Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information the Meow Map app and the catapp.uk website (“Meow Map”, “we”, “us”) collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have. Meow Map is operated by Amicitia Limited, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17302288), which is the data controller for your information.

The short version

• Your cat photos, the location you spotted them, and your display name are public inside the app. That is the point of the app.
• Every photo is checked by an AI model — both to work out what sort of cat it is and to screen for content that isn’t allowed. Repeated flags can ban your account automatically. You can ask a person to review that.
• A sighting is pinned on the public map at the exact spot your device reported. Please don’t log a sighting anywhere you would not want publicly pinned — your own home included.
• Where you have explored (your map “fog”) is private to you and never shown to anyone else.
• We do not sell your personal information, ever.

Information we collect

• Account details. Your email address, and — if you choose them — a display name and avatar. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive a basic identifier and an email address from that provider. Passwords are stored only as a cryptographic hash, never in readable form.
• Content you submit.The cat photos you take or upload, along with any captions, breed, and “vibe” tags, and the way you style your keepsake polaroids.
• Community activity.The comments you write, the “meows” you leave on other people’s posts, and any reports you file about content you think breaks the rules.
• Sighting location. The location of a sighting, captured only when you log one and only if you have granted location permission. See Location, in detail below for how precisely it is stored and who can see it.
• Exploration progress.As you uncover the map’s “fog” by moving around, we record which coarse map areas (roughly 200-metre tiles) you have explored. This is a rough record of areas explored, not a precise location trail, and is kept private to your account. We use it to restore your map and progress on a new device, to track your exploration achievements, and to work out which neighbourhoods you should be notified about.
• Ownership claims. To claim a cat you submit three photos showing you together with the cat, plus the cat’s real name and details about them. Those photos are seen by our staff. The cat’s name and details are published on their profile, and your display name is shown there as their owner. See Ownership claims below.
• Technical data. Your IP address (used to enforce rate limits and prevent abuse), a push notification token and device platform if you enable notifications, and basic device and app information needed to run the service.
• Moderation record. If our automated check flags a photo you submit, we record the strike against your account, and whether the account has been banned.

How we use your information, and our legal basis

Under UK data protection law we must have a specific legal basis for each use of your information. Ours are:

Running your account

Creating your account, signing you in, verifying your email address, and resetting your password. Basis: performance of our contract with you.

The map and catalogue

Identifying and cataloguing cats, showing sightings on the community map, and letting you build your collection. Basis: performance of our contract with you.

Sighting location

Placing a sighting on the map where it was spotted. Basis: your consent, given through your device’s location permission and withdrawable at any time in your device settings.

Exploration progress

Restoring your map on a new device and tracking achievements. Basis: performance of our contract with you.

Notifications

Sending the push notifications you have turned on. Basis: your consent, withdrawable in the app’s settings or your device settings.

Ownership claims

Reviewing the evidence you submit and deciding the claim. Basis: performance of our contract with you — you asked us to review it — and our legitimate interest in preventing false claims over someone else’s pet.

Safety and moderation

Automatically screening photos for content that isn’t allowed, acting on reports, and suspending accounts that break the rules. Basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the service and its users safe, and in meeting our legal responsibilities around unlawful content.

Security and abuse prevention

Rate limiting by IP address and account, and protecting the service from misuse. Basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the service available and secure.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether that interest is overridden by your rights, and you can object — see Your rights. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for targeted advertising.

Automated analysis, and how we use AI

Every photo submitted to Meow Map is analysed by an artificial intelligence model — specifically Claude, a model provided by Anthropic, which we send the photo to for analysis. We use it for two separate things:

• Recognising the cat. Working out whether the image actually shows a cat, and estimating traits such as breed, colour, pattern, fur length and eye colour, so the cat can be catalogued and matched against sightings of the same cat.
• Safety screening.Checking whether the photo contains content that isn’t allowed on the service.

Photos are analysed to identify and catalogue cats. We do not run facial recognition, and we do not use the analysis to identify people. Photos submitted with an ownership claim will contain you, and those photos go through the same analysis. Under our agreement with the provider, photos sent for analysis are not used to train their models.

Automated decisions that affect your account

You should know exactly how this works, because it can cost you your account with no human involved:

• If the safety screening flags a photo you submit, the photo is rejected and a strike is recorded against your account.
• The first two strikes are warnings. On the third strike your account is banned automatically, which locks you out of the entire app.
• This decision is made solely by the automated check. No person reviews it before the ban takes effect.

You have the right not to be subject to a decision made purely by automated means where it significantly affects you. If your account has been warned or banned, you can contact us at support@catapp.uk to obtain human review, to express your point of view, and to contest the decision. A member of our team will look at the flagged content themselves and reverse the decision if the check got it wrong.

When a person reviews your information

Some things are decided by our staff rather than by software, and that means a person looks at what you submitted. Specifically: the photos and details you attach to an ownership claim are read by a moderator, who compares them against the cat’s record and decides the claim; and posts reported by other users are read by a moderator before any action is taken. Moderators are staff of Amicitia Limited acting under confidentiality obligations.

What is shared publicly

Meow Map is a community app. The following are visible to other users inside the app: the photos you post, their breed and vibe tags and captions, the sighting location, your display name and avatar, and the comments and meows you leave. If you successfully claim a cat, your display name is shown publicly as that cat’s owner, alongside the cat’s name and the details you gave about them.

Your exploration progress, your email address, and the photos you submitted as claim evidence are not public. Please do not submit photos, captions, or locations you would not want shared publicly.

Location, in detail

When you log a sighting, we store the coordinates your device reported and show the cat on the public map at that spot. We do not round, blur, or otherwise move the pin.

Please bear that in mind before logging one. A cat is usually photographed where it lives, so a sighting pin can point at a home — yours, or somebody else’s. Every sighting is visible to all users of the app, and only you can decide whether a given spot is one you want on a public map. Deleting your post removes the sighting behind it, and its pin along with it.

When you browse the map or the nearby feed, your device sends your current position so we can find sightings around you. That position is used to answer the request and is not stored. Exploration tiles (roughly 200 metres) are stored against your account but are private to you.

Photos are stripped of embedded metadata, including any GPS coordinates the camera recorded, before they are stored.

Ownership claims

Claiming a cat requires three photos showing you together with the cat, and the app suggests photos taken inside your home because those are the most convincing. This means the photos you submit show an identifiable person — you — and often the inside of your home. We ask for this because photos of a cat alone prove nothing: anyone can take those.

These photos are used only to decide your claim. They are read by a moderator, they are never published, and they are never shown to other users. If your claim is rejected or later revoked, we delete the photos automatically 90 days after the decision. If your claim is approved, we keep them for as long as the claim stands, and they are deleted if the claim is revoked or you delete your account.

Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We rely on the following providers to deliver the service, and they process data only to perform their service for us:

Amazon Web Services

Cloud hosting and photo storage.

Anthropic

AI analysis of submitted photos (cat recognition and safety screening).

Mapbox

Map rendering.

Expo

Push notification delivery.

Resend

Transactional email (verification codes, password resets).

Neon

Database hosting.

Vercel

Hosting and privacy-friendly analytics for the catapp.uk website.

Apple and Google

Sign-in, if you choose to use it.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Where your information is held

Some of the providers above are based in, or store data in, the United States. That means your information — including the photos you submit — is transferred outside the United Kingdom. Where we make such a transfer, we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, or on the provider’s certification under an approved framework, to give your information an equivalent level of protection. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply.

How long we keep it

Account and profile

Until you delete your account.

Your posts, comments, meows and exploration progress

Until you delete them, or until you delete your account.

Sightings in the shared catalogue

Kept after you delete your account, but anonymised — your name and the link to your account are removed. Removing the sightings themselves would gut the cats other people follow.

Claim photos — claim rejected or revoked

Deleted automatically 90 days after the decision.

Claim photos — claim in force

Until the claim is revoked or you delete your account.

Rate-limit records, including IP address

14 days.

Email verification and password reset codes

Until they are used or expire.

Moderation record (strikes, bans)

For as long as the account exists.

You can delete your account at any time from the app. See Delete Your Account for step-by-step instructions and how to request deletion by email.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to: access a copy of your personal information; have inaccurate information corrected; have your information deleted; restrict how we use it; object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests; receive your information in a portable, machine-readable format; withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent (this does not affect processing already carried out); and not be subject to a solely automated decision that significantly affects you — see Automated analysis above.

To exercise any of these, email support@catapp.uk. We will respond within one month. Exercising your rights is free of charge.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to address your concerns first.

If you appear in someone else’s photo

Meow Map users photograph cats they meet outdoors, so other people, homes and gardens can end up in the background of a photo. You do not need a Meow Map account to ask us to take something down. If a photo shows you, your property, or your pet and you want it removed, email support@catapp.uk describing the photo and where you saw it, and we will review it and remove it where appropriate. Users can also report any post from within the app.

Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information: traffic is encrypted in transit, passwords are stored only as cryptographic hashes, access to production data is limited to staff who need it, and photos are stripped of embedded metadata on upload. No service can promise perfect security, but if a breach affects your rights we will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office as the law requires.

Cookies and the website

The Meow Map app does not use cookies. It does store data on your device — your sign-in token, your uncovered map tiles, and your display preferences — so that the app works and you stay signed in.

The catapp.uk website uses privacy-friendly analytics provided by Vercel to count page views and understand which pages are useful. It does not use cookies for this, does not track you across other websites, and does not build a profile of you. The only cookie the website sets is a strictly necessary session cookie, and only for staff signing in to the moderation tools.

Children

Meow Map is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by the “last updated” date above and, where appropriate, communicated in the app.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or want to exercise your rights? Email support@catapp.uk. See also our Terms of Use.