Privacy Notice
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law regulates the collection, use, disclosure and processing of personal information of EU individuals. In accordance with this legislation, Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd is a registered company with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK's independent authority upholding information rights. The Data Protection Officer and Data Controller of Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd is Deborah Fry. Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd utilises the administrative services of Another Mother Ltd (Company Number: 10907285 / Registered: England). The following information explains how we handle your personal data.
We may change this policy from time to time, so please check this page regularly. By using our website and services, you are agreeing to be bound by this policy. If you have any questions about our policy, please contact us.
What we do with the information that is collected
Our basis for collecting and processing your information is for provision of services. The information that we collect from you is essential for us to be able to consider your enquiry and carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal information, we would be unable to fulfil our service or legal obligations. We use the personal information collected for the following purposes:
- Internal record keeping.
- Completion of correspondence with you.
- Implementation of services.
The choice of how much of information is provided is always in your control, however, certain information may be necessary/required in order for us to provide a service.
Your personal data will remain confidential and will only be shared with individuals and/or organisations as per stated terms of business and with your permission, or as is required of us by law. Depending on the service required (animal behaviour consultations, expert witness assessments and reports/evidence, child adoption or fostering animal-related assessments, or clinical animal behaviour teaching and supervision), these include your veterinary surgeon and veterinary practice personnel, your pet insurance company (where explicit permission is given by you as part of an insurance claim), legal representatives and personnel, child adoption and fostering agencies, teaching venues and organisational accreditation personnel and assessors. We do not share your data with third parties for marketing purposes. Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd does not use social media for business activities.
How long do we keep your personal data?
Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd has a policy of securely storing data for a period of seven years from last contact. This considers a service support period of up to one year (this is ordinarily three months, but can be extended on a discretionary basis) and the Limitation Act 1980, which provides timescales in which action may be taken for breaches of the law. This legislation provides that breaches of an ordinary contract are actionable for a period of up to six years after the event. This may include cases whereby a service recipient disputes that a service has been provided lawfully.
Criminal offence data
GDPR requires separate safeguards for personal data relating to criminal convictions or offences. Services provided by Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd include expert witness services. Our lawful basis for collecting personal data in our official capacity as an expert witness is to provide the service for which we have been instructed. Data is processed on instruction and authorisation from solicitors, police forces / the Crown Prosecution Service or litigants in person. Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd does not keep a register of criminal convictions.
Data related to children
Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd does not engage in direct service instruction or contracts with persons under 18 years of age. However, personal data related to children may be lawfully collected, stored and shared with relevant third parties whereby adults with responsibility for that child engage the services of us, or as is required by law. Adults with responsibility for the child in this case refers to adults with legal rights and responsibilities that are normally afforded to parents (this can be more than one person). Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd takes all reasonable efforts to verify that the adult giving consent does have legal rights and responsibilities for the child. Relevant third parties may include:
Animal behaviour consultations – Pet owners with responsibility for the child and referring veterinary personnel.
Child adoption & fostering animal-related assessments – Pet owners with responsibility for the child and/or related adoption or fostering agency personnel.
Expert witness cases – Pet owners with responsibility for the child, instructing solicitors, relevant police personnel / The Crown Prosecution Service and the courts.
Children under the age of 18 years may make telephone and/or email enquiries about animal behaviour and the related profession to Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd. We respond to signpost to or provide the information requested, or to request that an adult pursue the services of Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd or an alternative organisation or service-provider.
Changing or removing the information we hold
If you believe that any information of yours in our possession is incorrect or incomplete, please email us or write to us and we will address this. In addition, if you wish to cease corresponding with us or for us to remove your information we have on file, then please email us or write to us and we will take the necessary steps to remove your information from our systems subject to our data retention policy. Such requests for correction, updating or removal of information will be addressed within 28 days of receipt.
How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
Our website uses third party cookies from Google to track visitors to this website for our own management purposes. This information is anonymous and cannot be linked to one individual. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
For remote-based behaviour consultations, third-party video-sharing and video-conferencing technology may be utilised. The technology chosen will depend upon technology options available to both Animal Behaviour Consult Ltd and the client. These may use cookies to implement their data-sharing requirements.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
We do not use any other type of cookie.
What we don’t do:
- Remember or store any personally identifiable information.
- Send information to other websites.
- Record your visit so advertising on other websites is more relevant to you.
Security and data usage
We endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information and our website is hosted on a PCI compliant and secure server; therefore all interactions with the website are through secure encrypted connections. However, we cannot guarantee the security of any data that you disclose online and we will not be responsible for any breach of security unless this is due to our negligence or wilful default.
Protecting the personal information you provide to us is of utmost importance to us. We therefore take the following steps at to ensure this:
- We will not distribute your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission to do so or are required to by law.
- We offer the industry standard security measures available through your browser called SSL (secure socket layer) encryption.