Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 1st January 2024

Who we are

Kent Dog Walker is committed to protecting the privacy of our website visitors and clients. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, protect, and share information gathered through our website kentdogwalker.co.uk and our services.

Information Collection

Kent Dog Walker is dedicated to transparency in our data collection practices. We collect various types of information to enhance our service offerings and to better understand and meet the needs of our clients and their pets. Below are the details regarding the types of information we collect and the methods by which we gather this data.

Personal and Pet Information

Via Website Forms: When visitors use forms on our website, we collect basic personal information such as names, addresses, and contact numbers. This information is essential for responding to inquiries, providing our services, and for administrative purposes.
Pet Sitter Plus Registration: For clients using our services, more detailed information is required, including data about their pets and households. This is collected through Pet Sitter Plus, a secure, specialized software for pet service providers. When registering through the link on our website, clients are directed to this platform to input their information safely.
Emails for Marketing: With client consent, we capture email addresses through our website and other interactions for marketing purposes. This data is managed through MailChimp, enabling us to send updates, service information, and promotional offers to our clients. Clients have the option to opt-out of these communications at any time.

Technical and Usage Information

Cookies and Tracking Technologies: To improve our website’s functionality and to understand how visitors interact with it, we employ cookies and similar tracking technologies. These tools help us gather information such as how long visitors stay on our pages, which services are of interest, and how users navigate our site. This data is crucial for optimizing our website and tailoring our services to better suit our clients’ needs.
Third-Party Analytics: We use third-party services like Google Analytics to collect and analyze data on website traffic and user interactions. This information helps us understand usage patterns and improve our website’s design and content.

Why We Collect This Information

The primary purpose behind collecting personal, pet, technical, and usage information is to provide and improve our services. This includes:

Responding efficiently to inquiries and service requests.
Facilitating the provision of our dog walking, boarding, grooming, and other pet care services.
Enhancing our website’s user experience and functionality.
Informing clients about service updates, promotional offers, and other relevant information.

We are committed to collecting and using this information responsibly, ensuring it aligns with our values of safety, reliability, and trust, and adhering to all applicable data protection laws.

The information we collect is used to:

Respond to inquiries.
Enable the provision of services.
Inform clients of service updates, promotions, and other relevant matters through marketing communications.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

We respect your privacy and do not share your information with third parties unless necessary under specific circumstances:

Emergency Situations: If a client’s pet is in an emergency and the owner cannot be contacted, we may provide the pet and owner information to emergency veterinary services.
Legal Obligations: Under the Animal Welfare Act, we may report suspected abuse to authorities and provide necessary information for investigations. We also comply with legal requests from law enforcement agencies.

Embedded content from other websites

Content on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Data Protection

We take the security of your personal data very seriously and have implemented robust measures to prevent unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of your information. Our commitment to data protection is executed through a combination of technical, physical, and administrative safeguards:

Technical Measures: We use industry-standard encryption technologies to secure data during transmission and storage. Our cloud service providers, Microsoft, Pet Sitter Plus, and MailChimp, are chosen for their strong security measures, including the use of secure servers and encryption technologies.
Access Control: Access to personal data is strictly limited to authorised personnel who need access to perform their job functions. We regularly review access permissions to ensure that only current staff have access and that their access is limited to what is necessary.
Data Minimization: We adhere to the principle of data minimization, ensuring that we only collect and process data that is necessary for the provision of our services, responding to inquiries, or for lawful purposes.
Training and Awareness: All our employees receive training on data protection principles, including the importance of protecting personal data and the legal requirements under GDPR. This ensures everyone at Kent Dog Walker is aware of their responsibilities towards data protection.
Incident Response Plan: We have an incident response plan in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach. In the event of a breach, we will take immediate steps to mitigate any potential damage and will notify the affected individuals and any applicable regulators in accordance with legal requirements.
Regular Audits and Assessments: To ensure ongoing security and compliance, we conduct regular audits and assessments of our data protection practices and policies. This helps us identify any areas for improvement and implement corrective measures promptly.
Vendor Management: We carefully select and monitor third-party vendors to ensure they comply with strict data protection standards. Contracts with our vendors include clauses that require them to maintain the confidentiality and security of the data they process on our behalf.

By implementing these comprehensive data protection measures, Kent Dog Walker aims to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of personal information under our control. We are committed to continuously improving our security practices to protect the privacy and integrity of your data.

Cookies and Website Tracking

Our website uses cookies for tracking visits and remarketing purposes, with cookies potentially placed by Google Ad Services, Meta, and our website. This helps us understand how our website is used and to improve our services.

Access to Information

Clients can manage their information through the Pet Sitter Plus client portal. For assistance with updating or deleting personal information, please contact us at data@kentdogwalker.co.uk.

How long we retain your data

At Kent Dog Walker, we understand the importance of both protecting our clients’ privacy and the necessity of retaining personal data for operational and legal purposes. To this end, we retain personal information for a minimum period of 5 years from the date of last interaction with our services.

This retention period allows us to:

Provide ongoing and future services efficiently by understanding client histories.
Comply with our legal obligations, particularly in relation to financial records and any potential legal claims.
Ensure we have adequate information to respond to any questions or complaints from clients about our services.

After this period, personal data is securely deleted or anonymized, so it can no longer be associated with an individual. Our deletion processes are designed to protect our clients’ privacy while complying with legal obligations and ensuring the integrity of our service.

If you have any questions about our data retention practices or wish to request early deletion of your personal data (subject to any legal requirements preventing such deletion), please contact us at data@kentdogwalker.co.uk.

What rights you have over your data

We are committed to ensuring that our clients are fully aware of all their rights regarding their personal data. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable data protection laws, you have several rights concerning the personal information we hold about you. These rights include:

Right of Access: You have the right to request access to your personal data and to obtain information about how we process it.
Right to Rectification: If you believe that any information we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to request we correct or complete this information.
Right to Erasure: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your personal data from our records. This is also known as the “right to be forgotten.”
Right to Restriction of Processing: You have the right to request a restriction on the processing of your personal data under certain conditions.
Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we transfer the data we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
Right to Object: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data under certain conditions, including for marketing purposes.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

Please note that these rights are not absolute and may be subject to conditions and exemptions under data protection legislation. We may require specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights).