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Privacy Policy — DogPilot data handling

How DogPilot handles your data: account info, school invites, AdMob banner identifiers, AI features, GDPR/CCPA consent and your rights.

Last updated: Fri Jun 19 2026 02:00:00 GMT+0200 (Mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit)

Overview

DogPilot is a dog training app organized around five tabs – Home, Training, Chat, School, and More. The app supports school-based group management, training scheduling, exercise catalog management, credit tracking, conversation-based messaging with push notifications on mobile, and profile management.

We process only the data that is necessary to operate DogPilot, support invite redemption and group linking, maintain technical stability, and respond to support requests.

What data may be processed

1. Data you provide directly

Depending on usage, DogPilot may process data such as:

  • names or display names
  • email addresses used for email/password login
  • school names, school descriptions, and school-group names
  • exercise names, categories, levels, and step-by-step descriptions in the exercise catalog
  • credit notes entered by managers during manual credit adjustments
  • absence reasons entered when unregistering from a training
  • invite-related contact details provided by an admin
  • messages, topic titles, poll responses, and published poll result summaries posted inside a conversation or school you belong to
  • support messages and any details you choose to send to us

2. Training, exercise, and credit data

To support training scheduling, exercise tracking, and credit management, DogPilot may process:

  • training session data including date, time, location, status, and assigned groups and exercises
  • registration and attendance data including opt-in, opt-out, and absence reasons
  • exercise ratings submitted by members
  • credit balances, billing-exemption status, credit transactions, and transaction reasons linked to a member’s school profile

3. Invite and group-linking data

To support school invite onboarding and optional school-group assignment, DogPilot may process:

  • school identifiers used for school invite redemption
  • optional school-group identifiers and names stored on a school invite
  • invite tokens
  • invite status information
  • school invite preview data such as school name, description, logo URL, color, and optional target group name
  • invited display names or invited contact details
  • invite creation, expiry, revocation, and acceptance timestamps
  • linked membership information between a signed-in profile, a school, and where applicable a targeted school group

4. Login and technical data

DogPilot may process technical data required for stability and app operation, including:

  • authentication provider identifiers and linked login-method metadata
  • a local non-sensitive DogPilot session marker used to confirm that a Firebase authentication session was explicitly set up in the app; it is stored on the device and cleared with app-local data
  • technical identifiers related to a legacy anonymous profile upgrade flow on supported setups when an older installation exists on the same device
  • profile last-login timestamps used to identify inactive profiles for later operational cleanup
  • onboarding completion timestamps used to avoid showing the first-run guide repeatedly across devices
  • Firebase Cloud Messaging tokens used to deliver conversation-related push notifications on mobile devices
  • app version
  • operating system and platform details
  • device-related technical identifiers where required by the services in use
  • timestamps of technical events
  • error data needed for troubleshooting and service stability
  • crash reports collected via Firebase Crashlytics in release builds, including stack traces, device model, operating system version, and app version — crash reports do not include your messages, reviews, or other content data
  • app-integrity attestation tokens processed via Firebase App Check (Play Integrity on Android, DeviceCheck on iOS) to protect the backend against abuse

5. Backend-unavailable behavior

On platforms where live backend configuration is not available, DogPilot may show backend-unavailable states. In such cases, live group and invite data may not load or persist until backend support is available.

6. Support communication

If you contact us, we may process the information you provide voluntarily, including:

  • your email address
  • the content of your request
  • screenshots or descriptions of a problem
  • app version, platform, or device information relevant to resolving the issue

Advertising

DogPilot shows a small banner advertisement to Basic (free) users on the main screens. Premium users see no advertising.

Google AdMob

DogPilot uses Google AdMob, an advertising service provided by Google LLC (or Google Ireland Limited for users in the European Economic Area and Switzerland), to display banner ads to Basic (free) users.

AdMob may collect and process data in connection with ad delivery, including:

  • advertising identifiers (such as the Google Advertising ID on Android or the Identifier for Advertisers on iOS)
  • IP address
  • device type, operating system version, and device settings
  • app usage data and interaction data relating to displayed ads
  • approximate location data derived from IP address or device settings, where permitted

This data is processed by Google for purposes such as ad targeting, ad measurement, fraud prevention, and service improvement.

DogPilot does not actively pass personal profile data to AdMob. However, AdMob may use device-level identifiers and contextual signals independently to serve ads.

Consent management: Where required by applicable law (including the EU General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act), DogPilot uses Google’s User Messaging Platform (UMP) to request your consent before personalized advertising is enabled. You may at any time withdraw or adjust your advertising consent through your device settings (e.g., by resetting or limiting the advertising identifier on your device).

App Tracking Transparency (iOS): On iOS, DogPilot asks for your permission via Apple’s App Tracking Transparency dialog before the advertising identifier (IDFA) is used for personalized ads. The dialog is only shown to users who actually see advertising (Basic plan). If you decline, ads remain non-personalized; you can change your choice at any time in the iOS Settings under Privacy & Security → Tracking.

For more information about how Google processes data in connection with AdMob, see Google’s Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

You can also opt out of personalized advertising via Google’s ad settings: https://adssettings.google.com

AI features

DogPilot uses generative AI (Google Gemini models accessed via Firebase AI) for a few clearly scoped features. All of them are triggered on demand only, are marked as AI-generated, and may be imprecise.

  • Automatic exercise translations — when a manager creates or edits an exercise, its name and description are sent to the AI service to generate translations into the six app languages. Only the exercise text itself is transmitted.
  • AI insight per dog (Premium) — when a user explicitly taps the AI insight button, aggregated training and review data for the selected dog (ratings, exercise names, notes the user wrote) is sent to the AI service to generate a short textual progress summary.

In addition, DogPilot offers optional AI assistance tools available only to school managers on the Premium tier. They are subject to a fair-use daily limit per school:

  • AI training and school assessments — when a manager requests it, aggregated post-training ratings and attendance data for a single past training or for the manager’s school as a whole are sent to the AI service to generate a written assessment. These assessments are saved with a history so the manager can compare progress over time.
  • AI next-training focus — when a manager requests it, the school’s aggregated, weakest-rated discipline data is sent to the AI service to suggest what to focus on in the next training. This suggestion is not saved.
  • AI-drafted announcements — when a manager chooses to draft an announcement with AI, the keywords the manager enters are sent to the AI service to generate a title and message, which the manager edits before publishing.
  • AI exercise generator — when a manager chooses to generate an exercise with AI, the training goal or description the manager enters is sent to the AI service to propose an exercise name, description, category, and difficulty level, which is then auto-translated like any exercise.

In all cases the data is processed by Google as a service provider to generate the requested output. AI requests are not used to build advertising profiles, and DogPilot does not use your data to train its own models.

Why data is processed

We use data primarily for the following purposes:

  • operating DogPilot and keeping the app functional
  • supporting invite generation and invite redemption
  • validating school invite redemption before a school membership or targeted group assignment is created
  • linking a signed-in profile to a school and, where applicable, a targeted school group
  • maintaining school, group, and membership data where live backend support exists
  • showing and remembering account-level onboarding state
  • identifying inactive profiles that may be eligible for later operational cleanup
  • improving technical stability and diagnosing issues
  • generating automatic exercise translations and, on explicit request, AI-generated summaries, assessments, suggestions, and drafts
  • responding to support requests
  • protecting the service against misuse and technical abuse

Sharing with third parties

Data is shared only to the extent necessary to operate DogPilot or where required by law.

Depending on the active setup, this may include:

  • Firebase Authentication for email/password login and supported OAuth-based sign-in providers such as Google and Apple when configured
  • Firebase Authentication for upgrading an older anonymous local profile to a visible login on supported device setups
  • Cloud Firestore for school, group, membership, invite, and conversation persistence
  • Firebase Storage for uploaded images such as background images and school media
  • Firebase Cloud Messaging for delivering push notifications about new conversation messages on mobile devices
  • Google AdMob for serving banner advertisements to Basic (free) users — see the Advertising section above for details
  • Firebase AI (Google Gemini models) for automatic exercise translations, the on-demand AI insight per dog, and the on-demand AI assistance tools for managers — see the AI features section above for details
  • Firebase Crashlytics for collecting crash reports in release builds to diagnose and fix stability issues
  • Firebase App Check for verifying that backend requests originate from a genuine app installation
  • app platform providers such as Apple or Google if DogPilot is distributed through their ecosystems
  • technical providers needed to deliver support or maintain infrastructure

We do not sell personal data.

Storage location and duration

Data may be stored locally on a device, within the configured backend infrastructure, or in support systems used to handle a request.

If you choose account deletion, DogPilot may remove the current profile data associated with that session. If that profile is the last manager of a school, DogPilot may also delete the affected school and its related operational data, including groups, trainings, conversations, memberships, and associated school media, because that data is structurally tied to the school entity.

Data is generally stored only as long as necessary for its intended purpose, for example:

  • while a training group remains active,
  • while an invite is valid or needs to be documented,
  • while a support case is open,
  • or while legal retention duties apply.

Archived conversations are retained for up to one year after they were archived and are then deleted automatically, including all of their messages, for every participant.

Expired, revoked, obsolete, or no-longer-required data may be deleted, anonymized, or overwritten in accordance with operational and legal requirements.

Your rights

Where provided by applicable law, you may have rights such as:

  • the right to access personal data,
  • the right to correct inaccurate data,
  • the right to request deletion,
  • the right to restrict certain processing,
  • the right to object in specific cases,
  • and the right to data portability.

To exercise such rights, please contact us by email.

Data security

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect data against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or disclosure. As with any internet-based or cloud-connected product, absolute security cannot be guaranteed.

Children and minors

DogPilot is not specifically directed at children. If personal data relating to minors is processed, this should occur only with the involvement or responsibility of a parent or legal guardian where required by law.

Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests:

DogPilot A product by sysoft.ch, Switzerland Email: hello@dogpilot.app