Privacy policy

RescueConsole is software that animal rescues and shelters use to run their work: animals, adopters, fosters, volunteers, donors, events and their public website. It is made by RescueConsole, Inc., a Florida corporation ("we", "us"). This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do with it.

Two kinds of information, and who is responsible for each

Information a rescue keeps in RescueConsole. A rescue decides what to record about the animals and people it works with: adopters, applicants, fosters, volunteers, donors and others. For that information the rescue is responsible, and we handle it on the rescue's behalf and only to provide the service to them. If a rescue holds information about you, ask that rescue first. We will help them answer you.

Information about our own customers and visitors. For the people who sign up for and use RescueConsole on behalf of a rescue, and for visitors to rescueconsole.com, we decide what is collected and why, and this policy describes it.

What we collect

When a rescue signs up and uses RescueConsole

• The organization's name and web address, and the name and email address of the person signing up.
• A password, which we never store as written: we keep only a salted hash of it. Two-factor sign-in is available, and its secret is stored encrypted.
• The team members a rescue invites, their roles, and when they last signed in.
• A record of sign-ins, failed attempts, lockouts and password resets, with the IP address and browser they came from, to protect accounts and investigate misuse.
• The number of adoptions recorded each month, which is what our price is based on, and the organization's name and billing email for invoices.
• A record of changes to an organization's settings: who made each change, when, and what was changed.
• Feedback sent from inside the app: the message, the sender's email address, the page it was sent from and the browser it came from, so we can answer and see what they saw.

On rescueconsole.com

• If you use the contact or demo form, your name, email address, organization and message. We use them to answer you and to follow up about RescueConsole.
• If you email yourself the savings calculator's figures, your email address, your name and organization if you give them, the numbers you entered and the addresses you send them to. Each address gets that one email, which says who asked; we keep all of them so a person can answer questions and follow up with you about RescueConsole, and we do not email the people you named again unless they ask. To prevent abuse we count reports per IP address for an hour, keeping only a one-way hash of the address.
• If you use the microchip lookup, the chip number you search for. We do not store it. To prevent abuse we count searches per IP address for an hour, keeping only a one-way hash of the address.

Cookies and browser storage

RescueConsole uses one cookie: a sign-in cookie that keeps you signed in to your rescue's account. It is sent only to our sign-in service, cannot be read by scripts, and lasts 30 days from the last time it was used. The app also keeps display preferences in your browser, such as your theme and which columns a list shows. To see which parts of the app are used, it also keeps a random identifier for PostHog in your browser's storage. It is not a cookie. None of this is used for advertising, or shared for anyone else's use.

rescueconsole.com and its documentation at docs.rescueconsole.com set no cookies and store nothing in your browser. To count visits, they send PostHog the page you are on, the page that sent you there, and your type of browser and device. PostHog counts unique visitors each day from a one-way hash of your IP address and browser that changes daily, so it cannot recognize you on another day. A link's campaign tags (utm_) are kept; the rest of a web address is removed first. rescueconsole.com's typeface is loaded from Google Fonts, so your browser contacts Google when you visit and Google can see your IP address. Its forms (contact, signing up, the savings report, the microchip lookup and a registry dispute) are checked by Cloudflare Turnstile, so your browser contacts Cloudflare when you open one, and Cloudflare sees your IP address and signals from your browser to tell a person from a bot.

How the app is used

When you use the app, we send PostHog what helps us improve it: the pages you open, with any search removed from the address; what you click, without the words on it; and recordings of sessions in which every word, every typed value and every image is hidden, so a recording shows the layout and where you clicked, not what you were reading. PostHog knows you only by a random account ID and your rescue's ID, never by name or email address. Nothing is sent while our staff are signed in to a rescue's account to help it.

Email

We send account email: verifying an address, invitations, password resets and security notices. Rescues also send email to their adopters, volunteers and supporters through RescueConsole. For a rescue's email, whether each message was delivered, opened or a link in it clicked is recorded, without the reader's IP address or browser. Open and click tracking are on for a new rescue, and a rescue can turn either off in Settings. Email sent to a rescue's RescueConsole inbox address is received and stored for that rescue.

Payments

When a rescue takes donations or adoption fees online, the payment is made through Stripe, on the rescue's own Stripe account. Card details go to Stripe and never to us. Stripe tells us the payment happened, the amount, and the payer's name and email if they gave them.

Calls and texts

A rescue can connect its own Twilio account to give itself a phone number. Calls to and from that number, texts, WhatsApp messages, voicemail and any recordings the rescue chooses to make pass through Twilio under the rescue's own agreement with Twilio, and RescueConsole keeps the log of calls, the text of messages, voicemail audio and recordings for the rescue, as part of its records. Voicemail is turned into text by Cloudflare's Workers AI, which processes the audio to produce the transcript and does not keep it. A call is recorded only when the rescue has switched recording on, and the other party is told at the start.

The Public Registry

Rescues can record a concern about a person or an animal in a registry shared with other rescues on RescueConsole, so that an animal is not placed somewhere a rescue has good reason to believe is unsafe. A registry entry can hold a name and alias, city, state and country, birth year, the type and severity of the concern, and the rescue's account of it. An email address, phone number, microchip number or full date of birth is kept only as a one-way hash, which is used to match a search and cannot be read back. Other rescues see an entry in full only after other rescues have corroborated it. Somebody not signed in to a rescue's account can search only by microchip number, and sees only that an entry exists, with its type, severity, status and date, never the account or who filed it. Searching by a person's name, email address or phone number needs a rescue's sign-in. If you believe an entry about you is wrong, write to us.

Who we share information with

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it for advertising. We share it only with the providers that run the service for us, and only what each needs:

• Cloudflare hosts RescueConsole: the app, our databases, files and photos, and incoming email. Its Turnstile checks the forms on rescueconsole.com for bots, and its Workers AI turns a rescue's voicemail into text.
• SMTP2GO sends email, both ours and the email rescues send.
• PostHog, in the United States, receives how the app, rescueconsole.com and docs.rescueconsole.com are used, as described above.
• Stripe processes online payments on a rescue's own Stripe account.
• Twilio carries a rescue's calls, texts, WhatsApp messages, voicemail and recordings, on the rescue's own Twilio account.
• Geocodio checks addresses in the United States and Canada when a rescue asks it to, and the address somebody types into a registry dispute, before it is matched.
• Xero keeps our accounts and sends our invoices to rescues.
• Google Fonts serves the typeface on rescueconsole.com.

A rescue can also connect other services, such as RescueGroups.org or ShelterLuv, or send its records to a web address it chooses. Information then passes between RescueConsole and that service as the rescue has set it up, under that service's own terms. We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect people or the service from harm, or to a company that acquires our business, which would be bound by this policy.

Where information is kept

Our providers run on networks in the United States and other countries. By using RescueConsole you understand that information may be stored and processed outside the country where you live.

How we protect it

• Everything travels over encrypted connections.
• Passwords are stored as salted hashes, and an account locks for a time after repeated failed sign-ins.
• Each rescue's information is kept apart from every other rescue's, and every request is checked against it.
• Our support staff can see a rescue's account only when one of its administrators grants access, for a length of time they choose. That access is read only, can be withdrawn at any moment, and every session is recorded where the rescue can see it.

No system is perfectly secure. If we confirm a breach that affects your information, we will tell the organization whose records it is within 72 hours of confirming it, help it tell the people affected, and tell anybody else the law requires us to.

How long we keep it

• While an account is open, we keep its information until the rescue deletes it. Some deletions hide a record rather than erase it, so it can be restored.
• When an account is cancelled, we keep its information for 90 days, so the rescue can change its mind or ask us for a copy, and then delete it.
• Contact and demo requests, and the calculator's reports, are kept until you ask us to delete them.
• Invoices and billing records are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.

Your choices

You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, by writing to legal@rescueconsole.com. We answer these requests wherever you live, and we will not treat you differently for making one. If the information is a rescue's record of you, we will pass your request to that rescue and help them act on it. A rescue can export its records as spreadsheets at any time.

Children

RescueConsole is for organizations and is not directed at children under 13. Rescues may record information about children as part of their work, for example the members of an adopting household or a young volunteer with a guardian, and are responsible for doing so lawfully.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change is significant, we will also email each rescue's administrators before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your information: legal@rescueconsole.com. See also our terms of service.