Is My Dog a Democrat? home FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION OF
DEMOCRATIC ORIENTATION
YOUR INFORMATION

Privacy notice

LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 11, 2026

This notice explains what information this website collects, why, and what we do with it.

Is My Dog a Democrat? is satire. “FIDO”, the “Federal Identification of Democratic Orientation”, is not a real agency and has no connection with the U.S. government, any government agency, any political party, campaign or candidate. Nothing on this site is political advertising or an endorsement, and nothing here says anything about how to vote or about how any election is run. The lean we give a dog is a joke generated by an AI from a photo: it predicts nothing, and it says nothing about you, your dog or anyone’s politics. Dogs cannot vote.

Who we are

This site is run by [set SHOP_BUSINESS_NAME], [set SHOP_BUSINESS_ADDRESS]. Contact us about privacy at our contact form.

What we collect and why

Photos you submit for scanning

When you submit a photo, your browser shrinks it and sends it to our server. Our server passes it to Google’s Gemini AI service, which writes the case file. We don’t keep your photo after the scan is done. Google processes it under its terms for paid API customers, which don’t allow it to be used to train Google’s models. Please don’t submit photos of people who haven’t agreed to it.

Shared cards

If you share your dog’s case file, we save its card (which includes your photo), a preview image and the case file text on our server, and publish them at a link. Anyone with the link can see them. We keep shared cards until you ask us to delete one. Email our contact form with the link.

The Canine Electoral Map

If you choose to add your dog to the map, we publish its shared card (see above) on the public map at /map, grouped under your state. We store only the first three digits of the ZIP code you type (e.g. “941” from 94110), which identify a broad region, and only ever show the state. We never keep your full ZIP code or ask for your address. We keep the entry until you ask us to remove it. Email our contact form with the card’s link and we’ll take it off the map (and delete the card, if you like).

“Notify me” emails

While the gift shop isn’t taking orders, you can leave your email address on a product to hear when it can be ordered. We store the address, the product and the date, and use them only to send you that one message. We don’t add you to any mailing list or pass your address on. We delete the list once we’ve sent the message, or sooner if you ask: email our contact form.

Messages you send us

If you use the contact form, we keep your name (if you give it), email address, the topic, any order number or link you include, and your message, so we can reply and deal with your request. We delete messages once they’re dealt with, and in any case within 12 months, unless they relate to an order, in which case we keep them with the order records.

Orders from the gift shop

When you buy something, we collect your name, shipping address and email address (and phone number, if you give it), together with your order and the artwork made from your photo. We need these to take payment, make and ship your order, and deal with any problems. We keep order records for seven years for tax and accounting. We delete the print file 12 months after your order, so we can reprint anything defective until then.

Technical information and visit counts

To stop misuse, our server briefly holds your IP address in memory to limit how many requests one connection can make. It is discarded within an hour. Our hosting provider may also keep standard server logs.

We count how the site is used (for example, how many dogs were scanned each day, how many cards were shared and which products were looked at) as simple daily totals. We also count, as daily totals, where visits come from (the referring site or app, or a campaign tag in the link), whether a phone or computer was used, and your device’s time zone (e.g. “America/Chicago”) as a rough guide to where visitors are. We don’t look up your location from your IP address. To count unique visitors without cookies, we combine your IP address and browser type with a random value that changes every day and keep only a scrambled fingerprint of the result. That random value and the fingerprints are deleted when the day ends, so visits can’t be linked across days or traced back to you. We use no third-party analytics.

Tip jar and affiliate links

The results page may show a “Fund FIDO” tip link and products or insurance offers marked as ads. These are affiliate links: if you buy, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. When you click one, we count the click (as a daily total) and send you to the other company’s site, which has its own privacy policy and may use cookies to record that you came from us. Any tip is taken by the tip service, not by us directly.

Where shared cards are seen

When a card’s link or picture is loaded by another app or website (for example a messaging app building a link preview, or a forum showing the picture), we count it by the name of that platform or website, as a daily total. We don’t record who viewed it.

Badges (Wall of Honor)

If you choose to have your dog appointed a FIDO agent for a tip, you give us the email address you’ll use on Ko-fi, and we publish your dog’s card (as with sharing), a small square copy of its photo, its name and its rank on the public Wall of Honor. Ko-fi tells us about each tip: the amount, the name you gave Ko-fi and your email address. We use the email only to match the tip to your dog. We don’t store it as written: we keep a one-way code made from it, which is deleted after 24 hours (for your nomination) or 7 days (for a tip we couldn’t match). We keep the name and amount of an unmatched tip for those 7 days so we can sort it out by hand if you contact us. To paint your dog’s official portrait, we also keep a copy of your full photo privately and send it to an AI image service, OpenAI or Google’s Gemini, which may also check the likeness. We keep the painting with the badge, and the full photo only for repainting it; neither is used for anything else. The badge itself shows your dog, never you. To have a badge removed, use the contact form.

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for targeted advertising. We don’t use it for marketing.

Cookies

This site doesn’t use cookies or third-party analytics. Stripe’s checkout page uses its own cookies to process payment and prevent fraud.

Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live (for example California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and a growing number of other states), you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to get a copy of it, and to ask us to correct or delete it. We extend these rights to everyone, wherever you live. Email our contact form and we’ll reply within 45 days. We won’t treat you differently for asking. If we turn down your request, you can ask us to look at it again.

Children

This site isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. You must be 18 or over to place an order.