Sign inJoin the pack →

petz.zone Privacy Policy

Effective date: 29 September 2026 Version: 1.0

1. Who we are

petz.zone (the "Platform") is a service and trade name owned and operated directly by 3-101-955330 SOCIEDAD ANÓNIMA, a company duly incorporated and registered under the laws of the Republic of Costa Rica, corporate identification number (cédula jurídica) 3-101-955330, domiciled in San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San José, Costa Rica, trading as "ABChainD Systems" ("ABChainD", "we", or "us"). petz.zone has no separate legal personality — every right and obligation described in this Policy belongs directly to ABChainD.

ABChainD is the data controller for the personal data described in this Policy, under Law No. 8968, Protection of Persons with regard to the Processing of their Personal Data ("Ley 8968"), and its implementing regulation. The database is named "petz.zone Users."

This Policy gives you the prior, express, precise, and unambiguous notice required by Ley 8968 Article 5: what personal data we collect, for what purposes, who receives it, how it's stored, and what rights you have.

2. Two kinds of profile

petz.zone is built around two distinct kinds of profile, treated differently throughout this Policy:

  • Guardian accounts — you, the human. Private: never publicly listed, searchable, or shown on a pet's public profile.
  • Pet profiles — public by default (you can make a pet's profile private in settings). This is your pet's public presence: bio, photos, posts, and interactions with other pets.

3. What we collect

a) Account data (required):

  • email address;
  • username;
  • a securely hashed password (never stored in plain text);
  • your declaration that you have reached the age of majority (see §9).

If you sign in with Google or Apple instead of a password, we receive from that provider your account identifier and email address.

b) Pet profile data:

  • pet name and species (required to create the profile);
  • breed, birth date, bio, and photos (optional).

c) Guardian relationship data: which guardians manage which pets, and each guardian's role (Owner, Guardian, or Sitter).

d) Content you create: posts, comments, likes and other reactions, space memberships, and which pets you follow. If a photo or post identifies a person (including you), that content is personal data and is governed by this Policy.

e) Technical data, collected automatically: IP address, device and browser type, session tokens, and security logs — used to keep you securely logged in and to protect the service from abuse.

f) Cookies: petz.zone uses only strictly necessary cookies (session and security). We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

g) Consent records: the date, time, and version of this Policy and the Terms of Service you accepted.

h) Payments: we do not collect payment information. petz.zone has no paid features at launch.

Which data are mandatory, and what happens if you refuse. The data marked required are indispensable to create and operate your account — without them, an account cannot be created. Optional data are voluntary; declining to provide them does not limit your use of the Platform.

4. Why we use your data, and on what legal basis

We use your personal data exclusively to:

  • create and operate your guardian account and your pets' profiles;
  • let you and any co-guardians you add jointly manage a shared pet profile;
  • show other users your pet's public content, while keeping your guardian-level data visible only to you and your co-guardians;
  • keep the service secure (rate limiting, abuse prevention, session validation);
  • respond to reports of content or accounts that violate our Terms of Service;
  • send you operational communications: account verification, password recovery, guardian invitations, and notices about changes to this Policy or the Terms.

Legal basis. Processing is based on your express consent, requested at signup via a specific, unchecked-by-default checkbox, separate from accepting the Terms of Service. That consent also covers the storage and transfers described in §§6, 7, and 12. To the strictly necessary extent, processing is also based on compliance with legal obligations or a competent authority's order.

You may withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawal has no retroactive effect. Because the required data are indispensable to the service, withdrawing consent for them means closing your account.

We do not use your data for purposes other than or incompatible with those stated here, we do not sell it, and we do not build advertising profiles from it.

5. Guardian privacy — the core promise

Your guardian account is never public. Your email address, and anything you do as a guardian (which pets you manage, your role, your account activity) is visible only to you and any co-guardians on the same pet — never to the public, never indexed or searchable, never displayed on a pet's public profile. Only a pet's own profile, posts, and public content are visible to other users.

Keep in mind that if you include information identifying you (a photo you appear in, your name in text) in your pet's public content, that information becomes public by your own choice.

6. How media storage works — IPFS, and what that means for you

Photos you upload are stored using IPFS (the InterPlanetary File System), a decentralized, content-addressed storage network, rather than being kept only on a single company-owned server. In practice:

  • Before upload, we remove identifying metadata from your photos — including GPS location data. This means the coordinates of where a photo was taken are not embedded in the file. This does not remove what the image visually shows — for example, your house's facade or a street sign with an address.
  • Once uploaded, a photo is identified by a content hash (a "CID"). It's stored on our own server and, for redundancy, on one backup provider we contract with (§7).
  • An important limitation of this design, stated plainly: once content has been made public, independent third parties outside our control can, in principle, obtain and retain copies of it — much like any public image on the internet can be saved or re-shared by anyone who has seen it. When you delete a post or your account, we remove that content from petz.zone and from all infrastructure we directly control: we unpin and purge it from our own node, remove cached copies, and instruct our backup provider to delete it. However, we cannot guarantee removal from copies independent third parties made before deletion.
  • This is a technical limitation, not a waiver of your rights. Your access, rectification, and deletion rights under Ley 8968 remain fully intact with respect to all data and copies under our control, and we honor them per §8.
  • Notice at the point of publishing. Before you first publish public content, and every time you switch a pet's profile from private to public (which makes previously-private photos public), the Platform will show you this notice and ask you to expressly confirm you understand it.
  • Non-public content is stored only on infrastructure we control, is not replicated to the backup provider, and is served only to authorized users.

7. Who we share data with

We use the following providers as data processors. They act solely on our behalf and under our instructions, and are contractually bound to confidentiality, data security, and deletion on our instruction:

  • Authentication (Ory Kratos) — software we run ourselves. Processes your login credentials on infrastructure we control; no outside company sees your password.
  • Social login providers (Google or Apple) — only if you choose that sign-in method. That provider knows you signed into petz.zone; its own privacy policy governs its processing.
  • Email — used only to send account verification, password recovery, guardian-invitation emails, and change notices. These are sent through ABChainD's own mail server.
  • IPFS pinning backup provider (Pinata, with Filebase as a fallback) — stores a redundant copy of your publicly shared media only, for availability. Receives the file only, never your account or guardian data.
  • Hosting provider (OVHcloud) — operates the servers all of the above run on.

Additionally:

  • Authorities — we disclose personal data to judicial or administrative authorities only under a valid order or request from a competent authority, or when the law requires it.
  • Corporate reorganization — if the service is transferred to another entity (e.g., merger or assignment), we'll notify you beforehand and the acquiring entity will be bound by this Policy. Where the law requires it, we'll seek your renewed consent.
  • We do not sell your data. We do not share guardian (human) data with advertisers, and there is no advertising or ad-targeting at launch.

8. Your rights and choices

Under Ley 8968, you have the right to:

  • access your personal data;
  • rectify or update it;
  • request its deletion;
  • withdraw your consent (see §4).

How to exercise them:

  • From your account settings, you can view, correct, or delete your account information at any time, and request full account deletion.
  • By email to privacy@petz.zone, stating your username and the right you wish to exercise. We may verify your identity via your registered email to protect your account.
  • Cost and timeline. Exercising these rights is free of charge. We will respond within the legal deadline, currently five (5) business days from receipt of your request.
  • Complaint to PRODHAB. If you believe we haven't properly handled your request, you may file a complaint with the Agencia de Protección de Datos de los Habitantes (PRODHAB).

Account deletion. Deleting your account:

  • erases your data from our database;
  • unpins your files from our own infrastructure;
  • instructs our backup provider to delete its copy.

This is subject to §6's technical limitation regarding copies made by independent third parties, without prejudice to your rights.

Shared pet profiles. If an Owner deletes their account, a pet profile that has other guardians remains available to them; the departing account's guardian relationship and authored content are removed. A pet profile guarded solely by the deleted account is deleted with it.

You can also:

  • make a pet's profile private at any time;
  • remove a co-guardian's access to a pet you own;
  • report content or accounts that violate our Terms of Service.

9. Minors

petz.zone is intended exclusively for guardians who have reached the age of majority: eighteen (18) under Costa Rican law, or the higher age set by the law of your country of residence. This requirement applies to every role, including Sitter.

At signup, you declare you meet this requirement. We do not knowingly collect account data from minors, and we do not offer parental/legal-representative-consent account creation. If we learn a minor created a guardian account, we will close it and delete their data without delay. If you believe this is the case, contact us at privacy@petz.zone.

Images of minors in content. Only post photos of an identifiable minor if you have the authorization of their parent or legal representative. Either of them may request removal of such content at the same address, and we will handle it with priority.

10. Data retention

  • Active account and pet data is kept for as long as your account exists.
  • Content you delete (a post, a photo) is removed from public view immediately and permanently deleted from our systems promptly, and in any case within thirty (30) days, except where we must retain it to handle a reported violation or under a legal obligation.
  • Deleted-account data is purged from our systems promptly, and in any case within thirty (30) days, except for records of a reported violation, which may be kept as long as needed to handle it or as required by law or a competent authority.
  • Technical security logs (including IP addresses) are retained only as long as necessary for security purposes, and in any case no longer than ninety (90) days.
  • Consent records are retained as long as needed to demonstrate consent was validly obtained.

We will never retain personal data longer than necessary for the purpose it was collected for, nor beyond the maximum periods set by Ley 8968 and its regulation.

11. Security

We apply technical and organizational measures per industry-standard practice: encrypted connections (TLS) for all traffic, securely hashed passwords, rate limiting on sensitive actions like signup and login, and access controls limiting who can act on a pet's profile to its designated guardians.

Breach notification. If we detect a security breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and PRODHAB within five (5) business days of becoming aware of it, per Ley 8968's regulation. The notice will describe the incident's nature, the data affected, the corrective measures taken, and steps we recommend you take.

12. International data transfer

petz.zone's production servers are hosted on OVHcloud, whose data centers are outside Costa Rica. Our IPFS pinning backup provider (§7) may store data on infrastructure outside Costa Rica, and our email is sent through ABChainD's own mail server, which also runs outside Costa Rica.

As a result, your data may be stored and processed outside Costa Rica. You expressly consent to this when giving the consent described in §4. In every case, we contractually require these providers to maintain protection no lower than Ley 8968 requires, and ABChainD remains responsible to you regardless.

13. Costa Rica — Ley 8968 and PRODHAB

ABChainD processes your personal data in accordance with Ley 8968 and its regulation.

PRODHAB oversees compliance with Ley 8968. You may file a complaint with PRODHAB regarding the processing of your personal data, without prejudice to the mechanisms in §8.

14. Changes to this policy

We'll post any material changes to this policy here, with an updated effective date. We'll notify guardians by email and within the Platform of any substantial change, at least thirty (30) calendar days before it takes effect.

If a change involves new processing purposes or new data transfers, we will seek your renewed express consent; silence will not be treated as acceptance.

15. Contact

3-101-955330 SOCIEDAD ANÓNIMA ("ABChainD Systems"), cédula jurídica 3-101-955330, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San José, Costa Rica. Email for privacy matters and exercising your rights: privacy@petz.zone.

16. Language

This Policy is published in English and in Spanish (POLITICA-DE-PRIVACIDAD.md). For users domiciled in Costa Rica, the Spanish version controls in case of any discrepancy. The English version is provided for convenience.