BarkMatch Privacy Policy -- Rescues

Effective date: July 23, 2026

Last updated: July 23, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how BarkMatch ("we," "us," "BarkMatch") collects, uses, shares, and protects information related to your organization's use of our website and matching platform (the "Service") as a Rescue.

1. What we collect

From you (the Rescue): We collect account and organization information, and records of your activity on the platform, including searches, filters applied and saved, favorited Adopter profiles, and outreach sent through the "Suggest a Dog" feature.

From your veterinarian, as part of applying to become an approved Rescue: you provide your veterinarian's email address. We send that veterinarian a verification form directly (hosted by a third-party form provider, Jotform), so the veterinarian -- not you -- independently confirms information used in our approval decision. We do not receive or store the contents of that form ourselves; it is hosted and retained by Jotform, subject to Jotform's own terms.

From anyone submitting a report about your organization: if someone reports a concern about your organization using the reporting link on our site (also hosted via Jotform), that report may include a description of the concern and supporting materials such as screenshots. We do not receive or store the contents of that form ourselves either; it is hosted by Jotform, and we review reports through Jotform's platform.

2. How we use this information

• To evaluate your application, including independent veterinarian confirmation, before granting account access
• To allow you to search Adopter profiles and reach out via the "Suggest a Dog" feature
• To notify you of your own application status
• To send you a weekly digest summarizing new Adopter signups (you may opt out at any time from your dashboard)
• To investigate reports of concerning conduct and to suspend or terminate access where warranted
• To maintain the security and integrity of the Service

3. How this information is shared

When you use "Suggest a Dog" to reach out to an Adopter, we share your organization's contact information (email and website) with that specific Adopter, along with the dog listing link and/or message you submitted, so the Adopter can choose to reach out to you directly. This is the only circumstance in which your information is shared with an Adopter.

We do not sell your information to third parties for advertising or marketing purposes.

We do not share your information with any party outside of the purposes described above, except: (a) as required by law, (b) to protect the safety of any person, or (c) with the service providers listed in Section 6 below, under obligations to protect that information.

4. Your choices and rights

• You can opt out of the weekly digest email at any time from your dashboard; every digest includes an unsubscribe mechanism and our physical mailing address.
• You may contact us at barkmatch@outlook.com with questions about your data.

5. Data retention

Application materials, including veterinarian verification records held by our form provider, are retained for up to 2 years following a decision on your application, after which they may be deleted.

6. Service providers

We use the following third-party service providers, each of which processes certain information as described:

• Supabase -- database, account authentication, and backend hosting for account and application data.
• Vercel -- hosts and serves the website, and runs the scheduled weekly digest email job.
• Resend -- sends transactional and notification emails described in this policy (account confirmation, password reset, application status updates, Suggest a Dog notifications, and the weekly digest).
• Jotform -- hosts the veterinarian verification form and the report-a-concern form; BarkMatch does not itself store the contents of submissions to these forms.

7. Security

We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards to protect information submitted through the Service, including requiring independent veterinarian confirmation before any account is activated. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Cookies and tracking

We do not currently use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies/scripts on the Service.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by an updated "Last updated" date above.

10. Contact us

Questions about this policy can be sent to barkmatch@outlook.com.