Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 25 March 2024

Pawland exists to help establish connections between people and different kinds of animal shelters and their habitants. In short—to help animals to find their new families. We are a community built on trust. An inseparable part of earning that trust means being clear about how we use your information and protecting your human right to privacy.

This Privacy Policy describes how Pawland, and its affiliates (“we,” “us,” or “Pawland”), process personal information in relation to your use of the Pawland Platform (“Pawland”, “Platform”).

1. Definitions

Undefined terms in this Privacy Policy have the same definition as in our Terms and Conditions (“Terms”).

2. Personal information we collect

Information needed to Use in Pawland Platform

• Account, Contact and Profile Information. Those include your first name, last name, email address, preferable language and profile photo, some of which will depend on the features you use.
• Shelter documents. Those might include certificates, registration documents, and any other documents that can be used to verify your shelter.

Information you choose to give us

• Geolocation information. Such as precise or approximate location determined from your IP address, mobile or other device’s GPS, or other information you share with us, depending on your browser settings.

Personal information we collect from third parties

• Third-Party Services. If you link, connect, or login to the Pawland Platform with a third-party service (e.g. Facebook, Google or Apple), you direct the service to send us information about your profile such as first name, last name, email and photo which are controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.

3. How we use information we collect

Improve, and develop the Pawland Platform

We may process this information to:

• notify you about the upcoming changes on the Platform
• provide customer service support
• send you messages, updates, security alerts, and account notifications
• improve searching experience
• collect anonymous statistics of the Platform usage.

4. Sharing and disclosure

Sharing with your consent or at your direction

Where you provide consent, we share your information as described at the time of consent, such as when authorizing a third-party application or website to access your Pawland Account or participating in promotional activities by Pawland partners or third parties.

Information you publish in profiles, shelters, and other public information

You can make certain information publicly visible to others, such as:

• your public profile page, which includes your profile photo, first name (or initials where applicable) and last name
• shelter pages that include information such as name, description, image gallery, list of animals, needs, events and posts; address, contacts information or precise location description, profile photo, and additional information you choose to share
• animal pages that include information such as name, description, status, image gallery, list of needs and events.

We may display parts of your public profile and other content you make available to the public like Shelters details on third-party sites, platforms, and apps.

Information you share publicly on the Pawland may be indexed through third-party search engines. In some cases, you may opt-out of this feature in your account settings.

Complying with law, responding to legal requests, preventing harm and protecting our rights

We may disclose your information to courts, law enforcement, governmental or public authorities, tax authorities, authorized third parties, or other Members, if and to the extent we are required or permitted to do so by law or where disclosure is reasonably necessary to:

• comply with our legal obligations
• comply with a valid legal request (such as a subpoena or court order) or to respond to claims asserted against Pawland
• respond to a valid legal request relating to a criminal investigation to address alleged or suspected illegal activity, or to respond to or address any other activity that may expose us, you, or any other of our users to legal or regulatory liability, or
• protect the rights, shelters or personal safety of Pawland, its employees, its Members, or members of the public.

Where appropriate, we may notify Members about legal requests unless:

• providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law
• prevent physical harm or financial loss; or
• we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon or harm to Pawland Platform, our Members, or expose Pawland to a claim of obstruction of justice.

Business transfers

If Pawland undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer, or share some or all of our assets, including your information in connection with such transaction or in contemplation of such transaction (e.g., due diligence). In this event, we will notify you before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Third-party partners & Integrations

Parts of Pawland Platform may link to third-party services. Pawland does not own or control these third parties. When you interact with these third parties and choose to use their service, you are providing your information to them. Your use of these services is subject to the privacy policies of those providers, including Open Street Map Privacy Policy, Google Privacy Policy, Meta Privacy Policy, Donorbox Privacy Policy

Where is your data processed?

We primarily process personal data on servers within the EU/EEA. However, we may need to transfer your information to a location outside the EU/EEA. Where this is the case, we will implement appropriate measures under the EU/EEA General Data Protection Regulation to ensure that your personal data remains protected and secure. Our international transfers of personal data are based on the EU Commission’s standard contractual clauses. The standard contractual clauses may be found here.

5. Your rigths

Managing Your Information

You can access and update some of your personal information through your Account settings. If you connect your Pawland Account to a third-party service, like Facebook or Google, you can change your settings in your Account settings. You are responsible for keeping your personal information up to date.

Data access and portability

In some jurisdictions, applicable law may entitle you to request certain copies of your personal information or information about how we handle your personal information, request copies of personal information that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and/or request that we transmit this information to another service provider (where technically feasible).

Data erasure

In some jurisdictions, you can request that your personal information be deleted. Please note that if you request deletion of your personal information, or if your account is suspended, terminated, or voluntarily closed:

• your account information and setting will be erased from the database within 90 days
• any connection within existing shelters will be erased within 90 days.

Limitation of liability

Pawland shall not be liable in any manner whatsoever for direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, losses, expenses or loss of profits related to the fact that you have accessed this Platform or pages linked to it, that you have not been able to access information on the Platform or that you have used or tried to use information on the Platform. Pawland, furthermore, shall not be liable for direct, indirect or other damages related to disruption, omission, interruption, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus or line or system failure, even if Pawland or its representatives are advised of such damages, losses or expenses.

6. Security

No organization can guarantee perfect security, but we are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your information against unlawful or unauthorized access, loss, destruction, or alteration.

Links to third-party websites

Some of our web pages may contain links to third party websites. These external sites may place their own cookies on your computer, collect data or solicit personal data. If you submit personal data to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. Pawland does not exercise any control, or assume any responsibility for these sites, and we encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

7. Changes to this privacy policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time in accordance with applicable law. If we do so, we will post the revised Privacy Policy and update the “Last Updated” date at the top. Please check back regularly to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. If you do not cancel your Account before the date the revised Privacy Policy becomes effective, your continued access to or use of the Pawland Platform will be subject to the revised Privacy Policy.

Contact information and representatives

For any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy or Pawland’s handling of personal information contact by emailing us at contact@pawland.org.