Your walks. Your choices.
Leash Lookout privacy & data · Effective November 4, 2026
Leash Lookout helps you remember places, add notes and stickers, report timed sightings, and record your dog walks. Its built-in map covers Chandler Ranch, a neighborhood in Orange, California; elsewhere the app uses OpenStreetMap services, described below. Notes and sightings start as Just me unless you change New notes start as in Settings. Sharing a note and sharing your live location are separate choices.
Saved on this device
Your notes, settings, downloaded neighborhoods, and walk journal are stored in your browser or app storage. While you are signed in, it also keeps copies of your account notes and of the shared notes, chat messages, and live positions the app has downloaded. Walk routes and walk history (your latest 500 walks) stay on this device; the app does not upload your recorded route. Turning on live location sharing sends your current position separately.
Device storage can be cleared by you, your browser, or the operating system. Use Backup to keep an exported copy. A different browser, device, or web address has its own local storage. Signing out is not the same as removing every cached copy from a device.
Accounts and shared notes
When the sharing service is available, signing in connects to Google Firebase. An account uses your email address and a password; Firebase stores the email address, which other users never see. Your account profile keeps your display name and a list of the map cells where you have posted in the walk chat, so Delete account can find those messages. While you are signed in, your notes, including those marked Just me, are kept in your account so they sync between devices. Other app users cannot read notes marked Just me, and they are excluded from the neighborhood feed.
Share with neighbors publishes the note, its coordinates and time, and your chosen display name to other app users, together with a random identifier for your account (not your email address), so items shared from the same account, including live positions and chat messages, can be connected. The app shows shared items near the map you are viewing, but the service does not limit them by distance: anyone signed in to Leash Lookout, anywhere, can read them, and anyone with an email address can create an account.
The developer, through the Firebase console, and Google, which runs Firebase, can access data stored in accounts, including notes marked Just me, to operate and support the service. A private note is not an end-to-end encrypted message. Avoid adding sensitive personal information.
You can change a note's visibility or remove it. Network problems can delay updates and removal from other devices. Check the app's sync status before relying on a change; someone may already have copied a previously shared note.
Resident notices are public. They carry no display name, but they carry the same account identifier as your shared notes, live position, and chat messages, so anyone signed in could connect a notice on your home to your display name. A notice also records when you first posted it and how accurate your location was then. Before your first notice at a house, the app checks that a location fix from the last 2 minutes puts you within about 40 meters (130 feet) of it. Being nearby does not verify ownership or residence.
Location and walk recording
With your device's permission, location helps center the map, place reports, record distance, find nearby places, and show nearby alerts. The app may use location while it is open for these features even when you are not recording a walk. You can revoke location access in your browser or device settings and still place notes by tapping the map.
Live sharing is off by default. Once you turn on Share my live location while I walk, it stays on for your later walks until you turn it off. While a walk is recording (including a walk you resume) and you are signed in, your latest position, its approximate accuracy, your display name (or “Neighbor” if you have not set one), your account identifier, the update time, and the walk's start time are sent to Firebase. The position is precise, often to a few meters, and is shared from the start of the walk, which may be your home; anyone watching can follow your route as you walk. Anyone with a Leash Lookout account can see it, wherever they are; the app shows each person the walkers near their own location, or near the map they last viewed when it has no recent location for them. The app updates it about every 15 seconds while receiving location fixes, or each time you move about 25 meters (80 feet) if that comes sooner. In the App Store and Google Play versions this continues with the screen locked until you end the walk. Live sharing, live walkers, and walk chat need an account; if you choose Use without an account, nothing is shared.
Each live update replaces the preceding position record. The app attempts to remove it when you stop sharing, end the walk, or sign out. If the network or app stops responding, other app users stop seeing the position after four minutes without an update, and the service is set to delete a leftover position automatically, usually within about a day. In version 1.10.0 on iPhone, positions held back while you were offline are sent one after another when the connection returns, so that stretch of your walk reaches the service; later versions send only the newest position. Service logs or backups are separate from the position displayed in the app.
For browser walks, keep the app open. Browsers and phones may pause location updates when the screen locks or the app is in the background. Installing it on your home screen does not guarantee background GPS. In the App Store and Google Play versions, recording a walk keeps reading your location with the phone in your pocket (iPhone shows the location indicator; Android shows a persistent “Walk in progress” notification, or lists the app as active if you have not allowed notifications) so the route is complete. This stops the moment you end the walk. The recorded route is never uploaded. Your position leaves the device only in these cases: when live sharing is on (above); when you save a note, notice, or sighting while signed in, because its coordinates are part of it (with your location on, a sighting you report with the quick sighting buttons is placed where you are standing); for signed-in neighbor features, when the app asks the service for the live walkers and chat around you and the shared notes around the map you are viewing, and when you post in walk chat, which labels the message with your area (map cells a few kilometers across, not your exact position); when you add an area's houses while the map is following you, choose Add the area around me, or open Pet places more than about 30 km from Chandler Ranch with a location fix from the last 10 minutes, which sends your coordinates to a map-data server; and, while the street map shows the area around you, through the map area your device requests from the tile server. Both services are described below.
Sharing a link
Share on a place or sighting creates a link to that spot for you to send. The link holds the spot's coordinates and the item's identifier (and, for a sighting, its type); the suggested message names the address (or the name you gave the place) and your stickers, or the sighting type and its time, and you can edit it before sending. Your comments are not part of it, but your stickers are, even on a Just me note. Anyone who receives the link can see that location on the map. A note that is not shared with neighbors stays private: the link only shows its location. A note shared with neighbors can be read by anyone signed in to Leash Lookout, with or without the link.
Timed sightings and walk chat
A sighting's expiry (1 to 24 hours) removes it from the active map but not from the service: signed-in users can still read an expired shared sighting until your app removes it, about a week after it ends, the next time you open the app signed in. Version 1.10.0 also lets you set a sighting to Never; it then stays until you remove it, and newer versions hide it a day after it was seen. Sightings and notes are observations from walkers, not verified alerts.
Walk chat shows your message, chosen name, and time to other users. Each message is stored with your account identifier (and, for a reply, the name and identifier of the person you answer) and is posted to the map cell you are in, a few kilometers across, or to the one you last viewed when the app has no recent location. The app shows each area's chat to people in or viewing that area, but the service does not limit which account holders can read it. Messages are hidden after 24 hours, and the service is set to delete them automatically, usually within a day after that. You can delete your own visible messages, report content, or hide a walker from your view. Hiding someone changes only your own view, on this device; it does not stop them seeing your shared notes, live position, or chat messages.
Reports go only to the developer, who reads them in the Firebase console. A report includes the reported content, its location, the author's name and account identifier, your account identifier, your optional reason, and the time; the app cannot delete it once sent. Keep notes, reports, and chat about places and observations, without personal details about other people.
Connections to other services
- OpenStreetMap: while the street map is off, the app draws its own map of Chandler Ranch without contacting a tile server. Elsewhere it shows OpenStreetMap's street map (tile.openstreetmap.org), which turns on by itself when you look at places outside Chandler Ranch at street level, or when Pet places shows places outside it. You can switch it off with the map button or in Settings → Street map underlay, but it can turn on again, for example the next time you open the app away from Chandler Ranch. If you turn it on yourself, or in version 1.10.0 once it has turned itself on, it also loads inside Chandler Ranch. Each map tile request discloses the area being viewed and ordinary connection information such as your IP address to the tile servers. Adding an area's houses, or opening Pet places more than about 30 km from Chandler Ranch (the list then loads by itself, and is reused for 7 days in the same area unless you tap Update list), sends one point, to about a meter, to a public Overpass map-data server (overpass-api.de first, then overpass.kumi.systems and overpass.private.coffee if a server fails): the map center, which is your own position while the map follows you; the spot you tapped for Get the houses here; or your current position when you choose Add the area around me or when Pet places uses a location fix from the last 10 minutes.
- Google Firebase: provides accounts (your email address and display name), sync, shared notes, live positions, walk chat, and reports when configured. See Firebase privacy and security information.
- Hosting: the app's typefaces and its Firebase software are bundled with it, so no font or script server is contacted. This page, the web version of the app, and shared links are served by Netlify. Netlify and the services the app contacts receive ordinary connection information such as your IP address. Their own policies apply.
- Maps, calls, and websites: Open in Maps and directions pass the place's location, or its name and address, to Apple Maps or Google Maps (the app picks one by device); calling a number or opening a place's website hands it to your phone or browser.
The app code does not include advertising or an analytics tracker. Apple and Google may still give the developer crash reports and usage statistics if your device settings allow it, and the TestFlight and Google Play test programs share tester information and any feedback you send with the developer. Shared features, external maps, and new neighborhood downloads need a connection. After a successful offline download, the app shell and included neighborhood map can reopen offline; a browser may still remove cached files.
Exporting and deleting your data
Use Backup to export your notes, walks (with their routes), settings, and display name to a file you keep, or open an item to remove it. To erase device copies, first keep any backup you need, then clear this app's site data in your browser; for the Google Play version, clear the app's storage in Android settings, and for the App Store version, delete the app. Clearing local data does not delete account data already stored online.
Under Account → Delete account, after you re-enter your password, the app attempts to remove your notes (including shared notes, sightings, and resident notices), profile, live position, and the walk chat messages it can find, then deletes your account. A working connection is required. Delete account does not remove reports: reports you sent, and reports other people sent about your content (which keep a copy of it, your display name, and your account identifier), are deleted 12 months after the developer has dealt with them (see How long data is kept). The app also cannot confirm removal of every historical chat message, service log, or backup.
To ask for a copy of your data, a correction, complete deletion, or anything else about your privacy, email pkmdinc@gmail.com, if possible from the email address on your account. To protect your account, the developer may ask you to confirm a request from that address before acting on it. To delete your account yourself, use Delete account, which confirms it with your password. You will get a reply within one month. Do not email your password.
How long data is kept
- On your device: your notes, settings, and downloaded neighborhoods stay until you remove them or clear the app's storage, or your browser or phone clears them. Walk history keeps your latest 500 walks: when you finish another, the oldest is removed, so use Backup to keep older ones. Your own sightings are removed from the device about a week after they end, the next time you open the app. Copies of shared items the app has downloaded stay in its storage until the app replaces or removes them, or the storage is cleared.
- Notes, sightings, and resident notices in your account (saved while signed in, or made on this device before you signed in, which signing in adds to your account): until you remove them or delete your account. Your app removes your expired sightings from the service about a week after they end, the next time you open it signed in. A sighting set to Never in version 1.10.0 stays until it is removed; once you open a newer version signed in, the app gives it an end and removes it about a week later.
- Live position: the app tries to delete it when you stop sharing, end the walk, or sign out. Otherwise it expires an hour after its last update, and the service deletes it automatically, usually within a day after that.
- Walk chat: messages are hidden after 24 hours and deleted automatically, usually within a day after that. Messages posted with versions before 1.5 were kept in an older room that is not deleted automatically; they stay until you or the developer remove them, and Delete account removes yours.
- Reports (including reports other people send about your content): kept until the developer has dealt with them, then deleted 12 months later.
- Your account (email address, a scrambled (hashed) form of your password, display name, the times the account was created and last signed in, and the list of map cells where you posted in walk chat): until the account is deleted, by you with Delete account, or by the developer at your request or as described under Ages 18 and over.
- Emails you send to the developer, including privacy requests and complaints: kept as long as needed to deal with them and to keep a record of how they were handled.
- Backups and logs: Google's terms allow up to 180 days for deleted data to be removed from its systems, including backups. Firebase keeps the IP addresses it logs at sign-in for a few weeks. Netlify, the map services, and Apple and Google (for crash reports and test programs) keep their own records under their own policies; the developer keeps copies of crash reports and test feedback only as long as needed to fix the problem.
Security
The app talks to the services it uses over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Google states that Cloud Firestore and Firebase Authentication encrypt the data they store. The service's access rules let only you read your private notes and profile, let any signed-in user read shared notes, sightings, and resident notices, let users with an email account read live positions and walk chat, and let no app user read reports; the developer reads them in the Firebase console. The app asks for your password again before it deletes your account. No way of storing or sending data is completely secure.
Ages 18 and over
Leash Lookout is for people 18 and over. It is not directed at anyone under 18, and the developer does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If the developer learns that an account belongs to someone under 18, that account and the data stored with it in the service will be deleted (reports it sent follow How long data is kept). To report this, email pkmdinc@gmail.com.
If you are in the EU, EEA, or UK
Who is responsible: Pankaj Khemka, the developer, in Orange, California, United States, is the controller of the personal data Leash Lookout processes as described here. The outside services named under Connections to other services, and Apple and Google for their stores and test programs, are responsible for their own records under their own policies. Contact: pkmdinc@gmail.com.
Why your data is used, and the legal basis under the GDPR and the UK GDPR:
- Account and sync (email address, password, display name, your notes, and the list of walk-chat map cells): to run your account and keep your notes in step between devices. Basis: contract, because this is the service you signed up for.
- Sharing (shared notes, sightings, resident notices, and walk chat, as described above): to show other users what you choose to share. Basis: contract.
- Live sharing (your position, its accuracy, your display name, your account identifier, and the walk's start time while a walk is recording, once you turn on Share my live location while I walk): to show other users where you are walking, the feature you chose. Basis: contract. You can turn it off at any time.
- Location features (centering the map, recording walks on your device, nearby places and alerts, and the map requests described under Connections to other services): to provide the map features you use. Basis: contract. The app reads your location only with your device's permission, which you can turn off at any time.
- Safety reports (as described above): to review reported content and deal with misuse. Basis: legitimate interests in keeping the shared features safe for the people who use them.
- Security (sign-in checks, the password check before Delete account, and the connection logs, such as IP addresses, that Google and Netlify keep): to protect accounts and the service from misuse. Basis: legitimate interests in keeping them secure.
- Crash reports and test feedback that Apple and Google pass on: to find and fix problems. Basis: legitimate interests in keeping the app working.
- Emails you send: to answer you. Basis: legitimate interests in answering you and, for privacy requests and complaints, the legal obligation to handle them.
Where it comes from: from you and your device, except that a report about your content, and a walk-chat reply to you (which stores your display name and account identifier), come from the person who sent them, and crash reports and test information come from Apple and Google.
Who receives it: other Leash Lookout users (what you share); Google, which runs Firebase for the developer and provides the developer's email (Gmail); Netlify, which hosts this page, the web app, and shared links; the OpenStreetMap Foundation's tile servers; the Overpass servers run by FOSSGIS e.V. in Germany (overpass-api.de) and Private.coffee in Austria (overpass.kumi.systems and overpass.private.coffee); and Apple Maps or Google Maps when you open a place there.
Transfers outside Europe: the developer is in the United States, Google stores account and shared data there, and Netlify is a US company. Google and Netlify state that they are certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, which the European Commission and the UK government recognize as adequate for transfers to certified companies (see Firebase's privacy and security information and Netlify's privacy statement). OpenStreetMap's tile servers are a worldwide network, so a tile request may be answered from outside Europe.
How long: see How long data is kept.
Your rights: you can ask for access to your data and a copy of it, and for it to be corrected, deleted, or restricted, and you can receive the data you gave in a portable format. You can stop live sharing at any time by turning it off. Much of this works in the app: edit or remove notes, change your display name, export with Backup, turn off live sharing, or use Delete account. For anything else, see Exporting and deleting your data.
Your right to object: you can object at any time, on grounds relating to your situation, to the uses based on legitimate interests (safety reports, security, crash reports and test feedback, and emails) by emailing the developer.
Complaints: you can complain to the data protection authority where you live or work, or where you think a problem happened (EU and EEA authorities); in the UK, to the Information Commission (ico.org.uk). You can also complain to the developer by email; complaints are acknowledged within 30 days.
Do you have to give your data? No. You can use Leash Lookout without an account and without allowing location access. An account (email address and password) is needed for sync, sharing, live sharing, and walk chat, and live sharing also needs your location; without them, those features are not available. Using the app online always sends ordinary connection information, such as your IP address, to the services it contacts (see Connections to other services).
Automated decisions: Leash Lookout makes no decisions about you by automated means alone that have legal or similarly significant effects.
Changes to this policy
The date at the top shows when this version took effect. Changes are posted on this page, with a new date, before they take effect, and your data will not be used for a new purpose before this page describes it.
Do Not Track
Leash Lookout does not collect information about your activity on other websites or apps, and it contains no advertising or analytics code that would let another company do so, so it does not respond to browser Do Not Track signals. The services it contacts receive the connection information described under Connections to other services.
Leash Lookout is made and run by Pankaj Khemka in Orange, California. Questions: pkmdinc@gmail.com.