Zoaki

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 October 2026

This Policy explains what personal data Zoaki collects, why and how that personal data is processed, and your rights as data subjects.

This Policy may be updated from time to time.

Preamble

Personal data is processed in accordance with the applicable European and national legal framework, namely Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (GDPR), Greek Law 4624/2019, and the decisions, guidelines and opinions of the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA), the other competent independent authorities, the European Data Protection Board or any other competent body.

Your rights

Under the applicable legal framework, data subjects have the following rights:

(a) Right to information and transparency (Articles 12-14 GDPR): the right to know who processes your data, what that data is and why.

(b) Right of access by the data subject (Article 15 GDPR): you have the right to request free access to the personal data an organisation holds about you.

(c) Right to rectification (Article 16 GDPR): you have the right to ask for inaccurate personal data to be corrected and incomplete data to be completed.

(d) Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17 GDPR): you have the right to ask for your personal data to be erased under certain conditions, for example when the data is no longer necessary, you have withdrawn your consent, or the data has been processed unlawfully.

(e) Right to restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR): you have the right to ask for the processing of your personal data to be restricted when its accuracy is contested, the processing is unlawful, the controller no longer needs the data, or you have objected to automated processing.

(f) Right to data portability (Article 20 GDPR): you have the right to ask for your data to be transferred to another controller.

(g) Right to object (Article 21 GDPR): you have the right to object to an organisation processing your personal data, provided the public interest is not affected.

(h) Right not to be subject to automated individual decision-making, including profiling (Article 22 GDPR): you have the right to object when a decision about you is based solely on automated processing, including profiling, and that decision produces legal effects or significantly affects you.

(i) Right to withdraw consent (Article 7(3) GDPR)

To exercise any of your rights, you can contact us at privacy@zoaki.co.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority (for Greece, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority: 1-3 Kifisias Ave., 115 23 Athens, tel. +30 210 6475600, email: contact@dpa.gr) or to seek a judicial remedy.

Data controller

The “data controller” is the person who determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data.

The data controller is Konstantinos Trokanas, creator, administrator and owner of the website, based in Thessaloniki.

Contact: trokanas@icloud.com

What data we collect

“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, who is called the data subject.

Account details: full name, email address, password (stored as a salted, encrypted hash — we never store or see your password in plain text), phone number, profile photo, and bio/experience/skills.

Location: if you use Zoaki to find a Sitter, we ask your device for its location (with your consent) to show you Sitters near you. Sitters provide an address so we can work out their general service area; the exact address is shared with an Owner only after a booking is accepted, and search results always show an approximate location, never an exact address.

Payment details: payment details are collected and processed directly by our payment provider, Stripe. We never see or store your full card number. We store limited related metadata, such as your Stripe customer/account identifier, transaction amounts and booking status.

Identity verification (Sitters): to build trust, Sitters complete an identity check through Stripe Identity. The documents involved in verification are collected and processed directly by Stripe — we receive and store only the result of the check.

Tax details (Sitters): before their listing is published, Sitters give us their Greek tax identification number (ΑΦΜ). We use it only to report the income they earn through the platform to the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), as required by Directive (EU) 2021/514 (DAC7) and Greek Law 5047/2023. Your ΑΦΜ is not shown to other Users.

Messages: the in-platform conversation between an Owner and a Sitter about a booking, which may include messages and/or photos, and is delivered through our real-time messaging provider, Pusher.

Reviews and content: ratings, reviews, incident reports, and the updates, messages or photos submitted through the platform.

Waitlist and newsletter: if you give us your email address and city through the “Not in your area yet?” form, we store them together with the language of the page, to let you know when Zoaki reaches your area. We send you news from Zoaki only if you choose to, by ticking the box for it, and we record when you gave that consent. You can withdraw it at any time through the unsubscribe link in every newsletter, or ask to be removed from the list at privacy@zoaki.co. No account is needed.

Device and usage data: a push-notification token if you use the mobile app, basic device/session details to keep you signed in, and technical logs (such as IP address and request timestamps) that we use for a short period for security purposes, such as detecting abuse and rate-limiting sign-in attempts.

For more on how cookies are used, please see the Cookie Policy.

What we use your data for

To create your account, match Owners with Sitters and manage bookings.

To process payments and to carry out identity verification.

To let Owners and Sitters message each other about a shared booking.

To send you emails and notifications (booking updates, receipts, security alerts).

To let you know when Zoaki reaches your area, if you have joined the waitlist, and to send you news from Zoaki, if you have chosen to receive it.

To detect and prevent fraud, abuse and unauthorised access.

To comply with legal (tax, accounting and other) obligations.

To maintain and improve the service.

Recipients of data – transfers

Your data is not intended to be transferred to any organisation or person outside Zoaki, except:

(a) hosting and database service providers, solely for the purpose of performing their existing contract with Zoaki,

(b) judicial, prosecuting and police authorities, as well as auditing, tax or other administrative authorities, where required by law or court decision or following their lawful requests in the exercise of their duties,

(c) any partners under a relevant contract, solely for the purpose of fulfilling that contract, and under strict conditions of confidentiality and compliance with the applicable legal framework by everyone involved, and

(d) other Zoaki Users — an Owner and a Sitter can see each other’s relevant profile details once a booking request has been made. Public sitter profiles show name, photo, bio, approximate service area and reviews.

Under Article 44 GDPR, any transfer of data to a third country or international organisation must be lawful under the general provisions of the GDPR (Articles 5, 6 and 9) and meet the conditions of Chapter V.

This Policy does not cover processing that takes place after you move to third-party websites or social media pages.

Data retention

We keep your personal data for as long as your account is active, and for any further period required for legal, tax or dispute-resolution purposes. When you delete your account, we delete or anonymise your personal data within 30 days, except what we are legally required to keep.

Data collected when you join the waitlist is kept for as long as necessary to let you know when Zoaki is available in your area of interest and to send you the updates you have consented to. If you withdraw your consent or ask to be removed from the list, we stop using your data for these purposes and delete it, unless the law requires us to keep it.

Closing your account and a copy of your data

You can close your account at any time from Settings → Privacy. Closing it removes your name, photo, phone number, city and listing, and signs you out on every device. Past bookings, reviews and messages stay with the other User, without your name. If you have a booking that has not finished, it has to be completed or cancelled first.

From the same page you can download a copy of your data (profile, pets, bookings, reviews and the messages you have sent) as a JSON file.

Minors

Zoaki is not aimed at minors, and you must be at least 18 years old to create an account.

Zoaki does not collect data of minors under 15 without the consent of their parent or guardian (under Article 8 GDPR and Article 21 of Law 4624/2019) and, in any case, deletes such data where the required consent is missing.

Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data, such as encrypted connections, hashed passwords and rate limiting on authentication endpoints, to make credential-stuffing and brute-force attempts harder.

If you have questions about this Policy or how your data is processed, you can email privacy@zoaki.co.

For a better experience

We use cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your language. These are needed for the site to work and can’t be switched off. With your permission we also measure how the site is used, so we can make it better and faster. More in our Cookie Policy.