Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

mChip™ Microchip Registry ("we," "us," "our," or "mChip") is committed to protecting your privacy and the privacy of your pet's information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information when you use our pet microchip registry service and related services (collectively, "Services").

2. Information We Collect

Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following information:

Personal Information

We collect the following types of personal information:

• Contact Information: such as name, address, phone numbers, and email address, and addresses of alternate contacts.
• Account Information: such as username, encrypted password, and account preferences.
• Payment Information: such as information needed to process and fulfill your registration, such as payment card details, billing address, and other payment information in order to complete the transaction.
• Pet Identification Information: such as microchip identification number, pet name, species, breed, color, size, and pet age.
• Pet Medical Information: such as veterinary contact information, pet medical conditions, and pet special needs.
• Pet Photos: such as pet photos for identification purposes, including to train and improve AI and machine learning models used for pet identification and recovery.
• Pet Registration Data: such as registration date and veterinary clinic or facility where microchip was implanted.

Usage and Technical Information

• Log Data: such as IP address, browser type, operating system, access times, and pages viewed.
• mChip Search Data: such as Microchip ID lookup queries and results.
• Device Information: such as device type, operating system, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information.
• Activity Information: such as information collected when you access and interact with our Services, such as clickstream data, cookies and localStorage, and any other Internet usage information our Services may automatically collect when you visit.
• Approximate Location (pet tag QR scans): such as information collected when a pet tag QR code is scanned, including the scanner's approximate geographic location.

3. How We Collect Information

• From you: We directly collect information you provide when registering your pet's microchip, updating yours or your pet's profiles, reporting a pet found, or contacting us.
• From veterinary partners: We may collect information from and provided by veterinarians, animal shelters, and rescue organizations.
• From devices you use when you interact with us online: This includes information collected through our Services and automatically from devices you use to connect to our website. For more information about this, please see our "Cookies and Similar Technologies" section below.
• From public or third party sources: This includes information we collect from public sources and from our service providers, vendors, and affiliates, including information from microchip manufacturers and authorized distributors.

4. How We Use Your Information

We may use your information for the following reasons, depending on your relationship with us:

• Pet Identification and Recovery: To facilitate the identification and return of lost pets to their owners.
• Service Provision: To provide, maintain, and improve our Services.
• Advertising and Marketing: To serve you advertising or content.
• Account Management: To create and manage user accounts, process registrations, and process billings and payments.
• Communication: To respond to your inquiries and send you communications, such as notifications and updates.
• Emergency Response: To contact you or designated emergency contacts when your pet is found.
• Legal Compliance: To comply with legal requirements and/or to investigate or address claims or disputes relating to your use of our Services. This would include the use of your information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, to defend ourselves in litigation and investigations, and to prosecute litigations.
• Service Improvement and Quality Assurance: To study, develop, and improve our Services. We may also aggregate, anonymize, and/or de-identify personal information we collect and use it for any purpose, including product development and improvement activities.
• AI and Machine Learning: To train, develop, and improve artificial intelligence and machine learning models used for pet identification and recovery (e.g., photo matching and related features). Photos and other data you provide may be used for this purpose in accordance with our Terms of Service.
• Security and Fraud Prevention: To maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our Services, for example, by authenticating users and providing account security and fraud detection. We may also use your information to monitor, detect, and prevent fraud and improper or illegal activity. This also includes protecting our, your, or others' rights, safety, or property, and enforcing our Terms of Service.
• Debugging: To secure our online services including our network and website and to debug our online services.
• Internal Business Purposes: For our internal business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, and enhancing our services.

5. How We Disclose Your Information

We may share your information in the following ways:

• Service Providers and Vendors: We may provide personal information to vendors, contractors, business and service partners, or other third parties who provide services to us including security and fraud prevention services, payment processing and billing services, data hosting and cloud storage services, email and communication services, customer support and technical assistance, advertising/marketing services, and others.
• Advertising and Marketing Partners: We may provide personal information to third parties, such as advertising partners or other marketing partners to support and improve our Services and deliver relevant offers and advertisements.
• At your direction: We may disclose your personal information at your direction or with your consent.
• Aggregate data: We may disclose your personal information in an aggregated or non-identifying form or otherwise in a form that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
• In connection with a merger, acquisition, or business transfer: If we sell all or a part of our company, your information may be transferred to the buyer in connection with an actual or proposed transaction.
• Pet recovery services: We may disclose your personal information with pet recovery services and partners to facilitate pet identification and return, such as with veterinarians, animal shelters, rescue organizations, and animal control facilities.
• With registered owners upon pet tag QR code scans: We may disclose a pet tag QR code scanner's approximate GPS or browser-derived location with the registered owner of the pet whose tag was scanned. That location is only available for 30 calendar days as shown to the owner on a hosted web page we provide.
• Emergency situations: When necessary to protect the health, safety, or welfare of pets or individuals.
• Veterinary Care: With veterinarians providing care to your pet (with appropriate authorization).
• Government, regulatory, or law enforcement agencies: We reserve the right to disclose your information to respond to valid information requests from government authorities and judicial requests, to investigate potential fraud, or where otherwise required by law. We may disclose your personal information where we believe the disclosure is necessary or appropriate to comply with regulatory or legal requirements or to protect the safety, rights, or property of ourselves and others and to exercise, establish, or defend our legal rights.

We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration.

We may also disclose aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified information to third parties at our discretion.

6. Children's Privacy

You must be 18 years or older to use our Services. Our Services are for a general audience, are not targeted to children, and do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18 years of age.

7. Your Communication and Marketing Preferences

By providing your phone number and agreeing to receive texts, you consent to receive text messages from mChip regarding a lost pet. Consent is not a condition of purchase. Message frequency varies. Message & data rates may apply. You can reply STOP to unsubscribe at any time or HELP for assistance. You can also contact us at [email protected]. Mobile opt-in information is never shared with third parties.

Additionally, we may periodically send promotional materials or notifications related to our Services. If you no longer wish to receive promotional marketing materials from us, you may opt out of receiving such materials. You may unsubscribe from receiving marketing or other commercial emails from us by following the instructions included in the email.

There are certain service notifications and other non-promotional emails that you may not opt out of, such as notifications of changes to our Services or policies.

8. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We and our partners use various tools to collect data when you visit our website, including cookies, pixels, localStorage, and other similar technologies. Some of these technologies store data in the browser or on your device. Other technologies may use network-related or other information to recognize your device (e.g., IP address). Our Services use these technologies, for example, when you first request a web page and data is then stored on your computer or other device so the website can access personal information when you make subsequent requests for pages from that Service. These technologies may also be used to collect and store information about your usage of the Services, such as pages you have visited, other content you viewed, and search history. Additionally, we may use these technologies to collect analytics and measure the use of our Services.

We and our partners may also use these technologies to gather personal information about how you view and use our Services and content and to connect your activity with other data we store about you. We and our partners may collect your personal information about your online activities over time and across different websites when you use the Services. The use of these technologies helps us serve you better by understanding what you are interested in, tracking trends, measuring the effectiveness of ads, saving your preferences, and storing information you may want to retrieve on a regular basis. We also allow specific, approved partners to collect data from your browser or device for advertising and measurement purposes using their own similar tools.

Your web browser can be set to allow you to control these technologies, such as whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to your browser. If your browser is set to reject cookies, websites that are cookie-enabled will not recognize you when you return to the website, and some website functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser may tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting these technologies, such as cookies. To find out more about cookies, visit https://www.aboutcookies.org. Depending on the make and model of your phone, you may be able to use device settings to opt out of the use of certain device IDs for advertising. For more information about Google Analytics, please review the site "How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps," located at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. To opt out of Google Analytics specifically, please go to https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Some browsers permit the user to send a "Do Not Track" ("DNT") preference to websites that the user visits indicating that the user does not wish to be tracked over time and across websites. Because there is not yet a common understanding of how to interpret DNT, we do not currently respond to the DNT signal on our websites. We do, however, respond to global privacy preferences when required by law.

9. Data Security

We use commercially reasonable administrative, technical, personnel, and physical measures designed to safeguard information in its possession against loss, theft, unauthorized use, disclosure, or modification. These measures include encryption, access controls, authentication, regular audits, staff training, and protocols in place for any incidents, among others. However, the confidentiality of information transmitted over the Internet cannot be guaranteed. We urge you to exercise caution when transmitting personal information over the internet. We cannot guarantee that unauthorized third parties will not gain access to your information; therefore, when submitting personal information to us, you do so at your own risk.

10. Third-Party Links and Services

We may provide links to websites and other third-party content that is not owned or operated by mChip. The websites and third-party content to which we link may have separate privacy notices or policies. mChip is not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites.

If you provide any personal information through a third-party site, your interaction and your personal information will be collected by and controlled by the privacy policy of that third party site. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the privacy policies and practices of any such third parties, which are not governed by this Privacy Policy.

11. International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries other than your country of residence. These countries may have different data protection laws. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information during international transfers.

12. Contact Information

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

mChip reserves the right to amend, change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. We will post notice of changes to this Privacy Policy on this page. You must check this page periodically for changes. Changes will become effective as of the date listed at the top of the page but will not apply retroactively.