Privacy policy
This explains what Heelwise knows about you, why, and who else can see it.
The short version: we hold what a sitter needs to do the job and what the law needs us to keep for payments. Entry details to your home are treated differently from everything else, and are described in their own section below.
What we hold
Only what the service needs to work.
- Your name, email address and password. The password is stored as a one-way hash and cannot be read back, by us or anybody else.
- Your pets: name, species, breed, age, weight, temperament, feeding routine, medication and vet details. Sitters see all of this when they are booked.
- The address a sitter travels to, and any parking notes.
- Your bookings, the visits within them, the reports and photographs a sitter writes, and the reviews either side leaves.
- Payment records: amounts, dates, and an identifier that points at Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
If you join as a sitter
Joining the sitter waitlist asks for your name, email address and mobile number, and whether you are happy for us to text you. We record that answer with the time you gave it.
We text you only if you ticked the box to say we may, and only about your application and when we open, and you can stop at any time by replying STOP. Your number is not shown to anybody, and your number and your consent to texts are never sold or shared with anybody for their own marketing.
We also note how you found us: which of our sites you joined on and, if you came from an advert or a link, the campaign it belonged to. That is how we learn which of our adverts work.
The profile you build — your services, prices, the area you cover and the days you work — is what pet owners will see once we open. Before you take your first booking a background check is carried out by a screening company; we will explain what it involves and ask for your consent at that point, not before.
If a sitter asks you for a reference
A sitter can give us the name and email address of somebody they have looked after pets for, and ask us to email them for a reference. We use that address only to send the request, one reminder at most, and nothing else. We never add it to a mailing list.
If you write a reference, we show your rating, your words, your pet's name, roughly when the sitter looked after them, and your name as first name and last initial. We keep a coded version of the internet address you sent it from, which cannot be turned back into the address, so we can spot fake references. We never show your email address.
Every request has a link to stop them, for every sitter, and we keep a note of your address so that we can honour it. To have a reference or your address removed, email us.
If you ask to hear when booking opens
If you ask to hear when you can book a sitter, we keep your email to tell you, and use it for nothing else.
Cookies and analytics
Some cookies are needed for the site to work at all: the one that keeps you signed in, and one that protects forms from being submitted by another site on your behalf.
On the page for sitters we set one more, holding a random identifier for a year, so that somebody who visits twice is counted once. It is not linked to your name or to anything you type into the form.
Links in our emails carry a short code, so we can see which email a visit came from. When you're signed in, we note the days you visit and how many pages you open. We use this to see which emails help and who might like a hand finishing their profile, never for advertising.
We use Google Analytics to understand how people use the site: which pages are visited, how visitors arrived (for example, from which advert), the kind of device and browser, and an approximate location. Google Analytics sets its own cookies to do this. It is used to measure the site, not to advertise to you, and it is not linked to any advertising account. You can opt out with Google's browser add-on, or by blocking these cookies in your browser.
Measuring our adverts
We advertise on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). To learn which adverts bring people here, a Meta Pixel on this site tells Meta when you visit a page and when you join the sitter waitlist. Meta can connect that to your Meta account and use it to show and measure adverts. Under California law this counts as "sharing" personal information for advertising.
You can opt out at any time on our Your privacy choices page, linked at the bottom of every page. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal we treat that as opting out, and the pixel does not load.
Recordings of how our pages are used
We use a service called Contentsquare on our home page, our page for sitters and its sign-up form, the page after you sign up, and these policy pages. It records clicks, taps, scrolling, mouse movement and what's on the screen, and makes heatmaps from them. We use them to find what's confusing and fix it, not for advertising.
It doesn't record what you type into our forms. Contentsquare blanks that out in your browser before anything is sent, and hides your name and email wherever a page shows them. Nothing is recorded once you're signed in, or on pages you open from our emails.
Contentsquare also gets the page address, your device, browser and screen size, and your IP address, which it uses to estimate your city and filter out bots and deletes within a few days. It sets its own cookies to tell visits apart, works for us as a service provider, and keeps recordings for up to 13 months.
To opt out, add ?_cs_optout to the end of this page's address and open it, and Contentsquare stops recording in that browser for 13 months. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, recording doesn't start at all.
When something breaks
We use Sentry to find out when the site fails, so we can fix it. When an error happens it receives technical details: what went wrong, on which page, and the kind of browser and device.
For a small share of visits, and for visits where something goes wrong, it also records how the page behaved — clicks, scrolling and page changes — so we can see how the fault came about. These recordings hide everything typed into forms and every piece of text on the page, and do not include images.
Entry details are handled differently
Door codes, alarm codes, key locations and how-to-get-in instructions are the most sensitive information on this service.
They are never included in any page, list or email. A sitter has to ask for them, they are released only during a window around the visit, and every release is recorded with who asked and when.
Our own staff cannot read them through the admin tools. Nobody but the sitter working that visit, during that visit, ever sees them.
Who else sees it
Sitters see what they need to do the work: the pets they are looking after, the address, your notes, and the entry details under the rules above. They do not see your payment details.
A few companies run parts of the service for us, and handle your information only to do that: Amazon Web Services hosts the site and its database and sends our email; Stripe processes payments and holds your card, under its own privacy policy; Google provides Google Analytics; and Sentry receives error reports.
We do not sell your information. The only thing shared with an advertiser is described under "Measuring our adverts" below, and you can opt out of it.
How long we keep it
Bookings, payments and their records are kept for seven years, because tax law requires it.
Entry details are deleted when you delete them, or when you delete your account, whichever comes first.
The audit trail of who opened which entry details is kept for two years, so that if something goes wrong in your home there is a record of who had access.
Sitter waitlist details are kept while you are on the waitlist and after you join. Ask us to remove you and we delete them.
Google Analytics keeps its measurements for no more than 14 months. Sentry keeps error reports and recordings for no more than 90 days. Copies of emails you send us are kept for 30 days in addition to the inbox they are read in.
What you can ask for
A copy of everything we hold about you, correction of anything wrong, or deletion of your account and its contents. Deleting an account removes your pets, addresses and entry details; it cannot remove payment records that tax law requires us to keep.
Ask through your account settings, or by replying to any email we send.
Getting in touch
Reply to any email from us, and a person will read it.