FaunaVox privacy policy

Last updated: 5 October 2026

FaunaVox listens to animal sounds and explains them. It is built so that your sounds stay on your phone. There are no accounts, no advertising and no tracking.

Sounds and the microphone

• FaunaVox uses the microphone only while you are listening (or while a home-alone monitor or station you started is running).
• Sounds are analysed on your device. They are never uploaded, except a single recording you choose to share (see below).
• Recordings you teach FaunaVox, and clips kept for your pet's health log, are stored only on your device.

What stays on your device

Pet profiles, the mood diary, health log, sleeping breathing counts, the results you checked (and the sound fingerprints FaunaVox learns your pet's voice from), sightings, station logs and settings are stored on your device only, in the app's private storage, which Android encrypts on any phone with a screen lock. You can back them up to a file yourself, and delete everything in Settings → Reset.

A backup file (Settings → Back up my data) is encrypted with a password you choose (AES-256-GCM, the key made from your password with PBKDF2). Nobody can open it without that password, not even the developer. Android's own Google backup includes FaunaVox only when that backup is end-to-end encrypted with your screen lock (Android 9 and later), or when you move straight to a new phone.

Location

Location is off by default. If you turn on "Save location", it is saved with a sighting you log, on your device only.

If you turn on "Only species that live here", FaunaVox asks the phone for its approximate location, rounds it to about 10 km and keeps it on the device, where an on-device model (the BirdNET Geomodel) uses it to leave out species not found there at this time of year. This location is never sent anywhere.

Two optional features share a coarse location, only if you turn them on: an alert group receives your alarm-meter warnings placed to about 500 metres (big-cat warnings to about 2 km, and only 30 minutes later; in South Asia big-cat warnings are never shared), and the community map receives which animals your stations heard, for a 10 km square and a week. Neither is linked to a name, account or device.

Optional features that use the FaunaVox server

• Extra-accurate recognition: the model files are downloaded from the server once. Nothing about you is sent.
• Home-alone monitor and stations: when you pair a second phone, short text events (for example "bark, alarm, 21:04", or "smoke alarm sounding") are relayed through the server to your other phone. They are end-to-end encrypted: both phones make the key from the 12-character pairing code, which never leaves them, so the server passes on messages it cannot read. It sees only a random room number and when a message was sent. Messages are kept in memory only, and a session ends after 12 hours of inactivity. (FaunaVox 1.2.1 and older used a 6-letter code without this encryption; update both phones.)
• Body language from a photo: a photo you take is read on the phone when it can be (Gemini Nano, or Chrome's built-in model). Only if the phone cannot, and only if you agree each time, the photo (made small) is sent to the server, which asks its AI service (Groq) to read it. It is used for that one answer and is not stored by FaunaVox or, by default, by Groq.
• "Explain more": on phones that support it, the explanation is written on the device. Otherwise only the result text (animal, call, mood, confidence, and the context you chose) is sent to the server, which asks its AI service (Groq) to write it. No audio is sent. If the server has no AI service, this only works on phones with on-device AI.
• Alert groups: only if you start or join a group with a code. When your alarm meter reaches "Alert" and sharing is on, the server receives the warning level, the names of the animals calling, and your location rounded to about 500 metres (big-cat warnings rounded to about 2 km, and shown to the group only after 30 minutes, so people do not crowd the animal). In India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, big-cat warnings are never shared and other warnings reach the group only after 30 minutes; phones are not allowed in the core zones of India's tiger reserves at all. Group members see warnings for 2 hours (the server keeps them only in memory, so a restart can remove them sooner; your phone keeps the ones it has already seen for 2 hours). Nothing identifies you.
• Community map: only if you turn on "Add my stations' animals to the map". A backyard or sentinel station sends, about every 30 minutes, which animals it heard and how many times, with only its 10 km square and the week. Big cats, elephants, bears, birds of prey and other sensitive animals are never sent. Each phone sends its whole week for a square under a random report number, which replaces its earlier copy; your phone keeps its own report for this week and last week and sends it again (at most every 30 minutes) so the map can be rebuilt after the server restarts. The map keeps these counts for 8 weeks, not linked to you. Looking at the map sends only your 10 km square.
• Sharing a recording: only if you turn on "Offer to share recordings" and confirm each time. The clip (at most 10 seconds) and its labels (animal, call, mood, context, region) are shared under the CC0 public-domain dedication to improve animal-sound recognition. No name, account, device identifier or precise location is sent, and the server does not keep IP addresses with them. Please do not share recordings with people talking.

Children

FaunaVox has no accounts and collects no personal information, so it is suitable for families. The kids' quiz works entirely offline. Alert groups and the community map are off until someone turns them on; children should ask a parent first.

Your choices and rights

Everything that leaves your phone is optional and starts only when you turn it on: you can turn it off at any time in Settings or by leaving a group, and what was sent then expires as described above (group warnings after 2 hours, map counts after 8 weeks). Because none of it is linked to a name, account or device, FaunaVox cannot look up "your" data on the server; you can delete everything on your phone in Settings → Reset.

If you are in India, this is also the notice under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its Rules: the purpose of each item is the feature it belongs to, nothing is sold or used for advertising, and you can withdraw consent as easily as you gave it. For questions or complaints, write to the developer email on FaunaVox's Google Play listing; you will get an answer within 90 days at the latest. You can also complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

Security

Everything between the app and the FaunaVox server travels over HTTPS (TLS 1.2 or 1.3); the app never uses plain HTTP. The server runs as its own restricted user, and what it keeps (shared recordings and community map counts) can be read only by that user. Attempts to guess pairing or group codes are limited.

Third parties

Map tiles for your sightings map come from OpenStreetMap when you open the map. Model files for sound recognition (Google YAMNet and Perch) and the BirdNET Geomodel run on your device. Groq processes the text of "Explain more" requests and photos you chose to send, as described above, and does not keep them by default.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be published at this address with a new date. For questions, use the developer email on FaunaVox's Google Play listing.