BackToYou • Privacy & Security

Privacy & Security

BackToYou exists for one job: help a finder contact an owner and get a pet home. It’s not a social network. It’s not an analytics farm. It’s not here to “monetise engagement”.

Plain English: The public page is public on purpose. Only put info there that you’re comfortable sharing with a stranger who found your pet.

What’s public

On your pet’s public page, these fields may be visible (depending what you enter):

Pet name + species
Your public message
Phone number and/or email (if you add them)
Photo (if you upload one)

Do not put addresses, full legal names, or anything you’d regret being visible to the public internet.

What we store

BackToYou stores only what is required to operate the service:

The details you enter (pet name, message, contact info, optional photo)
A public token (the short code printed on your tag)
A private edit secret (the long link that lets you edit/delete your page)
Recovery code hash (so you can regain access without changing your tag)

There are no accounts, no passwords, and no “profile” system.

Scan logging

BackToYou logs a small amount of scan activity to help owners see if a tag has been scanned.

We store scan time events (timestamps).
We do not store IP addresses in scan logs.

Photos

If you upload a photo, BackToYou re-encodes it to remove EXIF/metadata where possible (so it doesn’t leak device/location data). A thumbnail may be generated for faster loading.

Photos are still public on the public page. Don’t upload anything you wouldn’t want a stranger to see.

Encryption

In transit: Yes. If you access BackToYou over HTTPS, your data is encrypted between your device and the server.
At rest: The database is not encrypted on disk by default (typical for small services).

Practical reality: if an attacker fully compromises the server, they can usually access anything the service can access. BackToYou minimises stored data instead of pretending it can be “unhackable”.

Deletion & retention

You can remove your page from the edit link. Removal immediately makes the public page unavailable. A grace period exists before permanent purge (to protect owners from accidental deletions): 7 day(s).

If you want something gone, delete it. If you need help (lost edit link, abuse reports, urgent takedown), use the contactless support form.

Spam, abuse, and protection

BackToYou uses rate-limiting and other basic protections to reduce automated abuse. If you hammer the service (even accidentally while testing), you may see “Too many requests”.

Who runs this?

BackToYou is operated as a separate service to ScotNet because it has a different purpose and different privacy tradeoffs. ScotNet branding may appear, but BackToYou’s rules are defined on this page.

Contactless support: Instead of emailing people, use the support form. Email is optional.

Open support

Changes

This policy may change as the service evolves. The current version is what applies right now.