Privacy Policy

App — On-Device Processing

MiaoSense processes all data — including camera footage, microphone audio, and behavioural scores — locally on your Android device. No video, audio, or analysis data is ever sent to our servers or any third party. The app operates fully offline and does not use any third-party crash-reporting or analytics SDKs. A small set of first-party technical usage events is recorded locally, as described below.

Data stored locally on your device:

• Cat profiles you create (name, breed, age, notes)
• Analysis session results, including the times of your observations and how often each mood was recognised during them. For the weekly comparison (MiaoSense Pro), the app evaluates these times and frequencies only on your device; they are not transmitted.
• Your consent record (timestamp, Terms version, app version, locale)
• App preferences (theme, language, sensor settings)
• Local usage events (which app functions you use, timestamps, session number, app version)

MiaoSense reads your device's system language setting (locale) to display content in the appropriate language. This information is processed locally and, if you change the in-app language, stored on your device only.

You can export or permanently delete all locally stored data at any time via Settings → Data → Delete all data.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR — processing necessary to provide the App's functionality.

AI Processing

MiaoSense observes your cat through camera images and — if you use the vocalisation feature — through microphone audio using artificial intelligence models that run entirely on your device. The models detect your cat, describe visible movement and posture patterns, and derive behavioural indicators from them.

These results are probability-based estimates. They are not confirmed findings and not a veterinary diagnosis, and no person reviews them before they are shown to you. Lighting, camera angle, or an unusual posture can affect how reliable an estimate is.

The models are not adapted using your recordings. Nothing you record is used to train or improve them, and no recording, audio file, or analysis result is transmitted to us or to any third party — neither for that purpose nor for any other.

People who appear in a recording: MiaoSense looks for cats. It does not run face recognition, does not identify people, and does not analyse the behaviour or emotional state of anyone who happens to be in the frame. If a person is visible in your footage, that footage is still processed only on your device and is never transmitted.

Because every analysis runs on your device and no result is transmitted, there is no automated decision-making within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR: MiaoSense produces information for you, and no legal effect or similarly significant consequence follows from it.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR — processing necessary to provide the App's functionality.

MiaoWatch — Remote Camera

The optional MiaoWatch feature lets you connect MiaoSense to a camera stream (e.g. an IP camera or webcam) via a URL you enter manually. When MiaoWatch is active:

• The App establishes a network connection exclusively to the URL you configured.
• Video frames are processed in RAM on your device and are never stored or forwarded to MiaoSense servers or any third party.
• The camera URL you enter is stored locally on your device only.
• No data from the camera stream leaves your device.
• The address may be inside your own network or on the internet. Where it is on the internet, your network and the operator of that address can see that a connection is being made, including your IP address — this is inherent to any internet connection and is not data MiaoSense sends about you. Where such a connection is not encrypted, the App asks you to confirm before connecting.
• MiaoSense does not establish or broker this connection itself; the App only calls the address you entered. There is therefore no transfer of data by MiaoSense to a third country (Art. 44 et seq. GDPR).

You are responsible for ensuring you have the legal right to access and monitor the camera you connect to. MiaoSense does not verify the source or legality of the stream.

Storage period: The camera URL remains stored on your device until you remove it manually (Settings → MiaoWatch → Remove Camera) or uninstall the App. Video frames are processed in RAM during active streaming only and are never stored. There are no recipients of your camera data — all processing is on-device; no video, audio or behavioural data is transmitted to MiaoSense or any third party.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. By activating MiaoWatch, you enter into a service arrangement for this optional feature. Processing your camera URL is objectively necessary to establish the connection you requested — without it, MiaoWatch cannot function.

Local Usage Statistics

The App records a small number of technical usage events on your device — for example when a feature is switched on, when a purchase is confirmed, or whether the on-device AI models loaded successfully. This helps us improve the App and diagnose faults.

• Categories: event name, timestamp, in-app session number, app version, technical attributes.
• Storage: exclusively on your device. These events are never transmitted — there is no network path for them, and no analytics SDK is involved.
• Recipients: none. No third-country transfer occurs, as this data never leaves your device.
• Storage period: until you delete it (Settings → Data → Delete all data) or uninstall the App. Events are not automatically capped or rotated.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in a stable, improvable App. Because these events never leave your device and contain no content of your recordings, the balancing of interests weighs in favour of processing. You may object to this processing at any time (Art. 21 GDPR): turn off Settings → Data → Local usage statistics and nothing further is recorded. Events already recorded can be removed via Settings → Data → Delete all data.

Website — Hosting & Infrastructure

miaosense.app is hosted on Cloudflare Pages (Cloudflare, Inc., USA). As part of its content delivery and security services, Cloudflare processes standard request metadata (IP address, user agent, timestamp) on its servers. No analytics or tracking cookies are set and no analytics tools are installed.

This website sets exactly one cookie, and only if you pick a language yourself using the language switcher: ms_lang stores that choice so the site does not override it on your next visit. It holds nothing but the two-letter language code, is not readable by scripts (HttpOnly), is not sent to third parties, and expires after one year. You can delete it in your browser at any time; the site then falls back to your browser’s language setting. As a strictly necessary cookie for a function you requested, it does not require consent (§ 25 (2) no. 2 TDDDG); the legal basis for the processing is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

The QR code on the home page leads to the Google Play listing via a redirect on our own domain (miaosense.app/get/<language>). The redirect adds an anonymous source tag to the store link, which tells us in aggregate how many installs came from the QR code. No cookie is set in the process and we store no personal data.

Cloudflare is certified under the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (DPF), an adequacy decision pursuant to Art. 45 GDPR, which permits data transfers to certified US recipients without additional safeguards.

The DM Sans typeface is served locally from our own server (self-hosted). Loading the font does not establish any connection to Google or other third parties, and no data is transmitted to third parties in the process.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in operating a secure, reliable website.

User-Exported Media

MiaoSense allows you to save analysis photos and vocal recordings ("exported media") on your device. Exported media is stored exclusively on your device and is not transmitted to Purrception or any third party.

Exported media may contain a visible disclaimer label burned into the image ("MiaoSense — not a vet substitute") and, where applicable, a low-confidence indicator. These labels are for informational purposes and remain part of the file.

Sharing exported media is an action you take in your own responsibility. When you share files via third-party apps (WhatsApp, Instagram, email, etc.), those apps' own privacy policies apply. Please ensure that no identifiable persons are visible in any media you choose to share (see § 201a of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and equivalent national criminal-law provisions in other EU jurisdictions).

Saved media files can be deleted at any time through your device's gallery app or file manager.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR — processing necessary to provide the requested export functionality.

Email Contact

If you contact us at hello@miaosense.app, we process your email address and the content of your message solely to handle your enquiry. We do not share this information with third parties. Correspondence is retained only as long as necessary to resolve your enquiry and is then deleted.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries directed at us.

Providing your email address is voluntary. If you choose not to, we are unable to respond to your enquiry.

Commercial use — who is the controller then?

If you use MiaoSense in a veterinary practice, a cattery, a cat café, an animal shelter or any other commercial or professional activity, the architecture does not change: analysis runs on your device, and we do not get to see the footage. What does change is who answers for the data you create there.

If you observe cats whose owner you are not yourself, and you enter personal data into the App along the way — names or contact details in cat profiles or notes, for example — you are the controller within the meaning of Art. 4(7) GDPR for that data, not us. Because Purrception never gains access to this data, there is no processing by us within the meaning of Art. 4(8) GDPR in the first place — and without processing we are not a processor but the maker of software that runs on your device. A data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR is therefore not required for using MiaoSense. We could not honour one either — the data does not reach us.

Nor does this create joint controllership under Art. 26 GDPR. We do decide which fields the App offers, but we take no part in the processing itself: you create, use and delete the profiles entirely on your own, with nothing contributed from our side. That processing is separable from us and would run identically without us — unlike cases where an embedded function itself transmits data to a third party.

Your own obligations towards your clients and patients are unaffected and rest with you alone. That includes in particular the information duties under Art. 13 GDPR and the question of what legal basis you rely on for your own processing.

If your organisation uses MiaoWatch, the section MiaoWatch — Remote Camera above applies in addition: there the video image leaves the recording device and travels across your network to the device that processes it.

This matches Section 9a.4 of the Terms of Service, which also sets out the limits of commercial use — in particular that MiaoSense remains observational in a professional setting too, and provides no diagnosis, no early detection and no triage.

This assessment applies to using MiaoSense as described on this page. If you change anything about your processing — your own backups, syncing App data across several devices, or a management system with remote access — assess your responsibility for that part separately. We cannot speak to it.

Legal basis: none of our own — this section describes processing for which you are responsible, not us.

Your Rights (GDPR Art. 15–22)

You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, or object to the processing of your personal data, and the right to data portability. To exercise any of these rights, contact:

hello@miaosense.app

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The authority competent for us follows from our place of business and is: Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht (BayLDA), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach.

Controller (Art. 4(7) GDPR)

Robert Sommer
Isoldenstraße 26, 80804 München, Germany
hello@miaosense.app