Privacy policy

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Last updated: [CONFIRM: publish date]

This policy explains what information House of Dexter collects when you use the Dexter app, the Dexter web app at app.houseofdexter.com and this website (houseofdexter.com), why we collect it, who we share it with and the choices you have.

In short

We collect what Dexter needs to work: your account, your pets' profiles and records, and the permissions you choose to grant.
We don't sell your data, and we don't use it for advertising.
Your Pet Passport shares only the details you switch on, with the people you show it to, for as long as you choose.
You can see, correct, download or delete your information, and delete your account at any time.

1. Who we are

The Dexter app and this website are run by [CONFIRM: exact legal name] ("House of Dexter", "we", "us"), a private limited company registered in India. Our registered office is at [CONFIRM: registered address].

For the purposes of India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we are the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described in this policy. For people in Australia, see If you're in Australia.

HoD Business, our service for groomers, vets, boarding homes and other pet businesses, has its own terms. Section 6 explains how your Pet Passport works with businesses that use it.

2. What we collect

Information you give us

Account details: your name, email address, phone number (if you add one), and your sign-in details. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google. We never see your Google password.
Pet profiles: each pet's name, species, breed, birthday or age, sex, weight, photo, microchip number, allergies and other notes you add.
Health and care records: vaccinations, prescriptions and medications, lab reports, visit notes, and the documents and photos you upload.
Reminders you set, such as medication, vaccination and check-up reminders.
Dexter AI chats: the questions you ask and the answers Dexter AI gives.
Pet Passport settings: which details you share, for how long, and the history of who scanned your Passport and what they saw.
Community posts: Lost and Adoption posts, their photos, replies, and the approximate location you attach.
Messages to us: what you write when you contact support.
Website forms: if you join the waitlist or request a callback on houseofdexter.com, the details you enter (such as your email, name, phone number, country and pet type) and whether you agreed to hear from us.

Information collected automatically

Technical data: device model, operating system, app version, IP address, crash reports and basic usage data we need to keep Dexter working and secure.
Website analytics: only if you allow it. See section 9.

Device permissions. The app asks for a permission only when you use the feature that needs it. See App permissions.

We don't knowingly collect information about your own health, finances, religion or similar personal matters. Please don't put them in your pet's notes or posts.

3. How we use it

We use your information to:

run Dexter: store your pets' profiles and records, send your reminders, power Smart Import and Dexter AI, and make your Pet Passport and community posts work;
send the notifications and emails you've asked for, including sign-in and account emails;
send launch news and product updates, only if you've agreed, with an unsubscribe link in every email;
call you back, if you've asked us to through the website;
keep Dexter secure, prevent abuse and fix problems;
answer your support requests;
understand, in aggregate, how people find and use our website, so we can improve it;
meet our legal obligations.

Our legal basis (India). We process your personal data with your consent, which you give when you create an account, turn on a feature, or submit a form, and for certain legitimate uses the law allows, such as complying with the law, responding to emergencies and keeping the service secure. You can withdraw consent at any time (section 11). If you do, we'll stop the processing that relied on it, though the service, or part of it, may no longer work for you. Withdrawing doesn't affect processing that happened before.

4. Smart Import and Dexter AI

Smart Import reads a photo or file of a vet document and suggests the details to add to your pet's record. Nothing is saved until you check and confirm it. To read the document, we send it to [CONFIRM: OCR/AI provider and the country it processes in].

Dexter AI answers your questions about your pet. To give a useful answer, we send your question and the relevant details about your pet (name, species, breed, age, allergies, vaccinations and reminders) to our AI provider, [CONFIRM: provider], through our own servers. Dexter AI gives general guidance only. It is not a vet and doesn't diagnose or prescribe.

[CONFIRM: whether the AI provider may keep or use this data to train its models. Publish "Our AI provider doesn't use your data to train its models" only if the contract says so; otherwise state the provider's actual terms.]

Neither feature makes decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

We don't sell your personal data, and we don't share it with advertisers.

We share information only:

with businesses you choose, through your Pet Passport (section 6);
with other Dexter users, when you post in the community (section 7);
with service providers who help us run Dexter, such as hosting, databases, email delivery, AI processing and, if you allow it, website analytics. They may use your information only to provide their service to us, under contract. Current providers: [CONFIRM: list each provider with what it does and its country];
when the law requires it, such as a valid court order or request from a government authority, or to protect someone's safety;
if our business changes hands, for example in a merger or sale, in which case the new owner must protect your information as this policy describes, and we'll tell you before anything changes.

6. Your Pet Passport

Your Pet Passport is a QR code, or a one-time code, that lets you share chosen details about your pet.

You choose each detail. By default, only your pet's identity and vaccination status are shared. Allergy notes, medication notes, emergency contact and your phone and email are not shared unless you switch them on.
You choose how long. One-time access works for 15 minutes and ends after the first scan. You can also share for 24 hours, or until you turn it off.
Businesses using HoD Business see the details you've switched on. If they ask for more, nothing changes until you approve.
Anyone else who scans the code with a phone camera sees, at most, your pet's identity and vaccination status, and only if you've shared them. They never see allergy notes, medication notes or your contact details, and microchip numbers are masked.
Every scan is logged. You can see who scanned and what they saw, and revoke access for one business or all of them at any time. Revoking stops access straight away, but it can't undo what a business has already seen or copied.
Once a business has seen your shared details, its own handling of them is its responsibility. We ask businesses using HoD Business to use them only for caring for your pet.

7. Community posts

Lost and Adoption posts can be seen by other Dexter users.

We remove hidden location data (such as GPS) from the photos you post.
Your location is shown as an area of about 1 km, unless you choose to share the exact spot.
Don't include your home address, phone number or other personal details in a post unless you're comfortable with other users seeing them.
Lost posts aren't checked before they appear. Some Adoption posts are checked before they appear.

8. Where your information is stored, and how we protect it

House of Dexter is based in India. Your information is stored on servers run by our hosting provider in [CONFIRM: country or region], and some of our service providers process it in other countries, including the United States. When information leaves India, we transfer it only as Indian law allows, and we require providers by contract to protect it.

Information is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Only the people at House of Dexter who need access to run the service have it. No system is perfectly secure. If a personal data breach affects you, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

9. This website (houseofdexter.com)

Analytics. Nothing loads until you choose "Allow analytics". If you allow it, we use Google Analytics to see which pages are viewed, which campaign or site sent you here, and whether forms were sent successfully. We don't use it for ads, and we don't collect pet or health data through it. If you choose "No thanks", nothing is loaded. You can change your mind any time with "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page. If you withdraw, we stop analytics and delete its cookies on our site. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as "No thanks". Google processes this data for us, may store it outside India, and keeps it for [CONFIRM: retention period set in the Google Analytics property].

How you found us. When you join the waitlist or request a callback, we also record how you reached our site: the campaign details in the link (such as "instagram" or a campaign name) and the website that sent you, if your browser shares it. [CONFIRM: add "the page you first landed on" and "the country you chose" only once the backend stores them; see `handoffs/EARLY-ACCESS-PAYLOAD-GAPS.md`.] We keep this with your sign-up so we know which posts and ads help people find Dexter. It's part of the form you choose to send, so we record it even if you said "No thanks" to analytics. It stays in your browser tab until you submit, and no cookies are used for it.

Waitlist and callback details are used only to email you about Dexter's launch (if you agreed) or to call you back. We keep them until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them, or for [CONFIRM: period, e.g. 12 months] after we last contact you, whichever comes first.

10. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account is open.

You can delete pets, records and reminders in the app at any time.
When you delete your account, we delete your account, pets, records and uploaded documents, reminders, Dexter AI chats, Passport settings and sharing, and your community posts and replies. Deletion from our live systems happens straight away; copies in backups are removed within [CONFIRM: number of days].
Records of past Passport scans are kept only in anonymised form.
We may keep some information longer where the law requires it, such as for tax, accounting or legal claims, and only for as long as that requires.

See Delete your account for how to do it.

11. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

give you a summary of the personal data we hold about you and how we use it, and tell you who we've shared it with;
correct, complete or update it;
delete it;
give you a copy of your pets' records;
stop sending you marketing emails (use the unsubscribe link in any email);
withdraw your consent.

In India you can also nominate another person to exercise your rights if you die or become unable to do so.

Most of this you can do yourself in the app. For anything else, email [CONFIRM: support address] with the subject "Data request". We'll confirm who you are before acting, and we won't charge you. We'll reply within [CONFIRM: response time, e.g. 30 days].

12. Grievances and complaints

If you have a concern about how we handle your information, contact our Grievance Officer:

Name: [CONFIRM: name or title]
Email: [CONFIRM: email address]
Address: [CONFIRM: postal address]

We'll acknowledge your complaint within [CONFIRM: e.g. 7] days and aim to resolve it within [CONFIRM: e.g. 30] days. If you're in India and you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India. If you're in Australia, see section A6.

13. Age

You must be 13 or older to create a Dexter account or use our forms. If you're 13 to 17, you need your parent or guardian's consent first. [CONFIRM: legal. India's DPDP Act treats under-18s as children and requires verifiable parental consent; confirm this wording and how consent is collected] We don't knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13, or from anyone aged 13 to 17 without that consent. If you believe a child has given us their information, contact us and we'll delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

If we make a significant change, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and we'll ask for your consent again where the law requires it. The date at the top shows when this policy last changed.

15. Contact

Questions about this policy: [CONFIRM: support address].

[CONFIRM: exact legal name], [CONFIRM: registered address].

If you're in Australia

This section applies on top of the rest of this policy if you use Dexter in Australia.

A1. The rules we follow

We handle personal information about people in Australia in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.

A2. What we collect, and why

Sections 2 and 3 list what we collect and how we use it. You can browse this website without telling us who you are. To use the app, we need an email address so you can sign in and get your records back.

A3. Sending information overseas

House of Dexter is an Indian company, so your information is handled in India. Some of it is stored or processed in other countries by the service providers listed in section 5, including in the United States. We choose providers who protect personal information, and we require them by contract to use it only to provide their service to us.

A4. Keeping it safe

Section 8 explains how we protect your information, and section 10 how long we keep it. If a data breach is likely to cause you serious harm, we'll tell you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), as the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires.

A5. Seeing and correcting your information

You can see and edit most of your information in the app. To ask for a copy of everything we hold about you, or to correct something you can't edit, email [CONFIRM: support address]. We'll confirm who you are, reply within 30 days, and won't charge you. If we can't do what you ask, we'll tell you why and how to complain.

A6. Complaints

If you think we've mishandled your information, email [CONFIRM: support address] with "Privacy complaint" in the subject. We'll acknowledge it within [CONFIRM: e.g. 7] days and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If you're not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

A7. Emails from us

We only send you marketing emails, such as the launch email after you join the waitlist, if you've agreed. Every email says it's from House of Dexter and has an unsubscribe link, and once you unsubscribe we stop within five working days. Emails you need for your account, such as sign-in codes and the reminders you set, aren't marketing and keep coming while your account is open.

A8. Automated features

Smart Import suggests details from a vet document, and you check them before anything is saved. Dexter AI answers questions using your pet's details, and its answers are general guidance, not veterinary advice. Neither makes decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

A9. Age

You must be 13 or older to create a Dexter account. If you're 13 to 17, you need your parent or guardian's consent. [CONFIRM: legal, Australia: Children's Online Privacy Code and social-media minimum-age rules]

App permissions

The Dexter app only asks for a permission when you use the feature that needs it. You can switch each one off at any time in your phone's settings. If you do, only that feature stops working.

Camera and photos: to take or choose photos of vet records for Smart Import, and to add photos of your pets. Dexter only uses them when you choose to.
Location: for Lost and Adoption posts, so people nearby can see them. Your location is rounded to about 1 km unless you choose to share the exact spot.
Notifications: to send your reminders, such as medication and vaccination reminders.