Malta Pet Haven (maltapethaven.com) is a directory of pet services in Malta.
This page explains what personal data we handle, why, and what you can ask us to do with it.
For any privacy question or request, write to
[email protected].
What we collect
Your account — the email address and display name you sign up with, and your password stored only as a hash (we never keep the password itself).
Your pets — if you add pet profiles to your account, the details you enter about them.
Listings and claims — business details you submit to add, claim or correct a listing: business name, town, contact numbers, description.
Bookings — the request details you send to a business through the site.
Reviews and community posts — the content you publish, with the date and time.
Lost-pet alerts and sightings — pet type/name, alert text, last-seen time and map pin, an optional photo, and sighting notes, times and map pins. These alert and sighting details are visible to anyone who opens the shareable alert. Email or phone is stored and shown only if the owner explicitly chooses that public contact method; private is the default. New alerts are linked internally to the signed-in account that created them so that owner controls work; the account ID is not shown publicly. Older guest alerts may retain a hash of their former private management token.
Push notifications — if you switch them on, the notification endpoint and keys your browser issues for that device.
Payments — if you pay for a claim or subscription, we store references from our payment provider (such as a customer or subscription identifier) and whether the payment succeeded. Your card details are entered on the payment provider's own pages and never reach our servers.
Technical records — IP address, browser type and the pages requested, kept in server logs for security and troubleshooting.
Analytics — only if you allow it in the cookie banner: pages viewed, referring page, approximate location derived from IP, device and browser type.
Why we use it, and on what basis
To run your account and the service you asked for (contract): sign-in, saving pets, sending a booking request, publishing your listing or review.
To keep the site safe and working (legitimate interest): preventing spam and abuse, rate-limiting, troubleshooting errors, keeping server logs.
To provide the public lost-pet board and sighting updates — when you choose to publish an alert or a sighting, we display the details and map pin you submit. We link new alerts to the signed-in account that published them so that account can manage or delete the alert.
Analytics and marketing measurement (consent only): we send analytics data to Google only after you accept it in the banner.
Push notifications (consent only): sent only to devices that opted in, and withdrawable at any time by turning them off in your browser.
Payments and accounting (contract and legal obligation): processing your payment and keeping the records we are required to keep.
Cookies
The site sets no cookies of its own. Cookies are used only by analytics, and only with your
consent. See the Cookie Policy for the specific names and lifetimes, and
for how to change your choice.
Who we share it with
Google — analytics (Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager), only with your consent.
Stripe — payment processing for claims and subscriptions.
Mailgun — delivery of transactional email, such as booking confirmations and replies.
Cloudflare — DNS, content delivery and the routing of email addressed to our contact addresses.
Our hosting provider — the server that stores the site and its database, located in the European Union.
Public visitors — anyone can view an open alert, its photo, map pin and sighting updates; a phone or email is visible only when the owner chooses to publish it.
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.
How long we keep it
Account data is kept while your account exists. Listings stay while they are published. Reviews and
community posts stay until you delete them or ask us to. A member lost-pet alert stays live until its
account owner deletes it; older guest alerts stay until their owner uses the private management link or
contacts privacy support. Removing an
alert also removes its associated sighting reports and uploaded photo. If you lose the private management link for an older guest alert, contact [email protected] to request removal. New member alerts are managed through the account that created them.
Server logs are kept for a limited period for security purposes, and payment records are kept as
long as accounting law requires.
Where your data goes
Our server and database are in the EU. The providers named above (Google, Stripe, Mailgun,
Cloudflare) may process data outside the European Economic Area; where they do, the transfer is
covered by their standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
show you a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
correct anything that is wrong;
delete your data (and your account);
restrict or object to how we use it;
give you your data in a portable format; and
withdraw a consent you gave earlier — for analytics, simply change your cookie choice.
Write to [email protected] and we will respond
within 30 days, as the GDPR requires. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Maltese
supervisory authority, the Information and Data Protection Commissioner
(idpc.org.mt).
Security
The site is served over HTTPS. Passwords are stored only as hashes, access to the server is
restricted, and we keep the software up to date. No system is perfect, so please use a password you
do not reuse elsewhere.
Children
The site is not intended for children. If you believe a child has given us personal data, write to
us and we will remove it.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be highlighted
on the site.