Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

AOW (All Our World) is a social app where animals live in the first person, together with its website all-our-world.com ("AOW", "we" or "us"). AOW is operated by AOW - ALL OUR WORLD (ABN 91 277 297 130), a business registered in Australia and based in Melbourne.

This policy applies to every feature of the AOW app and website. If you open an online store or a physical store on AOW, the information you provide as a merchant is covered by the AOW Merchant Privacy Policy. Other websites you open from AOW (such as an insurer's website) handle your information under their own privacy policies.

If you have any question about this policy or your personal information, write to hello@all-our-world.com.

2. How We Collect and Use Your Information

Below, feature by feature, we explain what information we need and how we use it. Some of it is sensitive personal information (such as ID numbers, location and whereabouts, bank accounts and the content of direct messages): if it were leaked or misused, it could harm your safety or your property. We protect it more strictly and mark it in bold below.

Signing Up and Signing In

To sign up you need to give us a phone number or an email address, which we use to send verification codes, sign you in and help you recover your account. If you sign up with email, you also set a password. Your password is stored encrypted by our sign-in service, and we never see it in plain text. If you sign in with Google, we receive the email address, name and profile photo that Google provides; if you sign in with Apple, we receive the email address Apple provides (if you chose to hide your email, a forwarding address from Apple) and the name you agree to share.

You also choose an account type (pet account or human account) and your region, and for a pet account you enter your pet's name and breed. Your region decides the currency you use and which regional shop you see, and your giving pool follows it by default (see "Check-ins, the giving pool and rewards" below).

The app also reads the "country or region" in your phone's system settings (only that setting, not your location) and records it on your account, to decide which region's giving pool you contribute to by default; if your phone setting changes later, it is recorded again.

When you tick the box to agree to the Terms of Service and this policy, we record which document you agreed to, which version, when, whether it was in the app or on the website, and the network (IP) address and device or browser information at the time, as proof of your agreement. When you sign up, we also record where you signed up (for example, in the app, while ordering on the website, or on the website's sign-in page), to count where people come from.

Real-Name and Pet Identity Checks

To keep accounts genuine and safe, and to stop people impersonating others or claiming rewards more than once, you need to give your legal name, ID type and ID number when you sign up (for a pet account, the owner's). ID numbers are stored encrypted, and even the AOW staff console cannot see them. We only use them to tell whether several accounts belong to the same person (for example, the number of times one ID number can claim a cash reward is limited). Your legal name, ID number and phone number never appear on your profile, and other users cannot see them.

If your pet has a microchip number or a council registration number, you can enter it. If there is neither, after signing up you take three photos of your pet with the camera (front, full body and one distinctive feature), which are sent to Google's AI service to check that they were taken at the time and show the same animal. Anything the AI is not sure about is reviewed by a member of our review team. These photos are kept in private storage that other users cannot see. Please try to photograph only your pet, and keep people and private things at home out of the shot.

A pet account added from a main account uses the main account's real-name details: the main account's ID details and phone number are copied to the pet account.

Your Profile

Your name, profile photo, profile background, species and breed, sex, birthday, region and city, bio and AOW ID are public, so anyone can see them. You can change them all, though some have limits on how often they can be changed (see "Your rights and choices" below).

Posting and Interacting

The posts and questions you publish (photos, videos, text and topics), your comments, your reviews of products and stores, the photos you add to place pages, your live streams and what you say in live rooms can be seen by everyone. We keep what you post and when you posted it. Your likes, saves, comments, shares and follows are also kept, so we can show counts, notify the other person and recommend content to you.

Store reviews and Q&A are public: the reviews, questions and answers you write on a store page in the app or on our website can be seen by everyone, together with your name, profile photo, what you wrote, your photos and when you wrote it; answers written in a store's name show the store's name. Only people who have ordered from a store can review it, so to check this we look at whether you (or your pet account or main account) have paid for a deal at that store or showed up for a booking there; customers who answer questions have all ordered from that store, so their answers are marked "Customer". You can delete your own reviews, questions and answers at any time.

When you add a location to a post, that place (its name and its position on the map) is shown publicly with the post, and anyone who opens the post can see it on a map. Please think twice if it is near your home.

To keep the community safe, AI takes a first look at every new post: we send the post's text, its first image (the cover, for a video) and the author's region to Google's AI service to check whether it clearly breaks the AOW Community Guidelines. Posts that clearly break them are removed automatically, and we tell you, with a short explanation of why; anything the AI is not sure about goes to our team. The AI also checks whether the post has a real animal in it: a post without one is published as usual but is not placed in World.

When you share a post outside AOW, the post gets a preview page on our website, and anyone with the link can see it without signing in: the photos (for a video, only the cover), the text, the author's name, profile photo and AOW ID, the number of likes and comments, and when it was posted. The preview page never shows the location, and we ask search engines not to index it. When the post is deleted, the page goes with it.

For posts you view, the author can see a summary of the audience in the post's insights (for example, which states or provinces viewers are in and what kinds of animal accounts they are), but never who.

Messages: Direct Messages, Group Chats and Calls

So that we can deliver your messages and you can still see your old chats after changing phones or signing in again, the direct messages and group chat messages you send and receive (text, photos, videos, voice messages, locations, contact cards and share cards) are stored on our servers. Messages are protected by encryption both in transit and in storage.

• Only the people in the conversation can see these messages. AOW staff have no way to view direct messages, and we will not look at your direct messages unless the law requires us to.
• If you report a conversation, the staff member handling the report only sees the explanation you write and the screenshots you choose to attach.
• We do not use the content of your messages to recommend content to you or to show ads, and we do not use it to train AI.
• Whether a voice message has been played is recorded on our servers (only who has played which message). The sender cannot see whether you have played it. Voice-to-text happens on your iPhone and is never uploaded to AOW, and the text stays on that phone.
• When a new message arrives, the push notification only includes the sender's name (and the group name, for a group chat) and the first 60 characters of the message (for photos and voice messages, only the type of message), and it reaches your phone through Apple's push notification service. You can turn off message notifications under Settings → System settings → Push notifications, or turn off lock-screen previews in your phone's settings.
• Group names, group announcements, group members and your nickname in a group can be seen by everyone in the group.
• Under Settings → Privacy you can choose who can message you and block people. Until you reply or follow each other, a stranger can only send you one message.
• Voice and video calls are carried in real time by LiveKit. AOW does not record or keep the content of calls.

Conversations with AOW Customer Service or with merchants are not direct messages; see "Support, reports and complaints" below. If you delete your account, the messages you sent are deleted too, so they are no longer in the other person's chat history.

Check-Ins, the Giving Pool and Rewards

Check-ins need a photo of your pet taken with the camera there and then. To confirm it shows a real animal (not a toy, a photo of a screen or someone else's photo), the photo is sent to Google's image recognition and AI services for checking, and a photo that does not pass cannot be used to check in. Your check-in records (which days, and whether a check-in was golden) are used to calculate your streak, rewards and giving pool contributions.

To apply for a cash reward, you first need to complete the real-name and pet identity checks, and rewards are paid after a staff member has reviewed them.

The giving pool is recorded separately for each region. Every amount AOW adds to the pool for you is recorded, and you can see it under My donations & tips. By default, what AOW adds for you goes into the pool for the region set on your account (your "My region"; the country or region set on your phone is not used); if you have changed it in settings, it goes where you chose.

When you open an animal welfare organisation's own donation page from the app and donate there, the money and the details you enter on that page go straight to that organisation. AOW does not receive them, and the organisation handles them under its own privacy policy.

Location and Maps

Once you allow AOW to use your location while you are using the app, we use it to show pet-friendly places and pet friends near you, light up your footprints on the map, add a location to a post, send a location in a chat, use Bump, and plan a route to a place. You can say no, and those features simply will not be able to use your current location.

We keep the city and the state or province you are in (for example, for the "audience regions" summary in post insights), and the places you choose to leave: posts with a location, check-ins on the map (your footprints) and locations you send in chats. We do not keep tracking your movements in the background.

By default, only you can see your footprints. You can let others see them under Settings → Privacy, and the locations others see are only accurate to about 100 metres. The heat map counts how many people were in each grid square of about 400 metres in the last 24 hours, and never shows who.

To show maps, search for places and plan routes, we send the map area you are looking at, what you search for, and the start and end of a route to our map providers (see the table of providers below).

When you tap "Use My Location" on the physical stores pages of our website (to find stores or parks nearby), your browser only sends AOW a rough location (two decimal places, within about 1 km); when you look for stores "Within 1 km" (including choosing 1 km in the filters), it is accurate to about 100 metres (three decimal places) and used only for that search. We use it to find stores and parks nearby; how far each store or park is from you is calculated in your browser using your exact location. AOW only uses these locations for that one search and does not keep them; your exact location itself is only kept in that tab of your own browser (it stops being used after 30 minutes and is gone once you close the tab), and is never sent to AOW. For parks, we look them up on OpenStreetMap using the rough location with two decimal places; when OpenStreetMap cannot be reached or finds none nearby, we look them up on Google Maps with the same rough location (or possibly Amap in mainland China). The parks found are kept on our server for a while (up to 7 days) under that rough location, so that the next search nearby can use them; only the parks are kept, never who searched.

Health Records and Insurance

Your pet's blood type, vaccinations, microchip and registration numbers, health reports and lab results, the vet bills you log, and the emergency contacts you add in Health records can only be seen by you. They are stored in your account and stay there when you change phones. Emergency contacts are other people's names and contact details, so please ask them first.

When you use AI to read a lab result, the image or PDF of the report (and your pet's breed) is sent to Google's AI service, and the reading is saved in your health records. The AI reading is for reference only and does not replace a vet's diagnosis. If the report shows your name or phone number, you can cover them before uploading.

The policies you record under My policies (insurer, plan and premium) can be seen only by you and the AOW team members who look after insurance data, to count and improve the insurance page.

AOW does not sell insurance. When you tap "Visit the insurer's website", we record which plan you tapped, which insurer it is and the price shown on the page. The link carries a "from AOW" tag, which only shows that you came from AOW. We never give your details or your pet's details to insurers, and we never charge insurers based on whether you buy. Spots marked "Ad" on the insurance page are paid placements by insurers (AOW charges an advertising fee by impressions or by the month) and do not affect the order of the regular list.

Shopping

When you order in the shop, we need the recipient's name, delivery address and phone number (in the App and on the website, you enter them, or pick an address you saved, before you pay; shipping is calculated from this address), along with what you bought, the price and any note to the merchant. We use these to create the order, pass it to the merchant for delivery and handle after-sales service.

The note and photos you add when ordering (for online store orders and physical store deals; notes of up to 200 characters and up to 3 photos): you and the people at that store who handle orders (and, for deals, bookings) can see them, and so can AOW staff with the relevant permission (for example, when handling after-sales requests and complaints). The photos are kept in AOW's private storage, are only handed out after our server checks permissions, and are kept with the record of that order.

The delivery addresses you save (one shared list for the App and the website) are stored on AOW's servers. Only you can see them, and they are only used when you order. You can edit or delete them at any time (under "Delivery addresses" in the App, or when you order on the website), and they are deleted along with your account.

Card payments (including Apple Pay and Google Pay offered by Stripe) are handled by Stripe, and your card number never passes through AOW. You can also pay with the balance in your AOW wallet.

Once the merchant has shipped your order, we use the tracking number and carrier to check the delivery progress with 17TRACK, and show it to you and the merchant. For carriers that can only be tracked with the last four digits of the recipient's phone number (such as SF Express, ZTO and JD), we also give 17TRACK the last four digits of the delivery phone number; never the full number, name or address.

When a merchant prints an Australia Post label in AOW (after connecting their own MyPost Business account), we give the recipient's name, address and phone number (or email address, if there is no phone number), together with the sender's details and the parcel's weight and size, to our label provider Shippo, which creates the label with Australia Post. Labels are kept in AOW's private storage and deleted after 90 days.

The kind of request you choose and the reason, explanation, refund amount, photos and chat with the merchant in an after-sales request can be seen by you and by the people at that store who handle orders. If you ask AOW to step in or complain about the store, or AOW takes over an "other after-sales service" request automatically because the store did not choose a result within 48 hours, the staff member handling the complaint will see them too, and the store can see what you write in the complaint, the evidence you upload and AOW's decision.

Store Bookings, Deals, Pet Breeding and Adoption

When you book a store through AOW, we pass the contact details you leave, how many pets are coming, the booking time and your message to the store (any note and photos you added when buying the deal also come with the booking), and we notify you when the booking changes.

When you buy a store deal, you need to enter a contact name and phone number for redeeming it in store. The store can see the full name and phone number you enter, along with your name on AOW, the voucher code and the order number, so that it can check and redeem your voucher when you arrive and contact you. When you refund a deal voucher, the store can also see the reason you choose (and anything you write). For a hotel or pet boarding deal, the store can also see the check-in and check-out dates and the number of rooms or pets you choose (and, for a hotel, the number of guests), so that it can confirm the order and look after you; any explanation the store writes when it confirms or rejects the order, the result of a date change and a "No-Show" mark are shown in your order. For a co-selling deal (the deal page says "Provided by"), both the merchant that provides the deal and the store where you use the voucher can see this information, and the note and photos you add when ordering.

When you tap "After-sales Service" on a deal voucher within 3 days of redemption, the kind of problem you choose ("What happened?"), your chat with the store, and the reason, refund amount and photos you give can be seen by you and by the people at that store who handle orders; if you tap "Complain About Store", if you or the store asks AOW to step in, or if AOW takes over automatically because the store did not close the case within 48 hours, the staff member handling the complaint will see them too, and the store can see what you write in the complaint, the evidence you upload and AOW's decision. For a co-selling deal, both the merchant that provides the deal and the store can see these and reply.

When one payment is split into several orders (for example, at one store you buy the store's own deal and a co-selling deal together), each order has its own receipt, and the seller on each is the store where you bought: you can see these receipts once signed in, and so can that store; the merchant that provides a co-selling deal can see the order it provided (and the information described above that it needs for that order), but not the receipts.

Pet breeding and adoption orders are also placed with a store. At handover, the breeder enters the animal's microchip number and vaccination dates in the order and uploads the vaccination certificate, breeding certificate and similar documents, and you can see them there.

Card payments to stores are handled by Stripe, and your card number never passes through AOW.

Store Coupons

When you claim and use coupons, we record which store's coupon you claimed, when and how you got it (claimed on a store page, new customers only, sent by the merchant in Buyer questions, or through a link or QR code), which order you used it on and how much it took off, and whether it was given back on a refund. To decide whether you are a new customer of a store, we check whether your account, or any account with the same phone number or email address as yours (or a pet account and its main account), has paid at that store. To spot improper practices such as using several accounts to claim new-customer coupons, or refunding after using coupons, AOW staff with the relevant permission can see these records. Merchants can see totals for their own coupons, such as how many were claimed and used and how many new customers they brought, as well as which coupon was used on each order and how much it took off; when a merchant sends you a coupon in Buyer questions, the merchant knows it was sent to you.

Cash vouchers: when a merchant sends you cash vouchers, they enter your phone number, email address or AOW ID. AOW only uses it to identify you and give you the vouchers: if you already have an AOW account, we send you an AOW notice; whether or not you have signed up, the merchant is only ever told "sent", so they cannot tell whether you have an AOW account, and the phone numbers and email addresses they see in the merchant centre are masked. If you have not signed up yet, you can still get the vouchers by signing up with the same phone number or email address within the claim period; AOW never sends a text message or an email to that phone number or email address, and never uses it for anything else. The phone number, email address and AOW ID the merchant entered are kept until the voucher's claim period ends (at most 90 days) and deleted within an hour after that; if the merchant deletes the voucher or stops issuing it, they are deleted immediately. Only counts such as how many were sent and claimed are kept.

Paw Coins, Tips, Boosts and Withdrawals

Paw Coins are bought through Apple In-App Purchase. Apple handles the payment; we only receive the purchase receipt, which we use to confirm what you bought and add the coins to your account.

Every time you spend Paw Coins on a tip, a live gift, a boost, a make-up check-in card, popularity in the Pet Vote, a poster or a motion video for your pet's animated avatar, and every tip or gift you receive, is recorded with an order number, and you can find it in your wallet and your Coin history. The people you tip, and the people whose posts you boost, can see that it was you.

When you withdraw, your bank account and identity check are handled by Stripe on its own pages. AOW only keeps your Stripe account ID, your bank's name and the last four digits of the account number.

Support, Reports and Complaints

Your conversations with AOW Customer Service and the screenshots you send are stored on our servers so we can resolve your issue.

Your conversations with a merchant in the app or on the website can be seen by you and that store. To handle complaints and after-sales disputes and to keep trading safe, AOW staff with the relevant permission can also view them.

Screenshots often include things like order numbers and email addresses, so you may want to cover anything that is not needed before you send them.

The reports and complaints you submit (reason, explanation, screenshots and photos) go to the staff who handle them, and we tell you the outcome. Reports are anonymous: the person you report cannot see who reported them. Complaints about a store (including asking AOW to step in on an after-sales request) are not anonymous: so that the store can explain its side, it can see what you write in the complaint, the evidence you upload and AOW's decision.

Recommendations and Usage Records

To recommend content you may like, help merchants understand how their own stores and products are doing overall, improve AOW, and spot fake activity and cheating, we record how you use the app and website, such as what you browse, search for and tap. AOW keeps these records itself and does not share them with third-party analytics or advertising companies. Merchants only ever see totals, never who.

Your home feed takes into account the topics of posts you have liked or viewed, the accounts you follow, and the mix of animals you set under Settings → Content preferences, which you can change at any time. Hot boards and topic heat are calculated from posting, interactions and searches across all of AOW.

AI Avatars, Posters, Translation and Image Search

When you create an avatar for your pet, the photo you choose is sent to Google's AI service to draw a cartoon avatar; Google's AI then draws a sitting base picture from that cartoon, and we send this base picture to Kling AI to turn it into motion videos (possibly passed on to Kling through fal). Kling and fal receive this cartoon base picture, not your photo. The cartoon and videos are stored in AOW's storage. You do not have to use this feature; you can simply use a photo as your profile photo.

When you make posters, the two photos of your pet you add (a face photo and a full-body photo) are stored in AOW's private storage, where only you and AOW's servers can access them. We send these two photos to Google's AI service to draw a cartoon reference picture of your pet first, and then the posters from it; each finished poster is also sent to Google's AI to be checked (whether the name is right, and for garbled text, logos, people or alcohol). What goes to Google is the photos, your pet's name, the scene you choose and the drawing instructions, without your name or contact details. The cartoon reference picture and the finished posters are also kept in AOW's private storage, and only you can see them; AOW staff with the relevant permission can also see them (when looking at poster statistics or handling orders and support). Pictures drawn by Google's AI carry an invisible SynthID watermark added by Google to show that they are AI-generated. If you tap "Share to AOW Home" on the poster page, that poster is published as a public post that everyone can see (see "Posting and interacting" above); posters you do not share can only be seen by you. If you change the photos, later posters are drawn from the new ones; when you delete your account, the photos and posters are deleted with it.

When a post is translated, we only send the text to be translated to Google Translate, without any of your account details.

When you search the shop with a photo, the photo is sent to Google's image recognition service to identify what is in it.

The music for videos is AOW's own collection of tracks (by Kevin MacLeod, made available under the CC BY 4.0 licence) and plays from AOW's storage. Which track you used is recorded on your post (the post shows the track name, the composer and the licence), and is not passed to the composer or to any music company.

Push Notifications

Once you allow notifications, Apple gives your phone a push token (it is not your phone number and does not identify you). We keep it to send you notifications for messages, comments, new followers and AOW notices. The lock screen only shows a short line, and order numbers, amounts and the reasons for any action on your account are never included in a push notification. You can turn each type off under Settings → System settings → Push notifications, and after you sign out, that phone stops getting your notifications.

Account Security and Preventing Cheating

To keep your account secure, we keep the model, system version and app version of the devices you sign in on, and show them under Settings → Account & security → Signed-in devices, where you can sign other devices out. Our sign-in service also records the network (IP) address used to sign in.

We also use check-in photo checks, photo fingerprint matching and usage limits to spot reward abuse, fake activity and impersonation.

When We Do Not Need Your Consent

Under applicable law, we may handle your personal information without your consent where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract you are a party to; necessary to carry out legal duties or obligations; necessary to respond to a public health emergency, or to protect someone's life, health or property in an emergency; done within a reasonable scope for news reporting or public-interest scrutiny; done within a reasonable scope with information you have made public yourself or that has otherwise been lawfully made public; or otherwise permitted by law.

If we want to use your information for a purpose this policy does not cover, we will tell you first, and where your consent is needed, we will ask for it first.

3. Phone Permissions We Use

AOW never reads your contacts. The first time you open the app, your phone asks whether AOW may send notifications (for check-in reminders and message notifications). We also explain on a page of our own why we would like your location, and your phone only asks for location permission if you agree on that page; you can also choose to decide later. Permissions such as the camera, photos and microphone are only requested when you first use a feature that needs them. You can turn any of them off at any time in your phone's Settings, and doing so only affects the related features.

4. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website uses only three cookies: one remembers the language you chose, one remembers which region's shop you are browsing, and one remembers the city you last picked for physical stores. All three last a year. Your website sign-in session, your cart, and a single marker saying "last time, physical stores were shown by my location" are stored in your own browser (your location itself is only kept in that tab and stops being used after 30 minutes). The website has no ad tracking and no third-party analytics tools.

We measure website visits ourselves, such as which pages are opened, which site visitors came from (or whether they came by scanning the QR code on a store stand or opening a shared link), and how people browse and click on a page (we only record which button or link was clicked, never anything you type). This measurement uses no cookies and does not store IP addresses: our server uses the IP address of your visit to estimate roughly which country, state or province, and city you are in (using DB-IP's free database, looked up on our own server; your IP address is never sent to anyone else), and only the estimated country, state or province, and city are kept, never the IP address itself. We count daily visitors using a fingerprint that changes every day, so it cannot identify you or connect your visits across days. If your browser has Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control turned on, we do not count you at all.

Location data used for these estimates: IP Geolocation by DB-IP (used under the CC BY 4.0 licence).

Our website only loads content from AOW itself and our database provider, with no analytics or advertising code from other companies, so other companies cannot use our website to collect information about your online activities over time and across other websites.

The app creates a random code on your phone, which is used to count usage while you are not signed in. It is not your phone's serial number, and it changes if you delete the app. We do not track you across other apps or websites, and we do not use advertising identifiers.

5. Who We Share Information With

We do not sell or rent your personal information, or exchange it for anything of value. Your information is only seen by others, or passed to others to handle, in the situations below.

Other Users

• Everyone: your profile, what you post publicly (posts, questions, comments, reviews, questions and answers in Q&A on store pages, place photos and live streams), and your pet's ranking and popularity in the Pet Vote.
• Anyone with the link: the website preview page of a post you share (see "Posting and interacting" above).
• People in the conversation: direct messages and group chats.
• People you allow: your footprints and your following and followers lists, as you choose under Settings → Privacy.
• Someone who knows your AOW ID or name, or your full phone number or email address, can find your account by searching. Search results never show your phone number or email address.
• Your public profile may appear to other users in Bump and Random friends.

Merchants

When you order, book, buy a deal or send an enquiry, that store sees what it needs to deal with it: for an online store, the recipient, address, phone number, what you ordered and any note and photos you add; for a store booking, the contact details and booking details you leave; for a deal, the full name and phone number you enter, your name on AOW, the voucher code, the order number and any note and photos you add. For a co-selling deal, both the merchant that provides the deal and the store where you use the voucher see this information for that order. If you dispute a payment directly with your card-issuing bank, the merchant for that order is notified (which order, how much and the outcome). Under our agreement with merchants, a merchant may only use this information for that order and for nothing else. The business reports merchants see (such as views, visitors, add-to-cart and sales) only ever show totals, never who.

Companies That Help Us Run AOW

AOW uses the service providers below. They may only handle your information on our instructions and for the purposes listed in the table, and must protect it under their agreements with us and applicable law:

Insurers

We never give your details or your pet's details to insurers. For the tag on insurer links, see "Health records and insurance" above.

Legal Requirements and Safety

We may provide relevant information when the law, a court or a government authority lawfully requires it, or when it is genuinely necessary to protect the safety or property of you, other users or the public.

If the Operator of AOW Changes

The operator of AOW may change in future (for example, a company may be set up to run it), or AOW may be involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. If your personal information needs to be transferred, we will tell you who will receive it. The recipient will remain bound by this policy, and if it wants to use your information for a different purpose, it will ask for your consent again.

Making Information Public

Apart from content you choose to make public, we only make your personal information public when the law requires it or you separately consent. Any action taken on your account is only shared with you, never made public.

6. Where Your Information Is Stored

AOW's database and file storage are provided by Supabase, and the data is stored in Sydney, Australia. The providers in the table above may handle your information in countries and regions outside Australia: Google, Apple, Stripe, Twilio, Resend, Shippo, fal and Render (which runs our servers) mainly in the United States and elsewhere; OpenStreetMap (including Nominatim), Photon, CARTO and OpenRouteService mainly in Europe and elsewhere; Esri in the United States and elsewhere; Amap in China; and Kling AI, LiveKit and 17TRACK also outside Australia. We only give them the information needed for the task.

If you use AOW in mainland China, your personal information is stored outside China (in Australia) and may be handled by the providers above in other countries and regions. The parties handling your information outside China are AOW and the providers listed above, and the purposes, methods and kinds of information are those set out in this policy. You can exercise your rights with us by writing to hello@all-our-world.com.

7. How Long We Keep It

We only keep your information for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy:

• Your account details, what you post and your health records are kept for as long as your account exists, so you can use them whenever you want.
• Posts, comments, reviews, and questions and answers in Q&A that you delete are taken down from AOW immediately and are no longer shown to anyone. For content AOW removes for breaking the rules, we keep a record so we can tell you about it, handle your appeal and restore it if the appeal succeeds.
• Records of orders, payments, refunds, withdrawals and donations are kept for as long as the law requires (for example, under tax and e-commerce rules).
• Usage records used for statistics are kept long term so we can see how things change over time.
• Australia Post labels that merchants print in AOW (which show the recipient's name, address and phone number) are deleted from AOW after 90 days.
• The note and photos you add when ordering are kept with the record of that order. The phone number, email address and AOW ID a merchant enters to send cash vouchers are kept until the end of that voucher's claim period and deleted within an hour after that (immediately if the merchant deletes the voucher or stops issuing it).
• After your account is deleted (once the 7-day cooling-off period is over and the deletion is carried out), we delete or de-identify your personal information, except what the law requires us to keep, which we hold until that period ends (see "Delete your account" below). The messages you sent are deleted too.

8. How We Protect Your Information

• All connections between you and AOW are encrypted (HTTPS / TLS), and our providers store the database and files encrypted.
• ID numbers are encrypted a second time, with keys kept separately. The keys for our services are kept only on our servers, never in the app.
• The database enforces who can see what: other users cannot read anyone else's private details, health records or direct messages.
• Payments go through Apple's and Stripe's pages, and we never handle your card number.
• Each AOW staff member signs in to the staff console with their own account using two-step verification, has only the permissions their role needs, and leaves a record of the actions they take.
• In the staff console's user list, your phone number and email address are masked by default; only staff specially authorised by AOW's owner account can tap Show to see them in full, and every view is recorded.

No system is perfectly secure. If a data breach that could harm you happens, we will act immediately to contain it and, as the law requires, notify you and the regulator: what happened, how it might affect you, what we have done and how you can protect yourself.

Please help protect your account too: never tell anyone your verification codes or password. If something looks wrong, sign out any device you do not recognise under Signed-in devices and contact us as soon as possible.

9. AI and Automated Decisions

Some decisions in AOW are made entirely by a computer program; others are checked or prepared by a program first and then decided by our team. Below we explain which decisions these are, what information about you they use, what they affect and how you can appeal.

Made Entirely by a Program

• Removing new posts that clearly break the rules: AI (Google Gemini) looks at the post's text, its first image (the cover, for a video) and the author's region to decide whether it clearly breaks the AOW Community Guidelines. Posts that clearly do are removed automatically, and you get a notice with a short explanation; for a removed post, what was added to the giving pool for it is taken back.
• Whether a post appears in World: when the AI looks at a post, it also decides whether there is a real animal in it; a post without one is published as usual but is not placed in World.
• Check-in photos: image recognition and AI check that the photo shows a real animal taken there and then (not a toy, an ornament, a painting or a photo of a screen); a photo that does not pass cannot be used to check in, and you do not get that check-in's reward.
• Reduced reach after a breach: applied automatically based on the number of breaches in the last 90 days, and affects where your posts appear in recommendations and whether you can buy boosts (see "Breaches, actions and appeals" in the Terms of Service).
• Home feed: posts are ranked using what you have liked and viewed, the accounts you follow and the mix you set under Settings → Content preferences, which affects which posts you see first.
• Whether you can claim or use a "New customers only" coupon: the program checks whether your account, or any account with the same phone number or email address (or a pet account and its main account), has paid at that store; if so, you cannot claim or use that store's new-customer coupons.
• Whether you can review a store or a product, or answer a store's questions: the program checks whether you (or your pet account or main account) have paid for a deal at that store or showed up for a booking there, whether you are with that store, and whether you have reviewed it in the last 30 days; for a human account reviewing a product in an online store, it checks whether that product was ordered (paid for, without that item being fully refunded or cancelled); if you cannot, the page tells you why.
• Whether a deal voucher still shows "After-sales Service" and "Complain About Store": the program counts 3 days (to the second) from the moment the voucher was redeemed; once the 3 days have passed, the two buttons disappear (a case or complaint opened within the 3 days carries on under its own time limits; your rights under the law are not affected, and you can contact the store directly; see "Store bookings and deals" in the Terms of Service).
• Whether you can refund a deal voucher yourself: the program checks the refund rule in force when the voucher was bought (vouchers marked "No Change-of-Mind Refunds" cannot be refunded by yourself) and whether it has been used; vouchers still unused when they expire are refunded automatically.
• After a chargeback is decided: if your card-issuing bank decides to give a deal payment back to you (AOW loses), the program automatically cancels the unused deal vouchers in that payment (the bank has already returned the money to you); if the bank later reverses its decision, AOW staff contact you about it.
• Whether a poster passes: each finished poster is checked by AI (Google Gemini) for whether the name is right, and for garbled text, logos, people or alcohol; one that does not pass is redrawn automatically, up to 3 times per poster; if none of the 3 passes, the poster counts as not made (for one paid for with Paw Coins, the coins are refunded; for a free one, you can have it drawn again for free).
• Hotel and pet boarding orders not confirmed in time: the program calculates the confirmation deadline (24 hours after payment, and no later than 12 noon on the check-in day, the store's local time); if the store has not confirmed by then, the program refunds the order in full automatically (including the AOW platform service fee).

Checked by a Program, Then Decided by Our Team

• Posts the AI is not sure about: passed to our team, who decide whether to remove them.
• Pet identity checks: AI checks that the photos were taken there and then and show the same animal, and anything it is not sure about goes to our team.
• From the fourth breach on: our team decides whether to mute or suspend the account.
• Withdrawals while an account is suspended: AI first summarises where the money came from and any recent breaches (without anyone's name, phone number, email address or ID number), and a staff member decides whether to approve it.

If you think a decision is wrong, you can appeal under Settings → Account status, or contact Live support under Settings → Help & support, and a member of our team will look at it again, usually replying within 48 hours. We do not send separate notices about the home feed, but you can adjust it at any time under Settings → Content preferences.

Decisions made by a program on the merchant side (such as the store experience score and late shipping penalties) are explained in the AOW Merchant Privacy Policy.

10. Your Rights and Choices

See and Correct Your Information

You can see and change most of your details directly in the app. For security and fairness, some have limits: your legal name, region, microchip number and registration number can each be changed once every 12 months, your nickname up to 10 times a month and your password up to 3 times a month. To correct something you cannot change yourself, contact us.

Delete Information

You can delete your own posts, comments, store reviews, and the questions and answers you wrote in Q&A at any time. To have other information deleted, contact us.

Delete Your Account

You can delete your account in the app: Me → Settings → Account & security → Account deletion → Delete account. Once you submit, there is a 7-day cooling-off period: the account is signed out on all phones immediately, and if you sign in again within the 7 days, the deletion is cancelled automatically; after the 7 days, a program carries it out (it checks once more for anything unfinished first, and if there is something, it waits another day). If something is still unfinished (for example, orders or after-sales requests not yet completed, unused deal vouchers, upcoming bookings, withdrawals in progress, or pet accounts still under this account), the deletion page lists each one, and you can delete your account once they are done. Store owners and AOW staff, please write to hello@all-our-world.com or contact us under Settings → Help & support; if you are on a store's staff, ask the store owner to remove you in the merchant centre first.

Once the deletion is carried out: your profile, posts, comments, chats, check-ins, footprints, health records, delivery addresses, payout account, support and report records and app usage records are deleted, and so are your photos, videos and posters in storage; when your posts are deleted, what was added to the giving pool for them is taken back. Records of orders, payments, refunds, after-sales requests, complaints and posters are kept as the law requires, but your name, phone number, address, notes and photos are removed from them. Your profile is changed to "Deleted user" and your AOW ID is kept (it is only a number, used to reconcile records); the record of your agreement to our terms is also kept (as proof that you agreed at the time). A deleted account cannot be restored, and any Paw Coins and balances left are forfeited (see "Your account" in the Terms of Service). You can sign up for a new account later with the same phone number, email address, Google or Apple account, but nothing from before can be recovered.

Withdraw Consent and Permissions

• Turn off AOW's access to the camera, photos, location, microphone, speech recognition or notifications in your phone's Settings.
• Under Settings → Privacy, choose who can message, comment on and mention you, block people, and choose who can see your footprints and your following and followers lists.
• Turn off notifications under Settings → System settings → Push notifications, and adjust recommendations under Settings → Content preferences.
• Withdrawing consent does not affect what was done before you withdrew it. If you withdraw permission for information a feature needs, that feature may stop working.

Get a Copy

You can ask Live support for a copy of your information (under Settings → Help & support in the app, or by writing to hello@all-our-world.com), and once we have confirmed it is you, we will send it to you within 14 days.

Challenge an Automated Decision

If you think a decision made by AI or software is wrong (for example, a post was removed automatically or a check-in did not pass), you can appeal under Settings → Account status or contact support under Settings → Help & support, and a member of our team will look at it again.

How We Respond

To protect your account, we may need to confirm who you are before acting on a request. We will deal with it as soon as we can and reply within the time required by the law where you live.

11. Age

AOW is only for people aged 16 and over. If you are under 16, you cannot sign up for or use an AOW account.

To confirm this, we may ask you for your date of birth or to confirm your age. If your age does not seem right, we may ask you to complete an age check (a third-party facial age estimate or an ID check); AOW only keeps the result, the method used and the date, never your ID photo or your face. Information collected for an age check is only used for that check. Once we choose the provider for these checks, we will add it to this policy.

If we find that someone under 16 is using AOW, we will deactivate the account and delete the personal information we collected for it (except what the law requires us to keep); before the account is deactivated, they can ask Live support for a copy of their information. Parents and guardians with questions about their child's information can write to hello@all-our-world.com.

If you are 16 or 17, you cannot appear on a live stream on your own, and a parent or guardian can contact us about Paw Coins bought without their permission.

12. Changes to This Policy

We will update this policy as AOW changes and as the law requires. New versions are published on our website with the last updated date and effective date at the top of the page, and we will tell you about important changes through notices in the app and in other ways. Where the law requires your consent again, we will ask for it again.

13. Contact Us and Complaints

If you have any question, comment or complaint about your personal information, write to hello@all-our-world.com or use Live support under Settings → Help & support in the app. The founder of AOW is responsible for personal information protection at AOW and can be reached at the same address. When we receive your question or complaint, we will look into it and reply within 14 days, telling you the outcome.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle it, you can also complain to the regulator where you live: in Australia, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC); and in mainland China, the cyberspace administration and other relevant authorities.