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Privacy Policy

How we handle your information

Last updated: September 4, 2026

1. Overview

Shutterpaws is a community of photographers and fursuiters who organize furmeet events. This policy explains what happens to information connected with our events and this website. It works alongside our Code of Conduct, which covers behavior expectations in more detail.

2. What Data We Store

This website’s pages are static. We do not run advertising or cross-site tracking. We do rely on a small number of service providers to operate the site, described in Section 3. We also offer optional accounts for RSVPing and event coordination. Information we handle includes:

  • Account details: your email address, display name, and any Telegram, Discord or BARQ! accounts you link. Your email is used to send sign-in links, and may also be used to send transactional messages related to your account, such as RSVP confirmations or payment reminders. We will never send you opt-in communications, such as newsletters or general updates, without your explicit consent.
  • Signing in with Google or BARQ!, if you choose one instead of an emailed link. See the sections below.
  • Event RSVPs and attendance history, tied to your account, used to coordinate events and communicate with attendees.
  • Event payments, made online at checkout or in person via PayPal Point of Sale (POS), linked to your RSVP and account so we can track who has paid. Your payment card details are handled directly by PayPal and are not stored on Shutterpaws systems.
  • Contact form and email submissions, used only to respond to your inquiry.

You can sign in and manage your account, including your display name and linked platforms, on the My Account page.

3. Service Providers

We use a small number of third-party service providers to operate, secure, and improve this website. In the course of delivering a page or handling a request, these providers receive limited technical information, including your IP address, browser user agent, and the page requested.

We engage service providers for the following purposes.

Site delivery. Hosting and content delivery.

Reliability and diagnostics. Error and performance monitoring, so that faults are detected and diagnosed. This may include a masked recording of page interactions, in which text and images are replaced within your browser before any data is transmitted. Recordings are limited to interactive areas of the site: RSVPs, payments, photo notification sign-ups, account sign-in, and the organizer dashboard. General browsing is not recorded, and elsewhere a recording is transmitted only if an error occurs.

Analytics. Aggregate, cookieless measurement of page views and traffic patterns.

Security. Bot and abuse prevention on sign-in and contact forms.

Payments. Payment processing at checkout. Card details are provided directly to the processor and are not stored on Shutterpaws systems.

Maps. Map tiles displayed on event pages.

Profile images. Where you have linked a Telegram or Discord account, your profile image is retrieved from that platform.

Limits on our use of service providers

  • We do not sell or share your personal information.
  • We do not build cross-site profiles or use advertising identifiers.
  • We do not conduct advertising, attribution, or marketing tracking.
  • No provider is engaged to identify individual visitors on our behalf.

Current service providers

The providers listed below may change over time. The purposes and limits described above govern our use of any provider.

  • Hosting, content delivery, security, and analytics: Cloudflare
  • Error and performance monitoring: Sentry
  • Payments: PayPal
  • Maps: CARTO, Esri, or Google
  • Script and stylesheet delivery: cdnjs
  • Profile images: Telegram, Discord and BARQ!

4. Signing In With Google

Signing in with Google is optional. An emailed sign-in link does exactly the same thing, and neither one is required to browse the site or read about events.

What we receive. Your email address, and Google’s confirmation that the address really belongs to you. That is all. We do not receive your Google password, your contacts, your calendar, your files, or your profile picture, and we do not ask Google for them.

Why we ask for it. To create your Shutterpaws account, or to find the account you already have. Matching on the email address is what lets an RSVP you made earlier from an emailed link stay yours instead of becoming a second, separate account. It is also how staff and partner organizations sign in with their organization’s Google account.

What we do with it. The same things we do with an email address you give us directly, described in the section above: sign you in, and send you transactional messages about your account. We do not sell or share it, and we do not use it for advertising.

Withdrawing it. You can revoke our access at any time from your Google Account’s permissions page. That signs you out of Shutterpaws and stops any future Google sign-in, but it does not delete your account or your RSVP history. To remove those as well, contact us.

5. Signing In With a BARQ! Account

Signing in with BARQ! is optional, and so is linking a BARQ! account to an existing Shutterpaws account. An emailed sign-in link does the same thing, and neither is required to browse the site or read about events.

What we receive. A stable identifier for your BARQ! account, your display name, your BARQ! handle, and the address of your BARQ! profile picture. We ask BARQ! for the smallest scope that works — sign-in and basic profile — so we do not receive access to your BARQ! account itself: we cannot read your messages, see who you follow, or post on your behalf, and we do not ask to.

We do not receive an email address. BARQ! does not give us one. That is why an account created this way asks you to confirm an address of your own before you can use the dashboard — without one there is no way to send you an RSVP confirmation or reach you if an event changes. You can still RSVP to events without confirming one.

Why we ask for it. To create your Shutterpaws account, or to find the account you already have. The identifier is also what lets us tell that a BARQ! RSVP and a Shutterpaws RSVP are the same person rather than two different people, so you are not counted twice and do not get asked twice.

What we do with the handle and picture. They are shown back to you on your account page, and to our organizers on their admin pages, so a linked account is recognizable. They are display only: nothing is looked up by your handle, which you are free to change on BARQ! at any time.

Withdrawing it. You can disconnect Shutterpaws from your BARQ! account in BARQ!'s own settings, and you can unlink it from your My Account page. Either one stops future BARQ! sign-ins and stops us refreshing your handle and picture; neither deletes your Shutterpaws account or your RSVP history. To remove those as well, contact us.

Content published through Shutterpaws (including event write-ups, graphics, and other materials) remains the property of its creator. Unless stated otherwise, please assume all rights are reserved and ask before reusing, editing, or redistributing it.

7. Attribution

When sharing Shutterpaws content elsewhere, please credit the original creator as it appears alongside the content, and avoid editing it without their permission.

8. Questions

If you have questions about this policy or want to know more about how we handle information, reach out to us through our contact page.