionnaire responses at any time by contacting privacy@crittertrust.com.
6. How we share information
We share your information only in the following circumstances:
With the other party in a sitter-owner relationship. When a pet owner books a sitter, each party sees the information necessary to complete the service — names, contact information, the owner's address and pet profile, and the sitter's profile and verified status. Messages, report cards, and payment records are visible to both parties in the relationship.
With third-party service providers. As described in Section 3.
For legal reasons. We may disclose information if we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law, court order, subpoena, or governmental regulation, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of CritterTrust, our users, or the public.
In connection with a business transaction. If CritterTrust is involved in a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or bankruptcy, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you by email or prominent notice on the Service before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
With your consent. We may share information for other purposes with your explicit consent.
We do not sell your personal information.
7. Data retention
We keep your information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy:
- Active account data is retained while your account is active.
- Account data after deletion. When you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal information within 14 days, except as described below.
- Financial and tax records (including transaction records, invoices, payouts, and related information required for tax, accounting, or anti-fraud purposes) are retained for up to 7 years, as required by US tax law and sound financial recordkeeping.
- Aggregated, de-identified data may be retained indefinitely for analytics and product improvement. This data cannot be linked back to you.
- Backup copies of our database may persist in our secure backups for up to 90 days after deletion before they roll off.
- Waitlist and Founding Sitter questionnaire data is retained while the Founding Sitter program is active and for a reasonable period after; you may request earlier deletion.
To request account deletion, contact privacy@crittertrust.com or use the deletion option in your account settings.
8. Security
We take reasonable measures to protect your information, including:
- Encryption of data in transit using industry-standard TLS;
- Encryption of data at rest on our database and storage providers;
- Role-based access controls and database-level row security policies that restrict access to your data;
- Authentication via passwords, magic-link email sign-in, and Apple/Google federated sign-in;
- Regular review of our third-party providers' security practices.
No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure. While we work hard to protect your information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If we become aware of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify you and relevant authorities as required by applicable law.
9. Your choices
You have several choices regarding your information:
- Access and correction. You can view and update most of your profile information directly in the app. For information you cannot change in the app, contact privacy@crittertrust.com.
- Account deletion. You can delete your account through your account settings or by contacting us. See Section 7 for retention details.
- Location permissions. You can enable or disable the app's access to your device's location at any time through your device settings.
- Notifications. You can enable or disable push notifications through your device settings, and can manage email notification preferences in the app.
- Marketing communications. Unless you have opted in, we do not send marketing emails. If you receive a marketing email from us, you can unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of the email.
10. California privacy rights (CCPA / CPRA / CalOPPA)
If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act ("CCPA/CPRA") gives you specific rights regarding your personal information. This section, together with the California Online Privacy Protection Act ("CalOPPA") disclosures throughout this policy, describes those rights.
Categories of personal information we collect
In the past twelve months, we have collected the following CCPA/CPRA categories of personal information about California residents: identifiers (name, email, phone, address, IP address); customer records information (payment information, stored by our payment processor); commercial information (bookings, transactions); internet activity (limited device and usage information); geolocation data (GPS during visits); professional information (for sitters: business profile, experience); sensitive personal information (for sitters only: Social Security Number, collected only by our background check verification partner). We use each category for the purposes described in Section 4 above.
We do not sell or share your personal information
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined under CCPA/CPRA. We have not sold or shared personal information in the preceding twelve months.
Your rights as a California resident
Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to:
- Know what personal information we have collected about you, the sources, the purposes for collection, and the third parties with whom we share it;
- Access a copy of your personal information;
- Correct inaccurate personal information we hold about you;
- Delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions (for example, financial records we are required to retain by law);
- Limit our use of sensitive personal information. We do not use sensitive personal information for purposes other than those permitted by CCPA/CPRA without explicit consent.
- Opt out of sale or sharing. Because we do not sell or share personal information, there is nothing to opt out of, but you retain this right.
- Non-discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.
To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@crittertrust.com from the email address associated with your account, or contact us through the app. We will respond within 45 days. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests; the verification method will be proportionate to the sensitivity of the request and the information involved.
You may authorize an agent to make requests on your behalf. We will require proof of the authorization and may require you to verify your identity directly.
CalOPPA compliance
This Privacy Policy is conspicuously posted on our website. We will notify users of material changes to this policy by posting a notice on our website and, where appropriate, by email. We respond to Do Not Track browser signals as described in Section 2.2.
11. Rights for residents of the EEA, UK, and Switzerland (GDPR)
Although our Service is offered only in the United States, if you are accessing our website from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the General Data Protection Regulation and the UK GDPR grant you certain rights. CritterTrust acts as the data controller for information processed through our website and Service.
Legal bases for processing
We process your personal information on the following legal bases:
- Contract. To provide the Service you have requested (for example, processing your booking, payments, and communications with your sitter or client).
- Legitimate interests. To operate, secure, and improve the Service; to prevent fraud; to communicate with you about your account; and to evaluate candidates for the Founding Sitter program.
- Consent. For specific optional features such as continuous location sharing during a visit, and for any future marketing communications.
- Legal obligation. To comply with tax, accounting, and other applicable laws.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- Access your personal information and receive a copy in a portable format;
- Correct inaccurate personal information;
- Request erasure of your personal information (the "right to be forgotten"), subject to limitations for data we are legally required to retain;
- Restrict or object to our processing of your personal information;
- Withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent;
- Lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
To exercise these rights, contact privacy@crittertrust.com. We will respond within 30 days.
International data transfers
By using the Service, you understand that your personal information will be transferred to and stored in the United States, which has different data protection laws than your country of residence. Where we transfer personal information from the EEA, UK, or Switzerland to the United States, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses with our processors where applicable, and on your informed consent to use the Service.
12. Do Not Track
Our website honors Do Not Track (DNT) browser signals. If your browser sends a DNT signal, we will not set any non-essential cookies during your session. Because we do not use third-party advertising, analytics, or tracking cookies in the first place, this primarily affects essential cookies related to form submission, which may be limited.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will:
- Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this policy;
- Post a notice on our website and in the app where appropriate;
- For material changes that affect how we use information we already hold, notify you by email before the changes take effect.
Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of an updated policy constitutes acceptance of the updated policy. If you do not agree with the updated policy, you should stop using the Service and may request deletion of your account.
14. Contact us
For questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices:
Email: privacy@crittertrust.com
Mail: CritterTrust, LLC 1633 Graceland Drive Fairborn, Ohio 45324 United States
This Privacy Policy is provided for your information and is not legal advice. We recommend consulting qualified legal counsel for advice specific to your situation.