Privacy policy
As of November 20261. Controller
Ioannis Kousidis, Obol Forge, Hindenburgstr. 62, 73760 Ostfildern, Germany Email: support@obolforge.com
2. In short
Shelter Friend connects animal shelters and helpers. To do so we store the data you enter yourself: your account, your profile, your listings, messages, placements and reviews. We show no ads, sell no data and use no analytics or tracking services.
3. What data we process
Account: email address and password. The password is only stored in encrypted (hashed) form.
Profile: role (shelter or helper), name, place and app language. Helpers also enter their year of birth and confirm that they are at least 18. Optional: gender, spoken languages, profile photo, experience with animals; for shelters a description, the number of dogs and cats, and photos of the shelter, accommodation, animals and surroundings.
Location and places: you choose your place yourself via the place search, the map or your current location. The app only asks for your current location when you tap it and allow it. The exact position is rounded to about 1 km on your device; only the place name and these rounded coordinates are stored. Listings also show the place only approximately. The name for a position is first looked up by your device via its operating system’s location service (Apple or Google), otherwise by our server via OpenStreetMap.
Content and use: listings (period, place, description, details on accommodation, car and pay), chat messages, placements with checklists and confirmations, reviews, favourites, saved searches, reports and blocks.
Shelter verification: anyone applying for verification of a shelter provides its official name, address, website, Google Maps link and phone number and, optionally, a registry number and a photo of a document. Documents are kept in non-public storage and are only visible to the shelter itself and to us. We also compare the domain of the account email address with the website.
Technical data: when our servers are accessed, technically necessary data such as IP address, time and type of request are processed and briefly kept in logs to ensure operation and security.
4. Who can see what
Your profile (name, place, role, photo and the optional details), your listings, your shelter photos and reviews about you are visible to all signed-in users. Photos can technically be retrieved via an unguessable web address. We do not show your email address to other users.
For verified shelters we also show the date of verification, website, Google Maps link and Google rating.
Messages can only be seen by the participants of the conversation. Reviews become visible once both sides have reviewed or the review period has ended.
5. Purposes and legal bases
Providing the app and its features (account, profile, listings, search, chat, placements, reviews, translation): Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract of use).
Security, preventing abuse, handling reports and blocks, server logs: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in a safe platform).
Access to your device’s location and photos: only after you allow it in your device settings, Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and § 25(1) TDDDG. You can withdraw this at any time in your device settings.
The year of birth of helpers is used to check the minimum age of 18.
6. Service providers and recipients
Hosting and database: Supabase Inc., USA. The data is stored on servers in Frankfurt am Main (EU). Supabase processes it on our behalf under a data processing agreement. Where access from the USA is possible, it is based on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
Automatic translation: texts of listings and chat messages are sent to a translation service without name or email address so that they can be shown in German, English and Greek. Currently this is MyMemory (Translated S.r.l., Italy). If we switch to DeepL, it is DeepL SE, Cologne, Germany.
App updates: we deliver improvements to the app via the Expo service (650 Industries, Inc., USA). Technical data such as IP address, app version and device type are processed.
App stores: when you download via the Apple App Store or Google Play, Apple or Google process data independently. We have no influence on this.
Google Maps: to verify shelters we may send the shelter’s name and address to the Google Places API (Google Ireland Limited, Ireland; Google LLC, USA) to find the public Google Maps listing with its rating. No helper data is sent. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a safe platform (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Google is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
Place search: what you type into the place search, and coordinates rounded to about 1 km, are sent via our server to the Nominatim service of OpenStreetMap (OpenStreetMap Foundation, United Kingdom) to find matching places and their names. Your name, email address and IP address are not passed on. The EU Commission has issued an adequacy decision for the United Kingdom.
Maps: for the map view the app loads map images from the OpenFreeMap service and the MapLibre map software via the unpkg service (Cloudflare, Inc., USA). Your IP address and technical data about your device are transmitted to these services. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in offering maps without advertising or tracking services (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Other users receive the data you show them in your profile, listings and messages. Beyond that we do not pass on any data unless we are legally obliged to.
7. Storage period and deletion
We store your data as long as your account exists. You can delete your account at any time in the app under Profile › Account & security › Delete account. This deletes your account, profile, photos, listings, messages, placements, reviews, favourites and blocks.
Reports about content are kept as long as needed for clarification and to prevent abuse. Server logs are deleted automatically after a short time.
8. Minimum age
Shelter Friend is meant for adults. Use is only allowed from 18 years of age.
9. Security
All connections between the app and the server are encrypted (TLS). Access to data is restricted by permission rules in the database: everyone can only change their own data and only read their own conversations.
10. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. You can withdraw consent at any time for the future. You can change or delete many details directly in the app; for everything else an email to support@obolforge.com is enough.
You can also lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. The authority responsible for us is the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of Baden-Württemberg.
11. Changes
We update this policy when the app or the law changes. The current version is always available in the app and on our website.