PawPermit Privacy Policy
Your privacy is very important to us. Accordingly, we (“we” and “Paw” means PawPermit LLC, a Washington limited liability company), have developed this Policy in order for you to understand how we collect, use, communicate and disclose personal information. This Privacy Policy explains data collection and use practices of the pawpermit.com website and any sub-sites or other services offered in applications (the “Website”); this Policy does not apply to the practices of other online or offline websites, products or services. By accessing the Website or accepting or agreeing to the Privacy Policy on the Website, you, the visitor, are consenting to the information collection and use practices described in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is part of Paw’s Terms of Use.
Collection of Your Personal Information
Information we collect automatically: When you visit the Website, we automatically collect certain technical data such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, Internet service provider, browser type, device identifiers, operating system, referring website, pages viewed, date and time you access our Website, and access times. We use this information to operate, secure, and improve our services, analyze usage trends, and maintain system integrity.
Information you provide: When you create an account or interact with Paw, you may provide personal details such as your name, email address, and other contact information needed to register, manage your account, or communicate with us. If you upload any materials (“User Content”), those files may contain embedded metadata (for example, creation date, camera data, or GPS location) that may be accessible to the public. You are responsible for reviewing and, if desired, removing metadata before uploading. We may strip that metadata on any User Contribution before it becomes publicly available.
Use of Your Personal Information
We use personal information to operate and improve the Website, provide the services you request, and fulfill contractual or legal obligations. This includes creating and managing user accounts, processing payments through third-party providers, and responding to inquiries.
Paw may engage trusted service providers (such as web hosting, analytics, and customer support vendors) to assist in these activities. These providers are and will be contractually bound to protect your information and may use it only for the purpose of performing services on Paw’s behalf.
Improve Website Experience: Paw may use personal information to provide you with more effective service, to improve the Website and our services, and to make the Website easier to use by eliminating the need for you to repeatedly enter the same information.
We do not sell any data we have about you: Paw does not sell or rent personal information. We may share de-identified, anonymized, or aggregated data, such as the number of registered users or total User Contribution views, that cannot reasonably be used to identify any individual.
Legal Disclosure: Paw may disclose personal information if required to do so by law, regulation, or legal process, or in the good-faith belief that such action is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with applicable laws, regulations, or lawful requests by public authorities; (b) protect and defend, including in urgent circumstances, the rights, property, or safety of Paw, our users, or the members of the public; or (c) enforce our Terms of Use, investigate potential violations, or prevent fraud or abuse.
Payment Processing: Payments are handled exclusively by our third-party processor, Stripe. Paw does not collect or store your full payment card details. Please refer to Stripe’s Privacy Policy for information about its data practices, for your convenience, Stripe’s Privacy Policy is available here: https://stripe.com/privacy.
International Data Transfer: All information provided to Paw is stored on secure servers located in the United States and subject to United States law. By submitting information to us, you consent to its storage and processing in the United States. If you make your User Content viewable, you acknowledge that those views may occur from other countries and consent to such data transfers.
Control of Your Personal Information
Email Communications: Paw may send you service updates, administrative notices, or optional promotional communications. You can opt out of non-essential emails at any time using the “unsubscribe” link or by contacting us directly.
Data Retention: You may close your account at any time and request deletion of your personal information. Paw may delete your data except where retention is required by law, or enforcement of our Terms of Use. If you fail to pay required fees, Paw may suspend or delete your account after reasonable notice.
A note on User Content: Please note, if you choose to provide User Content to Paw, you grant Paw a license to use the User Content in connection with the operation and promotion of our services, for example, providing the User Content to other individuals. Please see the User Contribution section of our Terms of Service for a full explanation of how Paw may use your User Content and any licenses granted.
Data Security
PawPermit is committed to protecting your personal information through industry-standard security measures. We implement and maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data.
Security Framework Compliance. Paw maintains information security practices that comply with widely recognized cybersecurity frameworks.
Technical Security Controls. Paw encrypts and protects all personal information transmitted between your device and our servers; Personal information stored on our servers; Sensitive fields in our databases, including email addresses and account credentials.
Third-Party Vendor Management: Service providers with access to personal information are contractually required to maintain security standards at least as protective as those described in this Policy. We conduct due diligence reviews of vendor security practices before engagement.
Secure Disposal. When personal information is no longer needed, it is securely deleted using methods that prevent recovery (e.g., cryptographic erasure, overwriting, or physical destruction of storage media).
Limitations on Security. While Paw uses commercially reasonable efforts to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security against all potential threats.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for any activity that occurs under your account. Please notify us immediately at support@pawpermit.com if you suspect any unauthorized access to your account.
Security Breach Notification. In the event of a security breach involving your personal information, Paw will comply with all applicable data breach notification laws, including Washington State RCW 19.255.010.
Ongoing Security Improvements. We continuously evaluate and update our security practices in response to new threats, technological developments, and industry best practices. We participate in information sharing with security research communities and regulatory bodies to stay informed about emerging risks.
Information Received from Cookies and Third Parties
Storing cookies: We may use cookies on this Website to enhance your user experience. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a webpage server. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you navigate within a website, a cookie helps the website to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content, eases website navigation, and so on.
Browser Setting: You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most internet browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser settings to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the features of this or other websites you visit.
Partners: Paw may also collect your information from third parties to facilitate activities and transactions for the operation of the Website and its services, to improve your Website user experiences, and to further Paw’s mission. Examples of such third parties are Google (using Google Analytics).
We may use this information as a tool to compile anonymized and aggregated statistics about the Website usage, such as how many visitors clicked on key elements (such as links or graphics) on a webpage. We may share such Website statistics with partner companies.
Artificial Intelligence Usage
Automated Data Extraction: PawPermit uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to automatically extract and organize information from your pet-related documents. This includes pet licenses and registration certificates, veterinary health records and vaccination histories, pet insurance documents and claims, microchip registration information, breed certifications and pedigree documents, and training certifications or service animal documentation.
AI Processing Methods: Our AI systems work in several ways to help you manage your pet's information. When you upload documents, we use optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing to automatically read and extract important details like your pet's information, dates, issuing authorities, and other relevant data. We may also search publicly available online databases, municipal licensing portals, and government registries to retrieve or verify your pet's information. With your authorization, we can connect to third-party systems like insurance providers, veterinary software, and licensing authorities to automatically retrieve documents on your behalf. Finally, we cross-reference information from multiple sources to consolidate your pet's records and verify their accuracy.
Third-Party AI Providers: To provide these services, we work with third-party AI providers including Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) Bedrock and AWS Textract. These companies may temporarily process your documents on their servers. We have signed data processing agreements with each provider that strictly prohibit them from using your information to train their AI models or for any purpose other than providing services to PawPermit.
What Information Gets Shared with AI Providers: When you upload documents or authorize us to retrieve information, certain data may be sent to our AI processing partners. This includes the document images or PDFs you upload, text extracted from those documents, your pet's identifying information (such as name, breed, age, and microchip number), your identifying information as the owner (including name, address, email, and phone number), veterinary and health information contained in your documents, and insurance policy details and claim histories.
However, AI providers never receive your PawPermit account password, your payment information, communications between you and our support team. AWS has indicated it will not use our data for training their AU and will only process our data in conjunction with the services we provide to you.
Understanding AI Limitations: It's important to understand that AI document extraction is not perfect. Our AI may occasionally misread, misinterpret, or fail to extract information from your documents. Handwritten documents, poor quality scans, or unusual document formats are particularly likely to result in errors. You are responsible for reviewing all AI-extracted information to ensure it's accurate. We provide tools that allow you to correct or override any information our AI extracts. PawPermit is not liable for decisions you make based on inaccurate AI extractions. For critical documents, such as vaccination records needed for travel or service animal certifications, you should always verify the information yourself before relying on it.
Human Review of Your Documents: In some cases, PawPermit staff members or contractors may review your documents. This happens when we need to improve our AI's accuracy through training, resolve extraction errors or unclear information, respond to your support requests, or ensure quality control. All human reviewers are required to sign confidentiality agreements, and we maintain logs of who accesses your information.
Automatic Collection from Public Records: PawPermit's AI may automatically search for and collect publicly available information about your pet from various sources. These include municipal and county pet licensing databases, statewide dangerous dog registries, microchip registry databases (when you provide your pet's chip number), animal control records and shelter databases, and publicly accessible veterinary clinic databases. When you create an account and provide your pet's information, you authorize this automated collection. Please be aware that public records may be outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate, so you should verify any critical information.
Your Right to Opt Out: You have the right to opt out of AI processing at any time. You can mark specific documents as "Manual Entry Only" when uploading them, disable the "Automatic Document Retrieval" feature in your account settings, or contact us at support@pawpermit.com to request that we process your account manually only. If you choose to opt out, you'll need to manually enter all document information yourself, and some features, such as automatic renewal reminders, expired document alerts, and cross-verification, may not work properly.
How We Use Your Data for AI Training: We do not use your specific pet's information, your personal identifying information, or your individually identifiable documents to train AI models. If we ever want to use your specific data for training purposes, we will ask for your separate opt-in consent first.
Keeping Up with AI Regulations: As laws and regulations governing artificial intelligence continue to develop, we will update our practices to comply with new requirements. We will notify you of any material changes to how we process information using AI.
How Long AI Providers Keep Your Documents: When third-party AI providers process your documents, they handle them securely. Documents are transmitted through encrypted connections and retained by the AI provider only for as long as it takes to process them. After processing is complete, the AI provider deletes your documents from their systems within their internal processes. Please review the AI provider’s policies regarding data retention. The processed information is then stored on PawPermit's servers according to your account retention settings.
Automated Decisions: PawPermit does not use AI to make automated decisions that would significantly affect you or your pet.
International Data Transfers: Some of our AI providers process data on servers located outside the United States. By using PawPermit, you consent to these international transfers for AI processing purposes.
THIRD-PARTY SERVICE CONNECTIONS AND DATA SHARING
Connecting Your Account to Other Services: Currently, PawPermit does not support connecting your pets information to other services. All of the information is stored on our platform and is shared in person with individuals and entities you choose.
Special Notice about Children and Minors
No child under the age of 18 should submit any information to us. Children may only use this service in conjunction with a parent or guardian. If a child wishes to use our service, they must provide approval from their parent or guardian in a way that allows us to verify that it is actually their parent or guardian approving your use. If we discover that a user is under 18 and has not provided such consent, we will delete that user’s account and all related information and content.
- Pet Health Information
Legal Requirements: Unlike human health information, which is protected by federal HIPAA regulations and Washington's Uniform Health Care Information Act (RCW 70.02), pet health information is not subject to specific statutory privacy protections. However, PawPermit recognizes that information about your pet's health is deeply personal and important to you. We voluntarily apply security measures and privacy protections to pet health information that reflect industry best practices for sensitive data.
Information Classification and Security: PawPermit collects and processes different types of information, each with varying levels of sensitivity. We classify this information based on the potential harm that could result from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, or loss. This classification system helps us determine which security controls and handling procedures to apply to each type of data.
Understanding Pet Health Information: While PawPermit primarily serves as a platform for accessing pet health data, we recognize that the content you upload or the communications you have with us may sometimes include sensitive information about your pet's health, medical conditions, or veterinary care. We want you to understand what we consider "pet health information" and how we protect it.
Pet health information includes veterinary diagnoses, prognoses, or treatment plans for your pet. It also encompasses any medications, supplements, or therapies your pet receives, as well as records of veterinary visits, surgeries, or hospitalizations. Information about your pet's chronic conditions, disabilities, or special needs falls into this category, along with documentation or descriptions of your pet's mental or behavioral health conditions. Finally, any information indicating that your pet serves as a service animal or emotional support animal due to a specific medical need is considered pet health information.
How We Protect Your Pet's Health Information: We've designed our platform with several protections specifically for pet health information. First, providing pet health information is entirely optional, you don't need to share this information to use our services. If you choose to include such details in your uploads or communications with us, you're doing so voluntarily.
You maintain control over who can see your content through your account's privacy settings. We strongly recommend that you avoid marking any content containing sensitive pet health information as "public." This gives you the power to limit access to only those people you trust.
We've also committed to strict limitations on how we use pet health information. PawPermit will never use your pet's health information for marketing, advertising, or commercial purposes without your explicit written consent.
We won't share this information with third parties except when required by law or when necessary to provide the services you've requested, for example, if our technical support team needs to troubleshoot an upload issue you're experiencing.
In the unlikely event of a data breach involving pet health information, we will prioritize notifying affected users and provide clear guidance on steps you can take to protect yourself and your information.
Your Role in Protecting Pet Health Information: While we implement strong security measures, protecting sensitive information is a shared responsibility. Before uploading any content, take a moment to review what you're sharing, including any embedded metadata, to ensure you're comfortable with the information being disclosed.
Make thoughtful use of your privacy settings. If your upload contains sensitive information about your pet's health, set the visibility to "private" or share it only with individuals you trust. Consider whether including detailed health information is truly necessary for your intended purpose, sometimes less detail is sufficient and safer.
If you ever believe that sensitive pet health information has been inadvertently disclosed or accessed without authorization, contact us immediately at support@pawpermit.com so we can investigate and respond appropriately.
Special notice for residents of certain states
Depending on your location or state of residence, you may have the statutory right to request the following with regard to your information:
- Access to, or a copy of, your information
- Confirmation that we are processing your information
- Correction or amendment of your information
- Deletion of your information
- Transfer of your information to a third party, where technically feasible
- Restriction or objection to certain uses of your information
As provided in applicable law, you also have the right to not be discriminated against for exercising your rights. Where we process your information based on your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us as described in the “How to contact us” section below. We cannot provide you our services if you withdraw your consent to our processing.
Please note that under applicable law, certain information may be exempt from the requests above. For example, we may not be able to alter or delete certain information if we are required to retain it to fulfill our obligations to you, for security reasons, to comply with applicable law, for internal business purposes, or for other valid legal reasons.
We need to verify your identity before responding to a request, which will include confirming your email address. If we are unable to verify your identity, we may not be able to process your request. If you designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf pursuant to applicable law, in order for us to verify the authorized agent, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may follow up with you to verify your identity before processing the authorized agent’s request. If you have a password protected account with us, we will verify your identity through that account. If you do not have a password-protected account with us, we will ask you to supply at least three pieces of personal information and sign a declaration under penalty of perjury that you are the consumer whose personal information is being requested. If you are requesting deletion of personal information, we will confirm for a final time that you would like to delete your personal information.
For further information regarding your legal rights or to exercise any of them, please email us at support@pawpermit.com, explain the type of request you want to make and the information about which you are making the request. You may also be able to exercise certain choices – like updating your information – through your account.
Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to appeal our decision to deny your request, if applicable. In such situations, if we deny your request, we will provide you with information on how to appeal the decision.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about our practices. Your continued use of the Website after a Privacy Policy change constitutes your agreement to the revised Privacy Policy.
- Information for California residents.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), California residents have certain rights in regards to their personal information. This section is meant to explain, in a clear and understandable way (1) what those rights are and (2) how California residents may exercise those rights. We may refer to California residents covered by the CCPA as “consumers” or “you” for the purposes of this section.
Right to Know About Personal Information Collected, Disclosed, or Sold.
Consumers have the right to request that we disclose:
- The categories of personal information we collect, use, disclose and sell
- The categories of sources from which we get the personal information
- The business/commercial purposes for sharing the personal information
- The categories of third parties with whom we’ve shared personal information
- The specific pieces of personal information we have collected
Submitting “Verifiable Consumer Requests” to Know
In the chart below and elsewhere in this Policy, we have disclosed what information we collect, where we collect it from, why we collect it, and with whom we share it. If you would like to make an individual request to know specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you, you may do so by emailing a request to support@pawpermit.com as provided above.
Sale of Minor’s Personal Information
We do not, and will not, collect the information from minors under 18 years of age without “affirmative authorization” from a parent or guardian, as described above. Similarly, a parent or guardian would have to consent to any sale of personal information about a minor.
Right to “Request to Delete” Personal Information
Consumers have the right to “request to delete” personal information that we have collected. We may not have to comply with the request as provided above or in CPRA Section 1798.105(d).
Submitting “Verifiable Consumer Requests” to Delete
In the chart below and elsewhere in this Policy, we have disclosed what information we collect, where we collect it from, why we collect it, and with whom we share it. If you would like to make an individual request to delete personal information that we have collected about you, you may do so by emailing a request to support@pawpermit.com, as provided above.
Information collected | Category | Purpose | Source | How used or shared |
Name, email | Identifier, personal information | Establish your account with us. | User provided, or provided by an employer if a business account is established. | |
IP address | Online activity | Facility operation of the Website | Cookies | |
Use of our website, website pages viewed, links clicked on | Online activity | Operation of our Website, improve the user experience, and further Paw’s mission | Third party analytics providers such as Google Analytics cookies | Compile anonymized and aggregated website usage. May be shared with third parties. |
Payment information | Commercial information | Pay for use of our services at various tiers | User provided | Used by our third-party payment processor. Paw does not have or collect this data. |
Contact Information
Paw welcomes your comments and questions regarding this Privacy Policy. If you believe that Paw has not adhered to this Privacy Policy, please contact us electronically or via postal mail at the address provided below, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly determine and remedy the problem.
PawPermit LLC
522 W Riverside Ave Ste N
Spokane, WA 99201 United States
Email: support@pawpermit.com