Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal data LocalPetFinder (“we”, “us”) handles when you use this website, why, and the rights you have under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).

Who we are

LocalPetFinder is the controller of the personal data described here.

• Email: info@localpetfinder.uk

What we collect from visitors

You can browse this website without creating an account or giving us your name or contact details. The only form is the optional email alert sign-up described below. We don't run advertising. We use a cookie-free visitor statistics tool and, only if you accept, Google Analytics cookies, both described under “Cookies and visitor statistics”.

If you type a postcode into the search box on our home page, it is looked up in your own browser against a list of postcode areas that is downloaded from this website. Your postcode is not sent to us or to anyone else, and it is not stored or put in the page address.

Like any website, our hosting provider automatically receives technical information when your browser requests a page: your IP address, the page requested, the date and time, and your browser and device type. This is used to deliver the site, keep it secure and fix faults. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in running a secure, working website. These server logs are kept only for as long as our hosting provider needs them for those purposes.

Email alerts

If you sign up for an alert, we store your email address, the place and type of animal you asked about, the page you signed up on and when you gave consent. We send you a welcome email straight away, then use your address only to email you when a matching animal is listed, at most once every two days, and we keep a record of which animals we sent you so we never send the same one twice. Our lawful basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time: every alert email has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing deletes your details. Our alert emails contain no tracking pixels. Your details are stored in our Supabase database in its London (UK) region and the emails are sent by Resend from its EU (Ireland) region.

Rehoming your pet, and messaging an owner

If you list a pet for rehoming, we store your email address, your phone number if you give it, the first part of your postcode (for example M20, never the full postcode), your pet's details and photos, the reason you gave for rehoming, the statements you confirmed, your pet's microchip number if you give it, a scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address, and the country, region and rough town your connection came from (worked out from the IP address, which we do not store). A person checking your listing sees that rough location next to your postcode area, to help spot scams sent from somewhere else; it never decides anything on its own. If a listing is removed as a scam, the hashed connection can be blocked from sending more listings. Your email address, phone number, postcode area, reason, microchip number and connection location are never shown publicly. Photos are resized in your browser before upload, which removes location data stored in the photo.

If you message an owner, we store your first name, your email address and your messages, and we pass your messages on. The owner sees your first name and your messages, never your email address, and you never see theirs.

If you report a listing, we store the reason, any details you give, your email address if you choose to add it, and a hashed version of your IP address.

We use this to publish and review listings, pass messages between owners and adopters, send you emails about your listing or conversation, and protect people from scams, including keeping a list of contacts banned for breaking our rules. Our lawful basis is that this is necessary to provide the service you asked us for; for fraud prevention and the ban list it is our legitimate interest in keeping the service safe. We keep records of a listing and its messages after it ends so we can deal with reports and fraud. You can ask us to delete your details at any time using the contact details above, except where we need to keep a record of a removed listing or a ban to protect others.

Automated pre-check. Before a person reviews your listing, an AI service (Anthropic) looks at it: your pet's details, the description and the first photo. Your email address, phone number, postcode area, microchip number and reason for rehoming are not sent to it. The AI can recommend a listing for publication or point out something for a person to check (for example a request for a deposit); it never turns a listing down. Only a person can refuse a listing or ask for changes, with two exceptions that involve no judgement: a listing with no real photo of an animal is sent back with a request for one, and a contact who lists pets in three or more different places is banned, because a private owner lives in one place. If you think a decision like that is wrong, contact us and a person will look at it again. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in protecting people from pet scams.

Cookies and visitor statistics

We don't set any advertising cookies. We only set analytics cookies if you click “Accept analytics cookies” on the banner shown on your first visit. “Reject analytics cookies” is just as easy, and if you reject or ignore the banner, Google Analytics is not loaded at all. You can change your choice at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page; if you withdraw consent we delete the Google Analytics cookies from your browser. Your choice itself is remembered in your browser's local storage, which is needed to respect it.

Google Analytics (only if you accept)

If you accept, we use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use the site: which pages are viewed, how people arrive (for example from a search engine), how far they scroll, which links to rescues they follow, and their approximate location, device and browser. It sets two first-party cookies, which Google says last up to 2 years:

• _ga, used to distinguish users;
• _ga_<id>, used to keep the state of a visit.

We have turned off Google signals and ad personalisation, and we don't link Google Analytics to any advertising account. Our lawful basis is your consent. Google provides Google Analytics to us as a processor, and we keep the data in Google Analytics for 14 months. You can read how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Cookie-free visitor statistics

To see which pages are useful, we use Vercel Web Analytics, which works without cookies. For each page view it records the page address, the referring site, an approximate location (country and region), and your device type, operating system and browser. It does not collect names or contact details, and it doesn't follow you across other websites: visits are counted using a short-lived value derived from the request, which is discarded after 24 hours. We only look at the combined totals.

Information about animals and rescues

Animal listings show information that rescues and rehoming centres have published about the animals in their care, with a link back to the rescue. Listings are about animals, not people. If a listing includes personal information about you, or you represent a rescue and want a listing changed or removed, please contact us and we will act promptly.

Who we share data with

We don't sell personal data. We use these service providers, who process data on our behalf:

• Vercel, which hosts the website, delivers its pages and provides the cookie-free visitor statistics.
• Google, which provides Google Analytics, only for visitors who accept analytics cookies.
• Supabase, which hosts our database of animal listings, in its London (UK) region.
• Resend, which sends our emails about rehoming listings and messages and for email alerts, from its EU (Ireland) region.
• Anthropic, which provides the AI service that pre-checks rehoming listings (see “Automated pre-check” above). Subject to Anthropic's Privacy Policy.

Some of our providers may process technical data outside the UK. Where that happens we rely on the safeguards UK data protection law requires.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to, or ask us to restrict, how we use it;
• ask for data you gave us to be transferred to someone else, where that applies.

To use any of these rights, contact us using the details above. We will reply within one month. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk, though we would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle personal data, we will update this page and the date at the top.