Privacy Policy
Last updated 27 October 2026
Parks helps dog owners find dog parks, see which dogs are there and meet up. Live presence identifies a park, never your position. This page explains exactly what we collect, why, and what we deliberately do not do.
The short version. Parks needs your location to show the parks near you, but your GPS position is never shown to other users — they see which park your dog is at. Dogs you mark “avoid” are never told. Your visit history is off unless you turn it on. You can delete your account, and everything personal in it, from inside the app.
Who we are
Parks is operated by Eliad Shahar. For any privacy question, or to exercise any right described below, contact hello@tryparks.com.
What we collect
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Phone number, or your Apple / Google account identifier | To sign you in. We never see your Apple or Google password. |
| Display name, optional profile photo, language and time zone | So other owners can recognise you, and so notifications arrive in your language and respect your quiet hours. |
| Your dogs: name, and optionally breed, size, sex, birth date, weight, description, warnings and photos | This is the content of the app. Other users see it when your dog is at a park. |
| Device location | Required: Parks needs it to show the parks near you, and can't be used without it. If you also allow background location, it is used on your phone to notify you when you arrive at a park. See the section below — this is the part we treat most carefully. |
| Check-ins, planned arrivals, calls, meetups and RSVPs | To show who is at a park and who is coming. |
| Favourite / okay / avoid marks, blocks and mutes | To personalise what you see and to keep you away from people you don't want to meet. These are private to you. |
| Park submissions, reviews, photos and updates you write | To build the shared park directory. |
| Reports you send to moderators | To review and act on safety issues. |
| A push notification token for your device | To deliver notifications. Only if you allow notifications. |
| Visit history — only if you switch it on | Off by default. When on, it records which parks your dogs visited so you can look back at it. Only you can see it. |
Location, specifically
This is the part most people care about, so here is precisely how it works.
- Your device's coordinates are used on your device to show nearby parks and to detect that you have arrived at one.
- A check-in sends which park you checked into. Browsing the map sends the map area you are looking at. Searching for a park sends your position so that nearby results come first, and suggesting a new park with “Use my location” sends where you are standing as that park's location.
- Other users therefore see “this dog is at Herzliya Dog Park”. Presence is about dogs, but a dog is linked to its owner's display name, and other signed-in users can look that link up — so anyone who can see your dog at a park can find out whose dog it is. They cannot see where you are within the park, on the way there, or anywhere else.
- Parks needs your location to show the parks near you; without it the app can't be used. Notifications are optional.
- Background location is optional. If you allow it (“Always” on iOS, “Allow all the time” on Android), Parks watches the dog parks near you, on your phone, and sends you a notification when you arrive at one, even when the app is closed. Your position stays on your phone, and nothing is checked in or shown to anyone until you open the app and confirm. Without background access you check in from the app. You can change permissions in iOS or Android settings.
Data from pre-release test versions
Test versions of Parks given to a small group before release could record walks and plan routes. The current version does neither. If you used a test version, any walking data it stored in your account stays private, and is deleted when you delete your account — or sooner if you email hello@tryparks.com and ask.
What we deliberately do not do
- Your position is never shown to other users. Presence is always a park, never coordinates, and arrival detection runs on your phone.
- If you mark a dog as avoid, that dog's owner is never told — not by notification, not in the interface, not indirectly through counts or activity. The warning is shown only to you.
- Your favourite and okay marks are equally private. Owners can only ever see an anonymous count of how many people favourited their own dog.
- If you block someone, the block works in both directions and is enforced on our server, not just hidden in the app.
- We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for advertising or share it with advertisers.
- We do not track you across other apps or websites.
Aggregate statistics
Alongside the personal data above, Parks keeps counts. When a dog's visit to a park ends, we record one row saying that a park was visited — on which date, in which hour of which weekday, by a dog of a given size, breed and age group, roughly how long the visit lasted, whether the check-in was manual or automatic, and whether the visit was ended deliberately or simply timed out.
These rows contain no name, account identifier, dog identifier, device identifier or coordinates. We do not join them back to personal records; published statistics use grouped counts and proportions.
We keep these counts for every visit, whether or not you have switched visit history on. That setting controls the personal history that only you can see. These counts are not that history, and are not linked to it.
We use them to show how busy a park usually is, and we may publish them or share them with municipalities, park operators and partners — for example, to show a city which of its dog parks are overcrowded and when. What is shared is always counts and proportions, never a person, an account or a dog.
These counts are never tied to your account, and they do not disappear when you delete it.
Who processes data for us
We keep this list short on purpose.
- Supabase — hosts our database, authentication, file storage and server functions. Data is stored in the European Union (Frankfurt).
- Apple and Google — if you choose to sign in with them, and to deliver push notifications through APNs and FCM.
- Expo — delivers push notifications to your device.
- Apple Maps or Google Maps — displays map tiles and map content under the provider’s privacy policy. Opening external directions also sends the chosen destination to the maps app you select.
- Google Places — searches for parks outside our directory using the search text you provide.
How long we keep things
- Live activity is short-lived by design: check-ins, planned arrivals, calls and temporary park updates expire automatically, usually within hours.
- Your profile, dogs and the content you post stay until you delete them or delete your account.
- Visit history, if you enabled it, stays until you turn it off or delete your account.
- Your alerts inbox keeps notifications for 90 days.
- Walking data from a pre-release test version, if any, stays until you delete your account or ask us to remove it.
- Moderation records are kept as long as needed to keep the community safe.
- Aggregate statistics are kept indefinitely and are not removed when you delete your account, because they contain nothing that identifies anyone.
Your rights
You can, at any time:
- Delete your account from inside the app, under Profile. This removes your personal data, your dogs, your relationships and your history.
- Edit or delete individual dogs, photos, reviews and updates.
- Turn visit history off, and turn notifications off per park or entirely.
- Request a copy of your data, or ask us to correct or erase it, by emailing hello@tryparks.com.
If you are in the EU or UK, you also have the right to object to processing, to restrict it, and to complain to your data protection authority. If you are in Israel, you have the rights granted by the Protection of Privacy Law.
Children
Parks is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. If you believe a child has given us data, email us and we will delete it.
Security
Every table in our database enforces row-level security, so the server itself decides what you are allowed to see rather than trusting the app. Photos live in private storage and are served through short-lived links. Sensitive actions run as authenticated server operations rather than direct database writes.
No system is perfect. If you find a security problem, please email hello@tryparks.com and we will take it seriously.
Changes
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and tell you in the app before the change takes effect.