PawWeather
Privacy Policy
For the PawWeather apps for iOS and Android and this website, for users in the United States. Effective date: September 15, 2026.
If you are in the European Union or the European Economic Area, our GDPR privacy policy applies instead.
At a glance
- No account. We never ask for your name, email address or a password to use the app.
- No advertising, no tracking. The app contains no advertising or analytics components and uses no advertising ID.
- We do not sell or share your personal information and do not use it for targeted advertising.
- Your precise location is used only with your consent and only while the app is in use, never in the background. It is sent to our server to get the weather for that place. We neither store it nor log it.
- Notifications use an area cell of about 3 × 2 miles that the app computes on your device — never your coordinates.
1. Who we are
PawWeather is provided by MDDX Digital Solutions UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Eichholzstraße 20a, 45475 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany (“we,” “us”). Privacy questions: [email protected].
2. Information we collect
2.1 Information you give us
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Dog profile (Premium, optional) — your dog's name, breed and size, two sensitivity switches | To tailor the walk traffic light to your dog. The name is stored encrypted; breed and size pre-set the switches. |
| Walks (Premium, optional) — weekdays, time and duration. No separate location: a walk uses the area cell from 2.2. | To remind you before a walk when leaving earlier or later is better. |
| Subscription sharing (optional) — which devices belong to your group (platform, date joined) and a copy of a dog profile if you tap to share it. A name you give a member stays on your device and is never sent to us | To unlock Premium for the people you invite. Members only see that they belong to a group. |
| Feedback on our rain call (optional) — the moment you judged, what the app claimed then (dry or rain, the intensity and the reading in mm/h), how old the radar run was, which radar product it came from (an identifier such as “US-CONUS” or “US-HAWAII”, which reveals no more than the region), what you saw (dry, drizzle, rain, heavy rain), platform and app version. No free text, and no location unless you answer “Yes” when the app finally asks “Send approximate location?” for that feedback — then also an area cell of roughly 3 × 5 km (never coordinates), linked to your installation. | To check whether the thresholds at which we call rain “rain” are right. They are a choice, not a measurement. The optional area cell helps us tie deviations to an area. |
| Feedback on our weather call (optional) — what the app showed (weather word, weather code, cloud cover, temperature, day or night, the forecast hour), the weather service without the station name, a rough distance class to the station, the age of the forecast run, your view of sky and temperature (colder, about right, warmer), platform and app version. No free text, and no location unless you answer “Yes” when the app finally asks “Send approximate location?” for that feedback — then also an area cell of roughly 3 × 5 km (never coordinates), linked to your installation. | To check whether the wording and thresholds for sky and temperature match what people see. The optional area cell helps us tie deviations to an area. |
| Support messages — your email address, your name if you give it, your message, and the app version, build and operating-system version | To answer you. Your location and your dog's name are never attached. |
2.2 Information collected automatically
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Device registration — a random installation identifier created by the app (stored on our server only as a hash), platform, app version, the operating-system major version only (for example “18” for iOS 18.4.1 — not the exact version), the country of your current location as a two-letter code (for example “US”, worked out on the device; only the code is sent, it is overwritten each time, and it stays empty without location permission), time of registration and of last access. App and operating-system version are brought up to date when the app registers again after an update. Not a device identifier: it cannot be linked to any device or person. It survives a reinstall and moves to a new phone (keychain on iOS, Block Store on Android) so that your dog profile survives a change of device without an account; a new one is generated only after “Delete everything”. | To protect our service from automated abuse and to be able to block a single installation. |
| Precise location — latitude and longitude. This is sensitive personal information under several state laws (section 4). | Sent with a request for weather, radar or a forecast at your location, and used to show the place name. |
| Area cell — a 5-character geohash computed on your device, not your coordinates. About 3 miles north to south and 1 to 3 miles east to west depending on latitude: about 7 square miles in New York, 9 in Honolulu, 4½ in Anchorage. | For official alerts at your location, and — only if you turn on notifications — for rain alerts, walk reminders and official alerts. |
| Push token issued by Apple or Google — not kept in any log | To deliver the notifications you turned on. |
| Notification settings — which notifications, how many per day, minimum interval, quiet hours, rain intensity, time zone, time of the last notification and today's count | Our server decides whether to send, so that quiet hours stay quiet. We keep no list of sent notifications. |
| Technical request data — IP address, time, requested address and the content of the request (for a weather request, the coordinates) | Processed by Cloudflare in front of our servers (section 5). Our servers keep no access logs. To limit registrations per connection, we compute a hash of the IP address with a random key that changes every hour and is then deleted, and hold only that hash in memory for one hour. The IP address itself is neither stored nor logged, and once the key is deleted, the hash can no longer be traced back to an address — not even by us. |
2.3 Information from third parties
| What | From | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription status and purchase validation — the store's order number (original transaction), a purchase receipt, the product identifier, the term and the date until which the entitlement is valid; if you subscribed with a discount code, also the identifier of the store offer, so each redemption is counted only once (the code itself is not stored with your installation); since when the subscription has been running without interruption; whether the store marks the purchase as a test purchase, and until when a free trial runs | Apple App Store, Google Play | To unlock Premium, to recognise a renewal or refund, to remind you once a year about a running annual subscription, and to evaluate revenue in aggregate. We never receive your payment details. |
3. How we use information
- To show weather, radar, forecasts and official alerts for the place you choose.
- To calculate the walk traffic light for your dog.
- To send the notifications you turned on.
- To provide and verify your subscription.
- To answer support requests.
- To keep the service secure and prevent abuse.
- To improve the service, using aggregated counts of information we already hold — for example how many installations run on iOS or Android, which app and operating-system versions are still in use, in which countries the app is used, which notification settings are used, or how often our rain call is right. We collect nothing extra for this, we look at totals and shares rather than individual users, and we never include precise location, area cells, time zones or dog names. No third-party analytics service is involved.
We do not use your information for advertising or profiling, we do not sell insights from it, and we do not combine it with information from other sources. We make no automated decisions about you.
4. Your precise location
The app uses your precise location only after you agree on its own consent screen and allow location access in your device's settings, and only while the app is in use. It never requests background location — on Android, the permission for it is not even declared. Your coordinates are sent to our server only to answer the weather request you make; they are not stored, not logged by our servers, and not used for anything else. To show the name of the place, your device asks Apple (on iOS) or Google (on Android) to turn the coordinates into a place name.
You can use PawWeather without location access. You can withdraw your consent at any time in the app's settings under Location — the app then discards the location it has — or revoke the permission in your device settings.
We keep a record of your answer: what it was about, the version of the text you were shown, whether you agreed or withdrew, when, and the platform — no location, no IP address and no device identifier. See section 7 for how long we keep it.
We use sensitive personal information only as strictly necessary to provide the service you request. We do not use it to infer characteristics about you, and we do not sell or share it.
5. Who receives information
Only service providers that process information on our behalf and may use it only to provide their service to us:
| Provider | Role | What they process |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. (USA) | Network and protection in front of our servers and this website | IP address, time, requested address and request content (including coordinates for a weather request) |
| netcup GmbH (Germany) | Hosting of our main server | Device registration, dog profile, walks, subscription sharing, notification settings with area cell and push token, subscription status, consent records, feedback on our rain and weather calls; weather requests for places in Europe |
| OVH SAS (France), data center in Beauharnois, Québec, Canada | Hosting of our North American weather server and of this website | Weather, radar and alert requests for places in the United States (including coordinates, not stored); area cells for notifications, without any device or person attached; requests to this website |
| Apple Inc., Google LLC (USA) | Push delivery, app store purchases, place names | Push token, subscription status; coordinates when your device looks up a place name |
| Atlassian (Jira Service Management), data stored in the European Union | Support tickets | Support messages (section 2.1) |
We disclose information to authorities only where the law requires it.
6. Where information is processed
Your device registration, dog profile, walks, notification settings and subscription status are stored on our main server in Germany. Weather, radar and official alerts for places in the United States come from our weather server in Canada. So that it can tell whether your subscription includes Premium, our server in Germany issues a short-lived access key that contains only a pseudonym and whether your subscription includes Premium — no device identifier, purchase receipt or location. For notifications, our server in Germany sends our North American weather server only a list of area cells, without any device or person attached, and receives the rain and alert situation for each cell. If you check the weather for a place in Europe, that request is answered by our server in Germany.
Our company is based in Germany, and our service providers (section 5) operate in the United States, Canada and the European Union. Your information may therefore be processed outside your state or country, where it may be accessible to courts, law enforcement and national security authorities under the laws of that country.
7. How long we keep information
| Information | Retention |
|---|---|
| Precise location | Not stored and not logged by our servers. |
| Device registration | Deleted after 180 days without the app contacting our server. The app checks in on every launch. |
| Area cell, push token, notification settings | Deleted immediately when you tap “Unsubscribe”; otherwise together with the device registration. |
| Dog profile and walks | Deleted immediately at a tap in the app; otherwise together with the device registration — if notifications are on, we remind you 30 days before. |
| Subscription group membership | Until the member is removed, leaves, or the subscription ends. A name you give a member is not stored by us at all — it stays in your app. |
| Invitation code | Valid for 7 days, redeemable once; kept only as a check value and gone once redeemed. |
| Hash of the IP address for the registration limit | Held in memory, discarded after one hour; the key it was made with is deleted after one hour as well. |
| Feedback on our rain and weather calls, including an optional area cell | Deleted together with the device registration. |
| Record of your consent | As long as your installation exists and three years after that. It carries no device identifier, so once the installation is gone it is a number with no device behind it. |
| Support messages | We generally retain support communications for 24 months after a support ticket is closed. We may retain particular records for longer where necessary to comply with law or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. |
8. Your choices
- Location: withdraw your consent in the app's settings under Location, or revoke location access in your device settings, at any time.
- Notifications: “Unsubscribe” in the app deletes the notification record immediately. You can also turn notifications off in your device settings.
- Your data: “Export my data” in the app's settings gives you everything stored for your installation as a machine-readable file. “Delete everything” removes it — immediately, without an email exchange.
- Uninstalling is enough, too: the server-side registration then expires on its own.
9. Children
PawWeather is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
10. Security
Connections are encrypted in transit. Your dog's name is stored encrypted and the installation identifier only as a hash. There are no accounts and no passwords that could leak. Encryption protects against a lost copy of the database, not against someone taking over our server — our real protection is how little we keep. If a security incident puts your information at risk, we will notify you and the authorities as the law requires.
11. Your rights in the United States
Depending on where you live, the privacy law of your state may give you specific rights. We extend the rights below to all users in the United States, whether or not such a law applies to you. This section is also our notice at collection for California.
11.1 Notice at collection
| Category | Examples | Source | Purpose | Disclosed to | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Hashed installation identifier, push token, IP address | Your device | Security, notifications, service improvement (aggregated) | Cloudflare, hosting providers, Apple/Google | Section 7 |
| Sensitive personal information: precise geolocation | Latitude and longitude of a weather request | Your device, with your consent | Weather and place name for your location | Cloudflare, hosting providers, Apple/Google (place name) | Not stored |
| Commercial information | Subscription status, subscription group membership | Apple, Google; you | Premium, sharing, service improvement (aggregated) | Hosting providers | Section 7 |
| Information about your dog | Dog's name (encrypted), breed, size, sensitivity switches, walks | You | Walk traffic light, reminders, service improvement (aggregated) | Hosting providers | Section 7 |
| Communications | Support messages | You | Support | Atlassian | Section 7 |
We have not sold or shared personal information in the past 12 months, and we do not use it for targeted advertising. We use sensitive personal information only as described in section 4, so there is nothing to limit.
11.2 Your rights
- Know and access the personal information we hold about you, including in a portable format.
- Delete your personal information.
- Correct inaccurate personal information.
- Consent: we process precise geolocation only after you agree in the app and allow location access, and you can withdraw either at any time.
- Opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising and profiling — none of which we do.
How to use them: “Export my data” and “Delete everything” in the app's settings work immediately. You can also email [email protected]. Because there is no account, the installation on your device is what identifies your data; we may ask you to send the request from the app so we can match it. We respond within 45 days.
Authorized agents may make a request on your behalf; we may ask for proof of the authorization.
Appeal: if we decline your request, reply to our decision to appeal. If you disagree with the outcome, you may contact the attorney general of your state.
No discrimination: using your rights does not change the price or quality of the service.
California residents: we do not disclose personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Nevada residents: we do not sell covered information.
12. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control
We do not track you across other websites or apps. Because we do not sell or share personal information, a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal does not change how we process your data — there is nothing to opt out of.
13. This website
These pages contain no scripts, no third-party fonts, no tracking pixels and no cookies. Visiting them causes only the technical request data described in section 2.2.
14. Changes to this policy
If we add features that process more information, we update this policy before they go live and change the effective date above. Earlier versions are available on request.
15. Contact
MDDX Digital Solutions UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Eichholzstraße 20a, 45475 Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany · [email protected]