Animiyo terms and conditions of use

These terms govern access to and use of Animiyo, a software platform for companion animal management delivered as a web application hosted on Google Cloud Run and as a native iOS application. The two applications share the same Firebase backend, so the rules described here apply in the same way to both. The parties to the contract are, on one side, the platform provider, whose details are published on the Contacts page at the path /contatti and, on the other, the user who creates an account. Acceptance takes place at registration, before the account is created: anyone who does not accept does not complete sign up and does not gain access to the service.

The platform hosts two different relationships. With pet owners, who use it for personal purposes, the provider has a direct relationship and acts as data controller for their account data. With veterinary clinics and with pet shops and services, which operate as tenants, the provider acts as data processor for the data the tenant handles about its own clients, under the conditions described in the agreement published at the path /dpa. The relationship between an owner and the clinic or shop that assists them remains a relationship between those two parties: Animiyo provides the tools and does not supply veterinary or commercial services in its own name.

1. Any specific conditions agreed in writing with a tenant, which prevail over these terms in that tenant relationship only.
2. The data processing agreement at the path /dpa and the list of sub-processors at the path /sub-responsabili, for everything concerning processing carried out on behalf of the tenant.
3. These terms, which govern the use of the platform by every user, in any role.
4. The privacy notice at the path /privacy and the cookie notice at the path /cookie, which describe processing activities and prevail over these terms in case of divergence on that point.

The list above sets the order of precedence in case of conflict between documents. If a clause of these terms proves invalid or ineffective, the remaining clauses stay valid and the clause is replaced, as far as possible, by a lawful provision that respects its purpose. The Italian and English versions have the same content; in case of interpretative divergence the Italian text prevails.

In this document the following terms have the meaning set out in the table. The same words are used with the same meaning in the related documents, so that the privacy notice, the data processing agreement and the terms of use describe the same reality with the same vocabulary.

The definitions apply in the singular and in the plural and do not change meaning when they appear in the interface translated into any of the nine published languages. Where the text cites a path beginning with a slash, for example /privacy, it refers to a page of the Animiyo site reachable in the language you are reading.

The service is reserved for people aged eighteen or over. Anyone who registers declares that they meet the age requirement and have the legal capacity to enter into the contract. An animal health record holds data that can carry economic and medical weight, and the platform is not designed to collect the consent of a parent or guardian: for this reason there are no accounts for minors. If the provider receives serious evidence that an account belongs to a minor, it suspends the account and, once the circumstance is verified, closes it and deletes the associated data.

• The data entered at registration must be true and current: the email address is used to recover access and to receive contractual communications, so it must genuinely belong to the person registering.
• The email address must be verified through the message sent at sign up. Until verification is complete some features remain unavailable.
• Registration is completed with email and password or with a federated provider. Credentials are personal: they must not be transferred, shared or reused on other services.
• The user is answerable for activity carried out through their account until they report unauthorised access from the Contacts page and change the password.
• One account per person is allowed. Duplicate accounts distort reviews, loyalty programmes and tenant statistics and may be merged or closed.
• The account is not transferable. Sharing an animal with a family member is done with the dedicated feature, which creates a separate and revocable access, not by passing on the password.

The username is the part of the profile that other users can see when you share an animal, join a group walk, write a review or contact a professional in chat. Choose a name that contains no personal data of third parties, no insults, no references to other people's trade marks and nothing that suggests a professional qualification you do not hold, for example using the word veterinarian when you are not one. The provider may ask for a username that breaches these rules to be changed and, if there is no response, replace it with a neutral identifier.

Professional accounts follow an additional path. Anyone asking to operate as a veterinary clinic or as a shop declares their role, states the organisation they act for and accepts that the provider will check the plausibility of what is declared before enabling the workspace. Enablement works through the permissions attached to the account, which determine which data and which features each individual user can reach inside the tenant. The tenant is responsible for managing its own members: adding, changing or revoking an internal access is its decision and its responsibility.

As at the effective date of these terms Animiyo does not process payments. The integration with Stripe Payments Europe is present in the code but switched off: a configuration flag, called paywall, keeps the gateway closed. As a result the platform does not request, does not receive and does not store payment data, and no amount can be charged to users through the service.

Access to professional features currently goes through a manual licence. The platform administrator enables the plan on the tenant account, optionally with an expiry date, after checking the declared role. A manual licence is revocable and is not a purchased entitlement: on expiry, or in case of a reasoned revocation, the tenant keeps read only access to its own data and the ability to export it, while the features reserved to the plan are switched off. No manual licence creates retroactive payment obligations when the gateway is switched on.

1. Before the gateway is switched on, prices will be published on the site, stating the applicable taxes and the billing currency.
2. The billing period, the date of the first charge and the renewal conditions will be stated, together with how to cancel before expiry.
3. Users already using the service will receive a communication with reasonable notice, so they can choose whether to continue on a paid plan, stay on the free features or close the account.
4. Switching on the gateway will not automatically turn a manual licence into a paid subscription: a fresh acceptance and an express consent to be charged will be required.
5. The commercial conditions will be gathered in a dedicated section of this document, with a new version and a new effective date.

Until then no statement published on the site, on the blog or in the application is to be read as a binding commercial offer. The provider is not obliged to switch on the gateway, nor to keep free in the future the features accessible today without a licence, subject to the notice described above and to the withdrawal rights granted by law.

The content you upload remains yours. Photographs of your animals, reports, health record notes, walk tracks, reviews and messages do not become the provider's property merely because they were uploaded to the platform. The provider does not sell them, does not transfer them to third parties for its own purposes and does not use them for advertising.

To deliver the service the provider needs a limited licence: to store the content, reproduce it on the systems needed to display it, adapt its format where necessary, for example by resizing an image or generating a preview, and transmit it to the recipients you designate yourself, such as the clinic you share a report with or the user you share an animal with. The licence is free of charge, non exclusive, revocable by deleting the content or the account, and limited to the purposes of running the service. It does not extend to promotional uses: if the provider ever wanted to show your content on a marketing page, it would ask for your specific consent first.

• Username: visible to the other users you interact with, in reviews and in group walks.
• Found me tag: a public page reachable by anyone holding the link, showing only the information you choose to display so the animal can be returned.
• Reviews of clinics and shops: public and linked to your username, with the text you write and the rating you give.
• Group walks and shared routes: they make the track and the session data you choose to share visible to the other participants.
• Chat with professionals: messages are visible to the recipient tenant and to the authorised users inside it.

You are responsible for what you upload. Do not publish content you have no rights to, health data of animals that are not yours without the owner's permission, images showing identifiable people without their consent, or information revealing the addresses and habits of third parties. Remember that the lost animal tag is public by design: enter only the contact details you accept to make visible, and switch it off as soon as the animal has been found.

Anyone can report content believed to be unlawful or harmful from the Contacts page, describing the content, the reason for the report and, where possible, the link to the page where it appears. Reports are examined and, where well founded, the content is removed or made inaccessible; the author receives a communication with the reasons, except where the law forbids it. A reasoned objection to removal can be filed through the same channel and is reviewed by a person, not by an automated procedure.

The platform must be used for the purpose it exists for: following the health and daily life of animals and connecting owners, clinics and shops. The uses listed below are prohibited because they endanger the security of the service, the data of other users or the reliability of the published information.

• Extracting data in bulk from the platform with crawlers, scripts or automated tools, or creating partial or complete copies of the databases.
• Circumventing, disabling or tampering with the security controls, in particular Firebase App Check with reCAPTCHA Enterprise, the access rules by role and by tenant and the request rate limits.
• Using the platform to practise veterinary medicine without authorisation, that is to make diagnoses or prescribe treatments or medicines without being qualified to do so.
• Uploading health data of animals you do not own or co-own, or for which you hold no mandate from the owner and no professional title.
• Harassing, threatening or sending unwanted and repeated messages in chats with professionals or with other users.
• Publishing fake reviews, written by someone who had no real relationship with the organisation, or obtained or requested in exchange for payment.
• Consulting, reusing or disclosing other people's walk location data outside the sharing features provided.
• Reselling, sublicensing or making available to third parties access to your own account or to a professional plan.
• Running security testing, vulnerability scanning or load testing without prior written authorisation requested from the Contacts page.
• Uploading malicious software, unlawful content, material inciting hatred or violence against animals, or unsolicited advertising.

In response to a breach the provider may remove the content, limit or suspend the features involved, suspend the account and, in serious or repeated cases, close it. The measure chosen is proportionate to the seriousness of the conduct and, where security allows, is preceded by a request to put things right within a reasonable time. Breaches that create a risk for data or for people are recorded in the application audit log and, where the conditions are met, reported to the competent authorities. The provider's right to seek compensation for damage and the user's right to challenge the measure from the Contacts page both remain unaffected.

At this stage the provider does not guarantee a measured service level, that is it promises neither a minimum percentage of uptime nor maximum restoration times. The service is delivered with reasonable technical care and is monitored, but it may be interrupted by planned maintenance, urgent fixes, infrastructure failures or events beyond the provider's control. Where an interruption is planned and likely to be noticeable, it is announced in advance in the application or on the site.

• The platform depends on Google Cloud and Firebase: unavailability of those services affects Animiyo, and the provider can only work to reduce the impact.
• Non urgent maintenance is scheduled in low usage windows; security fixes may be applied without notice.
• Features may be changed, replaced or improved: the look and the behaviour of the interface may differ between releases.
• The retirement of a significant feature is announced at least thirty days in advance, stating the available alternative or how to retrieve the related data.
• The web and iOS versions may receive new features at different times: something present in one may reach the other in a later release.

In every change or retirement scenario the ability to export your data in JSON format from the tools inside the application remains available. This is an architectural choice, not a temporary concession: the export is designed to return an archive that is readable outside the platform too, so that the decision to stay does not depend on how hard it is to leave. If a substantial change significantly worsens the service for the user, that user may withdraw at no cost as set out in the section on changes to these terms.

Animiyo is a tool for recording, organising and communicating. It is not a medical device, it does not carry out healthcare activity and it never replaces the examination, diagnosis and prescription of a veterinary surgeon. The information the platform displays is provided for information purposes only and is written in general terms, without knowledge of the complete clinical history of the individual animal.

• Symptom triage suggests a level of urgency and reading material based on the signs you describe: it is guidance, not a diagnosis, and it cannot account for what only an examination can reveal.
• Medicine records come from the public openFDA database: they carry information collected for regulatory purposes and may be incomplete, refer to different formulations or be out of date for your country.
• Food records come from Open Pet Food Facts, a collaborative database: entries are contributed by the community and may contain errors or refer to formulations no longer on sale.
• Reminders help you not to miss a due date, but they do not check whether the due date is right: intervals, dosages and boosters must be agreed with the vet who follows the animal.
• The suggestions shown in the platform do not account for allergies, ongoing conditions, concurrent treatments, age and species in a clinically complete way.

The platform makes no automated decisions producing legal effects or similarly significantly affecting users: no feature decides on its own the outcome of a request or access to a service without human involvement. The data entered by veterinary clinics in their own workspaces stays under the professional responsibility of the clinic that produced it: the content, accuracy and retention of clinical records answer to professional rules, not to platform features. If you spot an error in clinical data recorded by an organisation, ask that organisation for a correction, since it is the only party able to amend its own professional content.

The platform software, the interface, the trade mark, the Animiyo name, the visual identity and the editorial content of the blog and the guides are protected by copyright and trade mark law. The user receives a personal, non exclusive, non transferable and revocable right of use, limited to access through the official interfaces and for the purposes set out in these terms. Copying, decompiling, disassembling, modifying or creating derivative works of the software is not permitted, except within the mandatory limits allowed by law.

If you send a suggestion, a bug report or an improvement idea, the provider may use it to develop the product with no obligation of payment, attribution or confidentiality, unless you expressly stated otherwise before sending it. This covers the functional substance of the suggestion and does not transfer to the provider any rights over protected works you may have attached. Third party libraries included in the software remain subject to their own licences, which prevail over this section as far as they are concerned.

The service is provided as it is and with the features actually available at the time of use. To the extent permitted by law the provider does not warrant that the platform will be free of errors, always available, compatible with every device or fit for a particular purpose not described in these terms. Consumers keep the rights granted by the mandatory rules on conformity of digital content and services and by Italian legislative decree 206/2005.

• The provider is liable without any limitation for damage caused by wilful misconduct or gross negligence and for personal injury: no clause of this document reduces that liability.
• Within the limits of the law, liability is excluded for indirect damage, loss of profit, loss of business opportunity and damage arising from clinical decisions taken on the basis of informational content of the platform.
• The provider is not liable for the professional or commercial services delivered by tenants, which remain relationships between the tenant and its client.
• The provider is not liable for improper use of credentials by the user or by third parties to whom the user disclosed them.
• Unavailability caused by third party infrastructure services is not attributable to the provider, which remains bound to make reasonable efforts to restore the service.

Data is stored with appropriate technical measures, including encryption in transit with TLS and at rest with AES at 256 bits, security rules per collection and per role on Firestore and Cloud Storage, and an application audit log. No measure removes entirely the risk of data loss or alteration. For this reason users are encouraged to use the JSON export regularly and to keep an independent copy of the documents they consider essential, in particular clinical reports and health certificates. A recently exported archive is the most effective protection against any technical incident.

The tenant is directly answerable to its own clients for the quality of its services, for the accuracy of the clinical or commercial data it enters and for compliance with the professional and data protection obligations that apply to it. Where the provider acts as data processor, its obligations are those set out in the agreement published at the path /dpa and in EU regulation 2016/679. If a user raises with the provider a matter attributable to the tenant, the provider directs them to the tenant and cooperates with both within the limits of its own role.

The provider may suspend access in whole or in part where a serious and proportionate reason arises. Suspension is a temporary measure: it exists to stop ongoing harm, not to punish. Where the security of the service and of the data allows it, the user receives advance notice stating the conduct complained of and a reasonable period to put things right; where the risk is immediate, the communication follows the suspension straight away.

• Breach of the prohibited uses, in particular attempts to circumvent security controls or to extract data in bulk.
• Well founded suspicion of unauthorised access to the account or of compromised credentials, in order to protect the user.
• Uploading unlawful content or health data relating to other people's animals with no title whatsoever.
• Using the platform for activities that require a professional qualification the user does not hold.
• An order from a competent authority or a legal obligation requiring suspension.
• Failure to verify the role declared by a professional account within the period stated in the request.

Users may close their account at any time and without giving reasons, using the deletion feature inside the application. Closure ends the contractual relationship and starts the deletion of the associated data according to the timing and the exceptions described in the privacy notice at the path /privacy; the rights over the data and how to exercise them are explained at the path /diritti-privacy. Before proceeding it is worth exporting the archive in JSON format, because after deletion recovery is not possible. Closure does not remove the content that other users have lawfully received through sharing, nor the data that must be retained by legal obligation.

Ending the relationship with a tenant follows a different rule, because clinical data has a life of its own. When a clinic or a shop stops using the platform, the tenant remains responsible for retaining the documentation that professional rules require of it, and receives a period to export its data before the workspace is switched off. Owners' animals and health records do not belong to the tenant: they stay in the accounts of their respective owners, who keep seeing them after the relationship with the organisation ends. Information produced by the clinic and shared with the owner remains visible to the owner in the copy that was sent to them.

A consumer who enters into a paid distance contract has fourteen days to withdraw without giving reasons and without penalty, as provided by articles 52 to 59 of Italian legislative decree 206/2005. The period runs from the day the contract is concluded where the subject matter is a service or digital content not supplied on a tangible medium. Withdrawal is exercised by an explicit statement addressed to the provider through the details published on the Contacts page at the path /contatti; the model form annexed to the Consumer Code may be used, but it is not compulsory.

1. 1

   Check that you are a consumer

   The right of withdrawal belongs to a natural person acting for purposes outside their business or professional activity. Anyone subscribing to a plan for a clinic or a shop acts as a professional and follows the agreed contractual conditions, not this procedure.

2. 2

   Check the date the contract was concluded

   Identify the day you entered into the distance contract: the fourteen days run from that day. If the deadline falls on a public holiday, the ordinary rules on calculating time limits apply.

3. 3

   Send the withdrawal statement

   Write to the provider using the details published on the Contacts page, stating your username, the plan subscribed and your intention to withdraw. A simple and unambiguous wording is enough: no particular legal formula is needed.

4. 4

   Keep proof that you sent it

   Save the receipt or a copy of the message sent within the deadline. Proving that withdrawal was exercised in time is up to the person withdrawing, so it is worth keeping the evidence until the refund is confirmed.

5. 5

   Receive the refund

   The provider refunds what it received within fourteen days of receiving the statement, using the same payment method as the purchase unless otherwise agreed. If you had asked for the service to start immediately, the amount retained is proportionate to the part already performed up to the moment withdrawal was communicated.

For digital content supplied on a non tangible medium the right of withdrawal is lost where performance has begun with the consumer's express agreement and with their acknowledgement that the right will be lost: this step, when it becomes relevant, will be requested explicitly before activation. As at the effective date of these terms no paid plan is active, the gateway is switched off and no payment data is collected: there are therefore no amounts paid and nothing to refund. The procedure described above is published so that it is already known and verifiable when paid features are switched on.

The contract and these terms are governed by Italian law, with particular reference to legislative decree 206/2005 for relationships with consumers, to legislative decree 70/2003 for information society services and to EU regulation 2016/679 for the processing of personal data. The choice of Italian law does not deprive the consumer of the protection afforded by the mandatory rules of the country where they habitually reside. Accessibility of the interfaces is governed by legislative decree 82/2022 and by EU directive 2019/882, as described in the statement at the path /accessibilita.

• Consumers resident in Italy: the court of the consumer's place of residence or elected domicile has jurisdiction, under the Consumer Code.
• Consumers resident in another European Union country: the mandatory rules of the country of residence continue to apply and the courts of the place where the consumer resides keep jurisdiction.
• Professional users, that is clinics, shops and other parties acting in the course of their business: the court of the provider's registered seat, stated on the Contacts page at the path /contatti, has exclusive jurisdiction.
• Before going to court, both parties undertake to attempt an amicable solution by writing from the Contacts page and waiting a reasonable time for a reply.

EU regulation 524/2013 established a European platform for the online resolution of disputes between consumers and traders. When Animiyo activates paid contracts concluded online, the link to the applicable dispute resolution tool will be published on the Contacts page together with information on the mediation bodies that can be used. Recourse to these tools is voluntary and does not affect the right to bring proceedings before the competent court.

This document carries the version and the effective date at the top: these are the two pieces of information that show which text applies at a given moment. Changes may be needed to align the text with new features, with a change in the configuration of the service or with a legal obligation. Purely formal corrections, such as fixing a typo or adding a clarification that does not affect rights and obligations, take effect on publication without notice.

1. Substantial changes are communicated to registered users at least thirty days before the effective date, through a notice in the application or a message to the verified email address.
2. During the notice period the user can read the updated text, which already shows the new version and the new effective date.
3. Anyone who does not accept the change may withdraw at no cost and without penalty before the effective date, closing the account with the feature inside the application.
4. Continuing to use the service after the effective date counts as acceptance of the updated text.
5. The JSON export stays available during the notice period too, so that choosing to close the account never means losing the archive.

Previous versions of this document remain tracked in the version control of the platform code, which is the authoritative history: every revision is recorded with its date and with the exact content published at that moment. Anyone who needs the text in force on a past date, for example for a dispute, can request it from the Contacts page stating the period concerned. Changes affecting the processing of personal data are described in the notice at the path /privacy, which follows its own version history.