Privacy Policy

Effective date: 14 September 2026 · Last updated: 14 October 2026

This document is available in several languages. The English version is the authoritative one.

This policy explains what TailTag collects, why, who sees it, and what you can do about it. TailTag exists for a moment when somebody is frightened and in a hurry, so we have tried to write it so it can be read quickly and still be true.

1. Who we are

TailTag is operated by TailBook d.o.o., registered in Montenegro, at Trg Sunca br. 4, 85310 Budva.

• Privacy questions and requests: tailtag.me@gmail.com
• In-product: the Questions and help button in the footer

We are the data controller for the personal data described here. We have not appointed a formal Data Protection Officer; the contact above handles all privacy matters.

2. Two products, kept apart

TailTag and TailBook are two products of the same company, and we are the data controller for both. They are separate services.

TailTag has its own accounts, its own database and its own storage for photographs. What you add to TailTag - your account, your animal, its photographs - is kept in TailTag. It is not copied into TailBook and it is not visible there.

If you use both products you have two accounts, even when they carry the same email address. Each product knows only the account you created in it. Changing or deleting one does not change or delete the other.

What the two products share is what stands behind them: the company, the people who run the service, and the service providers named in section 9.

There are two crossing points.

The first happens by itself, and only reads. While a search is open, TailTag reads the pages TailBook publishes about street animals - the same pages anybody can open without an account - so that a volunteer photographing a cat on a street three days from now can turn into a possible match for you.

To ask, TailTag sends TailBook a place, a distance and a species: where your animal went missing, how far around it to look, and whether it is a cat or a dog. It does not send your animal's name, its photographs, its description or anything about you. Nothing about your animal is published in TailBook by this, and nobody in TailBook is told that you are looking.

The second happens only when you choose it. When a possible match is a street animal recorded in TailBook, you can write to the people who answer for that record. If you do, TailTag sends TailBook:

• your first name;
• the message you wrote;
• the address of your public search page;
• a contact detail, only if you typed one into that message;
• the language you wrote in, and a reference that lets TailBook refuse further messages from the same sender without knowing who the sender is.

It does not send your email address, your surname, your account, or anything about your animal beyond what your search page already shows to anybody. The message is shown to whoever recorded the street animal and whoever looks after it now, and - if nobody opens it within two days, or if it is reported - to our team. It is not shown to the other people who follow that animal, and it does not appear on any public page.

An answer comes back the same way: the words, the first name of the person answering, and a contact detail only if they chose to type one.

3. What we collect

From you, about you

• Account details: name, email address, and password - stored only as a secure hash. We never see your actual password.
• Anything you send us through support.

From you, about your animal

• Profile: name, species, description, distinguishing features, photographs.
• Microchip number, if you choose to add one.
• When a search is open: roughly where and when the animal went missing, the photographs you chose to make public, a reward if you offer one, and a contact route you choose.

From people who found an animal

Anyone can report seeing an animal without an account. We then hold what they wrote, any photograph they attached, the place and time they gave, and a contact detail if they chose to leave one. If you are that person: what you write reaches the person looking for that animal, and nothing else about you does.

Automatically

• Technical data needed to run and secure the service - IP address, device and browser type, session information.
• Usage data - which pages and features are used - so we can see what works.

How visits are counted. We count visits ourselves: no cookies are used for it, nothing is stored on your device, and no outside analytics service is involved. To tell one visitor from another within a single day we compute a short code from your IP address and browser type, with a key that is made at random for that day and deleted the day after. The IP address itself is not stored for this, the code cannot be turned back into it, and the codes are deleted together with the key - so we cannot recognise the same visitor on another day, and a code is never connected to an account. What we keep is numbers: how many pages were opened and by how many visitors, which kinds of page, which site a visitor came from, whether it was a phone or a computer, and whether the visitor was signed in.

4. The microchip number

A chip number identifies an animal in national registries, and in the wrong hands it is a way to claim an animal that is not yours.

We never show a chip number to anybody. It is not on the public search page, not in a poster, not in the API's public responses. It is used for exactly one thing: when somebody types a chip number into «check by chip», we compare it and answer whether that animal is being looked for. The number itself is never returned.

5. What becomes public, and when

An animal's profile is private by default. It is shown to you and to nobody who simply asks for it, signed in or not. The place you gave for where the animal lives is never shown to anybody else.

A code on a collar opens a page for whoever reads it, if you printed a card or attached a tag. That page shows the animal's name, one photograph, its species, sex, age and colours, and a way to write to you. Nothing else.

Turning on a search publishes one page, containing only what section 4 of the TailTag Terms lists: the animal, the photographs you picked, roughly where and when, a reward if offered, and the animal's permanent code. Your address, your email and the chip number are not on it.

The place you give is the place the animal was lost, not where you live. Please do not enter your home address. If the animal went missing at your door, a nearby street or landmark helps the same people and tells strangers less about you.

Ending a search stops the page being public. Copies already made by other people - screenshots, printed posters, chat messages - are outside our control.

A post about your search on our own pages is published only if you allow it: a box on the form that turns a search on, and on the animal's page while the search is open. The post carries what the search page already shows - the animal's name, the photographs you picked, roughly where and when - and the address of the page. It does not name you. You can take the permission back at any time, and it ends with the search: no new post is made after that. A post already published stays on the social network it was published on, under that network's own terms, until we take it down - which we do when you ask through the Questions and help button.

Where a search is, as far as anybody else can tell. The place you give is often your home, so the public page shows it rounded to about a kilometre. Everything a stranger can ask about where a search is - which searches are near them, how far one is - is answered from that rounded place and never from the one you typed. Asking again, or from somewhere else, tells them nothing the page does not.

6. Comparing photographs

While a search is open, TailTag compares the animal with animals that people report to TailTag as found, and with street animals recorded in TailBook (section 2). The comparison uses species, colour, sex, size, features, place and time, and the photographs, turned into a numerical representation, where TailTag holds both of them. A street animal recorded in TailBook is compared by its description, not by its photograph.

Two things about this:

• It produces suggestions, for a person to judge. Nothing is merged, nothing is decided, no record changes on its own. Under Article 22 of the GDPR this is not automated decision-making producing legal or similarly significant effects: the result is a list you look at, and the decision is yours.
• The comparison is replaceable and may run on a service we operate. If that ever means sending a photograph to a third-party processor, we will name that processor here before it happens.

7. Why we may use your data, and our legal bases

• To provide the service (contract): your account, your animal's profile, the public search page you turn on, delivering messages from finders to you, and passing on a message you chose to write to whoever recorded a street animal.
• Your consent: things you opt into - adding a chip number, adding a place, making photographs public, a post about your search on our own social media pages, notifications about animals lost near you. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Our legitimate interests: keeping the service secure, preventing fraud and the extortion of people who have lost an animal, and improving TailTag - weighed against your rights, and you can object.
• Legal obligations: where the law requires us to keep or disclose information.

8. Notifications about animals lost near you

If you choose to be told when an animal goes missing near you, we store an area you set yourself - a point and a radius you choose - and use it only to decide whether to tell you about a search.

We do not derive this from your location history, and we do not track where you go. It is off unless you turn it on, it can be turned off in one place, and turning it off deletes the area.

Notifications on a device. If you turn notifications on in a browser, we store the address that browser gives us for the purpose, so that we can send them there. A notification says what happened and about which animal; what a person wrote to you is read inside TailTag, not on a locked screen. It travels through the notification service of the browser's maker (such as Apple, Google or Mozilla), encrypted so that the service cannot read it. Turning notifications off removes the address.

9. Who sees your data

We do not sell personal data - ever.

• Anybody, on a search page you turned on: only what section 5 describes.
• The person looking for an animal, if you are a finder: what you wrote and the contact detail you chose to leave.
• The people who answer for a street animal in TailBook, if you write to them: what section 2 lists, and nothing else.
• The owner who wrote to you, if you answer such a message in TailBook: your first name, your answer, and the contact detail you chose to leave.
• Service providers (processors) who run the platform on our instructions, under contractual data-protection safeguards: Railway (hosting, database and media storage, European region), Cloudflare (a backup copy of the database and the photographs, kept outside Railway) and Resend (transactional email).
• Google Analytics, only if you allow analytics cookies in the cookie notice. Until you do, it is not loaded at all. We use no advertising trackers.
• Authorities, where we are legally required to disclose - for example a valid legal request, or to help address suspected cruelty, fraud or extortion.

10. International transfers

TailTag is operated from Montenegro and used by people in the EU/EEA, the UK and beyond. Where personal data crosses borders we rely on recognised safeguards, including the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or their UK equivalent, and technical measures such as encryption. On request we will describe the safeguards in more detail.

11. How long we keep things

• Your account and your animals' profiles: while the account is active, or until you delete them.
• A closed search: the public page stops being public immediately. The record of the search stays on the animal's history, because it is part of what happened to that animal.
• A search that keeps looking: up to 120 days from the day it opened, after which the automatic comparison stops. The search itself stays until you close it.
• Messages from finders: with the animal, until you or we delete the animal.
• Messages you wrote to whoever recorded a street animal, and their answers: with the animal you were looking for, until you or we delete it. When you delete the animal, or your account, the message is deleted from TailTag at once and TailBook is told to delete its copy. One exception: a message that was reported as not from the animal's owner is kept until our team has looked at it.
• An animal you delete: its profile, its searches, the messages sent about it and its photographs are removed from the service when you delete it. Backup copies kept for recovering from a disaster follow: the photographs are removed from them within two days, and the record of the animal within 14 days, when the last backup made before the deletion is itself replaced.
• Technical and security logs: generally up to 12 months.

When you delete your account we delete or anonymise your personal data, except what we must keep by law or to resolve a dispute.

12. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can contact us and we will answer within the time the law requires - usually one month under the GDPR.

In the EU/EEA or the UK, you have the right to access your data and get a copy, correct it, erase it in the cases the law allows, restrict processing while a concern is resolved, port it to another service, object to processing based on our legitimate interests, withdraw consent at any time without affecting what already happened, and complain to a data-protection authority. In Montenegro that is the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (AZLP); in the EU/UK you may also contact your local authority. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

In California (CCPA/CPRA), you have the right to know what we collect and why, to a copy, to correction, to deletion, and to limit the use of sensitive information. We do not "sell" or "share" personal information as those terms are defined, and we will never discriminate against you for exercising a right.

To exercise a right, email tailtag.me@gmail.com from the address on your account and tell us what you would like to do. We may ask a question to confirm it is really you.

13. How we protect your data

• Encryption in transit for everything you send us.
• Restricted access - only people who need data to run the service can reach it.
• Regular backups, including off-site copies.
• Ongoing monitoring and prompt security updates.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your rights we will notify the relevant authority within 72 hours and, where the risk is high, tell you directly.

14. Children

TailTag is for people aged 16 and over. If you are under 16, please use it with a parent or guardian. If you believe a child has given us personal data without appropriate consent, contact us and we will remove it promptly.

15. Changes

As TailTag grows we may update this policy. For significant changes we will give notice in the product and, where appropriate, by email before they take effect. Minor updates are published here with a new date.

16. Contact

• Email: tailtag.me@gmail.com
• In-product: the Questions and help button in the footer

Thank you for reading this far - and for giving your animal a way home. 🐾