Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This policy describes how FindLostPets.com (“FindLostPets,” “we,” or “us”) handles information when you start a private recovery search, create or respond to a public lost, found, or sighting report, receive Pet Watch alerts, follow a pet’s search for updates, browse listings from shelters and public agencies, use an account, exchange messages, or send feedback.

2. Information we collect

Information you provide

• Pet photos, names, descriptions, species, sex, markings, last-seen or found details, and other recovery clues.
• Locations and dates associated with a private search or report. A public report may show an approximate area rather than your precise address.
• Your name, email address, phone number, account information, communication consents, messages, and match decisions.
• The general area you choose when requesting Pet Watch alerts. An account is not required to receive these alerts.
• Your email address when you follow a published lost-pet report posted on FindLostPets, to get updates about that pet. An account is not required to follow.
• Feedback, support details, and any information you include in a submission to us.
• If you use the partner inquiry form on LostPets.AI, your name, organization, email address and message. Inquiries from our former FindLostPets.com contact form may also include a city or area. We send them by email to our team, use them only to respond to and follow up on your inquiry, and keep a copy in our email records.

Information collected automatically

• Browser and device details, IP address, request logs, timestamps, and security or diagnostic events.
• Basic product activity, such as pages and features used, report interactions, and notification delivery activity.
• Cookies and local storage used for sessions, private recovery access, preferences, security, and core functionality.
• When site analytics is on, a one-word note of how you arrived: paid, organic, share, or direct. It is kept in session storage for that browser tab only, and we use it only to count visits and search steps.

Information from other organizations

Some listings we show come from other organizations rather than from our users. Depending on the area, these may include animal shelters listed on RescueGroups.org, city and county open-data feeds, King County Regional Animal Services, San José Animal Care & Services, and other shelter feeds. Each listing shows where it came from. We show RescueGroups.org listings publicly only from shelters we have checked are open-admission or municipal; rescue adoption listings are not shown publicly, but we may compare them privately with a lost-pet search to suggest possible matches.

3. Private searches and public reports

Starting a recovery search does not by itself create a public pet report. The search details and original private photo remain non-public unless you choose to create a public report.

Private lost-pet searches are deleted automatically when they go unused: after 30 days, or after 90 days once the search has started looking for matches. A search left almost empty may be deleted after 72 hours. Changing a search restarts the clock, and opening it sometimes does too. While match alerts are on for a search, it stays open while you're looking, and we check in with you every six months. If we have a confirmed email for a quiet search, we email you first, and the search is removed about a week later unless you choose to keep it.

If a private lost-pet search and a private found-pet search look like the same pet, we tell each person only that a possible match is nearby. Nothing about you is shared unless you choose: the finder's photo, the day the pet was found and, if the finder chooses, the area to about the block go to the owner only when the finder sends a message, and the owner's photo goes to the finder only if the owner chooses. Messages go through us, and we never share your name, email or phone number. You can turn this off for a search. These possible matches and their messages are deleted with either search.

Private found-pet searches are deleted after your last change: after 72 hours if they have no place or time yet, after 30 days if no results have been shown yet, and after 90 days once results have been shown.

Once a lost-pet search is closed, for example because your pet is home or the search has ended, it is deleted 90 days later. If we do not know when an older search closed, the 90 days count from its last update. If you published a lost-pet report from your search, we keep the search, open or closed, while that report is active. When any search is deleted, its private photos are deleted too.

When a closed lost-pet search is deleted automatically after 90 days, we keep one de-identified outcome record to measure how well matching works. It holds only: the type of pet, how the search ended, roughly how long it took and whether that timing is estimated, the month it closed, whether a lead you confirmed was a report or a shelter listing, which source that lead came from and which version of our matching found it, whether the search was linked to a report, if you told us what helped, the kinds of help you chose and the source of any lead you picked, and, if you published a verified report, its country and state or region. It holds no names, contact details, addresses or places, photos, written text, or IDs that link it to you or your search.

When your pet is home, we may ask what helped. Your answer is optional and is used only to count what works. We never show your answer on a public page or share it; we may share overall counts. It is kept with your search, or with your report if you closed the report from its own page, and is deleted with it, except the anonymous tally in the outcome record above.

When you choose to publish and complete any required verification, public report information may include the pet photo, description, report type, approximate location, relevant dates, and recovery status. Your email address and phone number are not displayed on the public report.

Reports published from October 2026 onward may also be shown, with the same public details, in FindLostPets boxes that other websites add to their pages. Contact details are never shown there.

Anything you intentionally place in a public description can be seen and reshared by others. Do not include a home address, access code, full microchip number, or other sensitive information in public text.

4. How we use information

• Provide, verify, publish, update, and manage pet reports and recovery searches.
• Compare photos and report details, rank possible matches, and help people review relevant leads.
• Enable protected messaging and contact-sharing choices between people connected to reports.
• Send verification, security, report, message, and match-related communications.
• Send Pet Watch alerts you request when a missing pet is newly reported near your selected area.
• Send updates about a lost pet you follow, such as a helpful sighting or the end of the search.
• We estimate your city from your connection to show pets reported nearby. We don’t save it.
• If you choose a different area or use your device’s location, we round it to about 1 km and use it only to show that area. So the homepage can show it again next time, your browser keeps a small cookie on this device for up to 180 days with only the city or town, state or province, country and a point rounded to about 11 km. Choosing “Use my approximate area” removes it. We don’t save the area on our servers. If you choose “See all,” it becomes an Explore search for that area, like any other Explore search.
• Prevent abuse, moderate content, troubleshoot problems, measure reliability, and improve the service.
• Comply with law and protect users, animals, the public, and the service.

5. Automated matching and photo processing

We use automated systems to extract pet-related attributes and technical signals from photos and compare them with report details such as species, appearance, location, and timing. These systems produce possible matches for people to review; they do not establish identity, ownership, or custody of a pet.

Photos and related data may be processed by service providers that host files or provide image analysis and infrastructure. Processing a private photo does not make it public.

6. When we share information

We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We may disclose information:

• To the public when you choose to publish a report.
• To another user when you send a message, mutually confirm a match, authorize contact sharing, or otherwise use a feature that clearly shares information.
• To vendors that provide hosting, storage, databases, authentication, maps, image processing, email, SMS, security, and operational support under their applicable agreements.
• When reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, investigate abuse, or protect safety and rights.
• As part of a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, or transfer of the service, subject to appropriate notice and protections.

We also link to other services, such as Petco Love Lost, to help widen a search. Following that link sends Petco Love Lost nothing from us about you or your pet.

7. Retention and deletion

We retain information for as long as reasonably needed to provide and secure the service, maintain reports, deliver requested alerts, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, and meet legal obligations. Retention varies by data type and report status. Private searches are deleted on the schedule in section 3.

• Published reports are not deleted on a schedule. A lost-pet report is paused automatically after its active period, and you can reopen it. A sighting report closes automatically after 7 days. A closed report’s page stays available, marked with its status, until you or we remove it.
• A report you start but never confirm or publish is closed 30 days after it was created, and the photo copies made for publishing are deleted.
• Pet Watch requests that are never confirmed are deleted about a week after the confirmation link expires. Confirmed Pet Watch areas are kept while they are active or paused. When you remove an area or unsubscribe, the area’s place is erased 30 days later. Your email address stays on the unsubscribed record.
• A follow ends when you stop following or when the search closes or is paused. Reopening a search does not restart follows. Follow records, including requests that were never confirmed, are kept with the report and are deleted if the report is deleted.
• Attributes and technical signals we derive from a photo are stored with the search, report, or listing the photo belongs to, and are deleted with it. For a private search, that happens when the search is deleted. Anonymous totals that cannot be linked to a photo or a person may be kept.

You can delete an active private recovery search through the product where that control is available. You may also edit, archive, resolve, or request deletion of reports you control. Deletion may not immediately remove information from backups, security logs, audit records, messages retained by another participant, or records we must keep for legal or safety reasons.

8. Your choices

• Choose whether to create a public report from a private recovery search.
• Review and update report details, recovery-access permissions, contact-sharing choices, and available communication consents.
• Opt out of optional communications using the controls provided in the message or alert-management link.
• Pause, change the area for, or unsubscribe from Pet Watch alerts using a secure link sent to your email.
• Stop following a pet’s search using the link in any update email, or pause or stop follows from the same secure management link as Pet Watch. Following is a separate choice from Pet Watch.
• Request access, correction, or deletion of personal information through a privacy or data request. Depending on where you live, additional legal rights may apply.

We do not currently respond differently to browser “Do Not Track” signals. Because we do not sell personal information or use it for cross-context behavioral advertising, we do not offer an opt-out for those activities.

9. Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information. No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Protect private recovery links and account credentials, and tell us if you believe someone has accessed your information without permission.

10. Children

FindLostPets is a general-audience service and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact us so we can review and delete it as appropriate.

11. Changes and contact

We may update this policy as the service changes. We will revise the effective date and provide additional notice when appropriate. To ask a privacy question or submit a data request, use our feedback form, choose “Privacy or data request,” and include an email address so we can respond and verify the request. To report a public listing that shows private details or should not be published, use “Report this listing” on that report’s page.