Privacy Policy

The short version

We collect only what BarkAtlas needs to work: your dog photos to identify breeds, your location to build the map around you, and your game progress so you can keep it.

We never sell your information, and we never use it for advertising.

You can delete your account and all of its data from inside the app at any time.

Information you give us

Account details: if you create an account, we keep your email address and a password (stored only in encrypted form by our account provider).

Messages: if you contact us, we keep your message and our reply.

Dog photos

When you scan a dog, the photo is sent from your phone to the BarkAtlas recognition service, which asks OpenAI’s image model to identify the breed. The recognition service does not save the photo. OpenAI processes it on our behalf under its API terms; at the time of writing, OpenAI does not use API data to train its models and may keep it for up to 30 days to detect abuse.

A copy of each scanned photo is saved on your phone so it can appear in your Collection. These photos are not uploaded to your account backup.

Please photograph dogs, not people. If a person appears in a photo, it is processed in the same way, so frame the dog on its own where you can.

Location

BarkAtlas uses your phone’s precise location while the Map is open, to build the game world around you, show nearby field challenges, and turn your map dog to face the way you walk. Location is optional: you can scan dogs and use most of the app without it.

We do not store your precise location. For map history, BarkAtlas saves only a coarse “Explorer Zone” (a few hundred metres across) and a one-way scrambled code for each park where you finish a challenge, so the place itself can’t be read back from it.

Business Quest Stops: when you win a stop’s game, your position is sent once to our server to check that you’re at the shop’s door. It is not stored. The business sees only an anonymous daily count of visits, never who visited.

Map images are provided by Mapbox, which receives your approximate position to send the right map area, as it would for any map app.

The map’s streets and buildings are requested through our own server, which checks that you have an account and then asks Mapbox for the map area. We do not keep these requests beyond ordinary server logs.

To show the real weather on the map, your area rounded to about 10 km (never your exact position) is sent to MET Norway, the Norwegian national weather service. No account or other details are sent.

Game progress

BarkAtlas saves your XP, level, discovered breeds and sightings, quests, collectables (such as Rescued Pups, Stolen Toys and Dog Stars), power-ups, your chosen map dog and scanner voice, and your settings.

Without an account this stays on your phone only. With an account, a copy is backed up to our account provider so you can restore it on a new phone. This includes My Dog: your dog’s name (which you type), what it owns, how it is doing, your bones and gold bones, and your weekly progress.

You can start playing as a guest, without an email address. So that the free guest days do not start again each time the app is deleted and installed again, BarkAtlas keeps a scrambled code (a one-way hash) made from an identifier of your phone: on Android the app-specific Android ID, on iPhone a random number kept in the Keychain. It is used only to count guest days and guest scans, never for advertising or tracking, and it is deleted 90 days after it was last used.

Purchases

BarkAtlas Plus and gold bones are bought through the Apple App Store or Google Play. We never see your card details. Our purchase service, RevenueCat, gives each phone an anonymous ID (and links it to your BarkAtlas account if you have one) and receives confirmation of what you bought, so Plus works on your devices and your gold bones can be restored on a new phone. RevenueCat also sees your device’s internet address, as any service does.

Voice and sound

The Field Scanner voices use your phone’s built-in text-to-speech. Nothing you hear is recorded, and BarkAtlas never uses your microphone.

Friends & Packs

Friends & Packs is part of BarkAtlas Plus and is off until you turn it on. It is only available to players at or above the age at which young people can agree to it themselves where they live (for example 13 in the United States and United Kingdom, 15 in Australia and 16 in Germany). BarkAtlas asks once for your month and year of birth; this stays on your phone and is used only to decide this and to make sure we never show marketing prompts to children. You can report a player from Friends & Packs; reports are reviewed by BarkAtlas and the player is blocked for you.

When it is on, we keep a made-up explorer name (built from word lists, never typed), a friend code, your dog avatar, level, number of breeds and badges, and how many dogs you spotted this week. Friends and Pack members see only those things. They never see your email, your photos or where you are.

You can only become friends by code, and only if both of you agree. Messages are a fixed set of stickers, with daily limits. You can remove or block anyone. Turning Friends & Packs off, or deleting your account, removes all of it.

Sharing your finds

BarkAtlas can make a card or picture of your find that you choose to share through your phone’s share menu. You decide where it goes (a messaging app, social media or nowhere). Cards never show where you are. Once you share something, the app or service you shared it with handles it under its own rules; we do not receive a copy.

Who we share information with

We share information only with services that help run BarkAtlas, and only what each one needs:

Supabase: account sign-in and progress backup (data stored in Sydney, Australia).

OpenAI: breed identification of scanned photos (processed in the United States).

Mapbox: map images for your area (United States).

MET Norway: weather for your area, rounded to about 10 km (Norway). Weather data © MET Norway, CC BY 4.0.

RevenueCat, Apple and Google: subscriptions and payments.

Cloudflare: runs the BarkAtlas recognition service that passes your scanned photo to OpenAI (the photo is not stored there), and delivers the game’s 3D world files. It sees your device’s internet address, as any website does.

Resend: sends account emails, such as confirming your email address or resetting your password (United States). It receives your email address for that purpose only.

Stripe: takes card payments from businesses that sign up on our website to be a Quest Stop (United States and other countries). Players’ details are never sent to Stripe.

Google Fonts: some of our website pages load their lettering from Google, which sees your device’s internet address, as any website does. The app itself does not use it.

Some of these services store or process data outside Australia. We choose providers that protect information to a standard comparable to Australian law. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Account and backup data is kept while your account exists. When you delete your account, it is permanently removed from our systems within 30 days; backups held by our providers expire on their own schedule, usually within a further 30 days.

Data saved only on your phone stays until you delete the app or use Delete account.

Your choices and rights

You can turn off location or camera access at any time in your phone’s settings.

You can see and change your account details in Settings → Account.

You can delete your account and all of its data in Settings → Account → Delete account. If you can no longer open the app, email us and we will delete it for you.

You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, or to correct it, by emailing barkatlasapp@gmail.com.

If you have a privacy complaint, please contact us first. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

If you are an adult and switch on dog reminders, your phone asks your permission and BarkAtlas then schedules notifications on your phone from your dog’s needs (for example when it is hungry). They are made on your phone; nothing about them is sent to us, and we do not collect a notification token. You can turn them off in Settings or in your phone’s settings at any time.

If you live in Europe, the UK or California

We use your information to provide BarkAtlas and the things you ask for (your account, progress backup and purchases), with your consent where you turn on the camera or location, and for our legitimate interests in keeping the service secure and working. You can withdraw consent at any time in your phone’s settings.

You can ask us to give you a copy of your information, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to how we use it, or move it to another service, by emailing us. You can delete your account yourself in the app. You can complain to your data protection authority (in the UK, the ICO). We reply within 30 days.

California: we do not sell or share your personal information for advertising, and we do not use it for anything other than running BarkAtlas. You can use the rights above, and we will not treat you differently for doing so.

Some of our providers are in the United States and other countries outside Europe. When your information is sent there, we rely on the safeguards those providers offer, such as the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.

Children

BarkAtlas is made for teens and adults and is for ages 13 and up. It asks your month and year of birth once. If the answer is under 13, the app deletes any account that was made (on our server and on your phone), keeps nothing about you, and cannot be used. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Information is sent over encrypted connections, and account passwords are never stored in readable form. No system is perfectly secure, so we also keep what we collect to a minimum.

Changes to this policy

If we change how BarkAtlas uses your information, we will update this policy and its date, and tell you in the app before the change affects you.

Contact

Benjamin Jacob McGill, a sole trader in Victoria, Australia, trading as BarkAtlas (also trading as GoodBoy Animal Training). Email: barkatlasapp@gmail.com.