Your privacy is critically important to us. At Indiana Lost Pet, we have a few fundamental principles:

• We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
• We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
• We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

Indiana Lost Pet’s mission is to improve the outcomes of stray and feral animals and empower community shelters with data to reduce disparities in animal welfare.

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use our website (indianalostpet.com) and social media pages.

Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our website and social media pages collectively as “Services.”

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any platform our Services are built upon, such as Facebook, which has its own privacy policy.

Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so — for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

We collect this information from three sources: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us directly. Here are some examples:

• Basic account information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who register directly with the site to provide their first and last name, an email address, and password.
• Public profile information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have an Indiana Lost Pet account, reports will be showed on your profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, such as a profile photo. Your public profile information is just that — public — so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
• Content information: You might provide us with information about you in forms, drafts and published content (a report or comment that includes biographic information about you, or any media or files you upload).
• Communications with us: You may also provide us with information when you respond to surveys, communicate with our administrator about a support question, or sign up for a newsletter. When you communicate with us via form, email, phone, comment, or otherwise, we may store a copy of our communications (including any call recordings as permitted by applicable law).

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

• Log information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, including the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
• Transactional information: When you make a purchase through our Services, we collect information about the transaction, such as product details, purchase price, and the date and location of the transaction. This includes when you purchase something we sell or when you use our Services to buy something from a third party.
• Usage information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site users perform on a site using our Services — in other words, who did what and when (e.g., Post deleted “[title of post]” at [time/date]). We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g. page views, features enabled for your website, interactions other parts of our Services, along with information about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, get insights on how people use our Services so we can make our Services better, and understand and make predictions about user retention.
• Location information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address or geolocation (Google Map) features. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example:

• Third Party Login: If you create or log in to your account through another service (like Google) we’ll receive associated login information (e.g. a connection token, your username, your email address, profile picture)

The information we receive depends on which services you use or authorize and what options are available.

Third-party services may also give us information, like mailing addresses for individuals who are not yet our users (but we hope will be!). We use this information for marketing purposes like postcards and other mailers advertising our Services.

How and Why We Use Information

Purposes for Using Information

We use information about you for the purposes listed below:

• To provide our Services. For example, to set up and maintain your account, provide customer service, and verify user information.
• To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can create new features that we think our users will enjoy..
• To place and manage ads in our advertising program. For example, to place ads on our site as part of our advertising program and understand ad performance.
• To market our Services and measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing. For example, by targeting our marketing messages to groups of our users (like those in a particular geographic location or have been users for a certain length of time), advertising our Services, analyzing the results of our marketing campaigns (like how many people interacted with donation and shop features), and understanding and forecasting user retention.
• To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of Indiana Lost Pet and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a user submission or terminating Services.
• To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
• To customize the user experience. For example, to personalize your experience by serving you relevant notifications and advertisements for our Services and provide appropriate information about services in your area.
• To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, share tips for getting the most out of our Services or calling and texting you to share local services and assess a pet outcome. If you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt out of marketing communications at any time. (If you opt out, we’ll still send you important updates relating to your account.)

Sharing Information

How We Share Information

We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy. These are spelled out below.

• Third-Party Services: We share limited information about you with EmailOctopus, our email marketing platform, to provide newsletters and other email marketing.
• Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
• To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Indiana Lost Pet, third parties, an animal, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
• Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Indiana Lost Pet goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
• Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services, share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms, or provide animal shelters with non-personal data submitted via reports.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is — you guessed it — disclosed publicly.

That means information like your public profile, posts, other content that you make public on your website, and your “Likes” and comments on other websites are all available to others — and we hope they get a lot of views!

For example, the photo that you upload to your public profile, or a default image if you haven’t uploaded one, is your Globally Recognized Avatar, or Gravatar — get it? 🙂 Your Gravatar, along with other public profile information, displays alongside the comments and “Likes” that you make on other users’ websites while logged in. Your Gravatar and public profile information may also display with your comments, “Likes,” and other interactions on websites that use our Gravatar service, if the email address associated with your account is the same email address you use on the other website.

Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.

How Long We Keep Information

We generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it — described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we’re not legally required to keep it.

Part of our mission is research, so we may delete personally identifiable information while storing other fields we deem necessary (e.g. the geographic location of a report and the spay/neuter status to point out to local shelters where to provide services)

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

• Limit the information that you provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services may not be accessible.
• Opt out of marketing communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us. Just follow the instructions in those communications or let us know. If you opt out of promotional communications, we may still send you other communications, like those about your account and legal notices.
• Close your account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, you can close your account if you no longer want to use our Services by emailing jakob@indianalostpet.com. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above — for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.

Your Rights

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including some US states and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

• Request access to your personal data;
• Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
• Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
• Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
• Request portability of your personal data.

You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

Contacting Us About These Rights

You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to or you’d like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to the “How to Reach Us” section to, well, find out how to reach us.

When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are a user, we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your account. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.

Appeals Process for Rights Requests Denials

In some circumstances we may deny your request to exercise one of these rights. For example, if we cannot verify that you are the account owner we may deny your request to access the personal information associated with your account. As another example, if we are legally required to maintain a copy of your personal information we may deny your request to delete your personal information.

In the event that we deny your request, we will communicate this fact to you in writing. You may appeal our decision by responding in writing to our denial email and stating that you would like to appeal.

How to Reach Us

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned above, please email at jakob@indianalostpet.com.

Other Things You Should Know

Transferring Information

Because Indiana Lost Pet’s Services include working with animal welfare organizations across Indiana, we share any information with them that we deem appropriate to provide services to their locality.

When providing information about you to entities outside of Indiana Lost Pet, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others

Ads appearing on any of our Services may be delivered by advertising networks. Other parties may also provide analytics services via our Services. These ad networks and analytics providers may set tracking technologies (like cookies) to collect information about your use of our Services and across other websites and online services. These technologies allow these third parties to recognize your device to compile information about you or others who use your device. This information allows us and other companies to, among other things, analyze and track usage, determine the popularity of certain content, and deliver ads that may be more targeted to your interests. Please note this Privacy Policy only covers the collection of information by Indiana Lost Pet and does not cover the collection of information by any third-party advertisers or analytics providers.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Indiana Lost Pet may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Indiana Lost Pet encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (like adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification through email or your account). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.