Privacy Policy

Last updated 15 September 2026

The short version. BarqSnif has no account and no server of ours. Your dog's records, photos, audio and everything the AI produces stay on your iPhone — we cannot see them, because there is nowhere for them to go. We do measure anonymous app usage, so we can tell which features are worth improving. That measurement is never linked to you, never used for advertising, and never touches your dog's records.

What we collect

We operate no backend and no user accounts. We never collect, receive or store your personal information or your dog's information.

We use Google Firebase Analytics to understand how the app is used in aggregate, and Firebase Crashlytics to find out when the app has crashed. Together they collect:

A random app instance identifier — generated on your device, tied to the installation rather than to you, and reset if you delete and reinstall the app.
A short list of usage events — that onboarding finished, that the model download finished, which AI feature was used, that the upgrade screen was shown, and that a purchase completed. These carry the name of the feature and nothing else. The full list is in the app's source, and no event can carry free text.
Session information — how long a session lasts and how often the app is launched.
Device and app information — device model, iOS version, app version and language.
Approximate region — derived from the IP address of the request, at country or region level. We do not receive your precise location.
Crash reports — when the app stops unexpectedly: the stack trace, the device model and iOS version, and how long the app had been running. A crash report describes our code failing, not you.

This data carries no name, no email, no account and no advertising identifier. The app does not use the IDFA, does not ask for tracking permission, and is not built with an advertising SDK.

Your dog's health information is never part of this. Symptom descriptions and their photographs, vaccination and medication records, weights, vet visits, behaviour readings and anything you have typed into a note are never included in a usage event, a crash report or any other transmission. They are written to your device and stay there. An event records that the symptom checker was used — never what it was used for, and never what it found.

What stays on your device

Everything you enter or create is written to your iPhone's local storage and never leaves it:

Your dog's profile, photo, breed, age and weight
Health records — vaccinations, medications, care reminders, weight, symptoms
Daily logs — meals, walks, grooming, water, potty and rest
Training progress, logged sessions and any video you record in a camera session
Photos you supply for breed identification, symptom checks, captions or the scrapbook
Saved parks and their visit history

Artificial intelligence

All AI runs on your iPhone. Photographs, audio and questions are processed by a model stored on the device and are never uploaded. The features work with the network switched off.

Downloaded model. On first use you may choose to download an on-device model (roughly 3.7 GB). The download is a file transfer only; nothing about you is sent with the request. You can delete the model at any time in Profile.
Apple Intelligence. Where your device supports it, some text may be generated by Apple's on-device Foundation Models. This also runs locally and is governed by Apple's own privacy terms.
Microphone. Behaviour scans analyse sound live and classify it on the device. Audio is not written to disk and not transmitted.

Permissions we ask for

Camera and Photos — only to supply an image to a feature you have opened.
Microphone — only during an audio behaviour scan.
Location — only within Parks, to find parks near you and estimate walking times. Your precise location goes to Apple's MapKit to answer that request and is never stored or received by us. (Separately, our analytics provider infers an approximate region from your IP address, as described above.)
Notifications — to deliver the reminders you create. Scheduled and delivered entirely by iOS.

Each is requested at the moment it is needed, and every feature that can work without one does.

Third parties

We use no advertising networks and no cross-app trackers. Three outside services are used by the app:

Apple MapKit — to search for and display parks.
Google Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics — anonymous usage measurement and crash reporting, as described above. Governed by Firebase's privacy terms and Google's privacy policy.

Requests to MapKit go to Apple, not to us, and are covered by Apple's privacy policy. We do not sell or share any data with anyone, and no third party receives your dog's records, your photographs or your audio.

Purchases

Subscriptions and the lifetime purchase are handled entirely by Apple's App Store. We never see your payment details. The app receives only a yes-or-no answer about whether a purchase is active.

Children

BarqSnif is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone. The analytics described above are anonymous and cannot identify a user of any age.

Your data, your control

Because your records are local, you control them directly. Profile offers an export of your health records as a PDF, and a delete-everything option that permanently removes all app data from the device. Deleting the app removes everything with it, and resets the anonymous analytics identifier.

The anonymous usage data described above is not tied to an identity, so we have no way to look it up for a particular person — but if you would like us to stop collecting it, or have any question about it, write to us and we will help.

Please note: because there is no server and no backup, deleting the app or losing the device means the data is gone. There is no way for us to recover it.

Changes

If this policy changes, the revised version will be published here with a new date.

Contact

Questions about privacy: support@ilabbs.com