Last Updated: 14/03/2023
What is this Privacy Policy for?
This privacy policy has been updated to comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Act 2018), which is an overhaul of EU data protection legislation and comes into effect on 25th May 2018. These websites www.absolutelyanimals.biz and www.londonschoolofpetgrooming.co.uk are both served by Absolutely Animals Ltd, the company which governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it.
Absolutely Animals Ltd understands that customers care about the use and storage of their personal information and we value your trust in allowing us to do this carefully and sensibly. We have created this privacy policy statement to demonstrate our commitment to the privacy of our customers.
This policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore, the way this company processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.
The Website
This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website complies with all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy and is registered with The Information Commissioners Office (ICO).
Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies to better the user’s experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer/device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer/device.
Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.
Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website onto their computer’s hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browser’s security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.
This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, and Facebook, which use cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy here [ https://policies.google.com/privacy ], Facebook’s privacy policy here [ https://www.facebook.com/policy.php ], and Google Ads and Google Tag Manager’s privacy policy here [ https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads ] for further information.
Other cookies may be stored on your computer’s hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.
Contact & Communication
Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form for the email submission process but advise users using such form for email processes that they do so at their own risk.
This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products/services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to the email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a product or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights regarding receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.
Email Newsletter
This website operates an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products and services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through a prior written agreement with the user.
Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and by the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. No personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies/people outside of the company that operates this website. Under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018, you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to the business address displayed on the Contact us page.
Email marketing campaigns published by this website or its owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity [this is by no far a comprehensive list].
This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based on their activity.
In compliance with UK Spam Laws and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, 2003 subscribers are allowed to un-subscribe at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign. If an automated un-subscription system is unavailable clear instructions on how to un-subscribe will be detailed instead.
External Links
Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text/banner/image links to other websites, similar to; City and Guilds of London School of Pet Grooming.)
The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Use of personal information within the business
To carry out our obligations under the agreed contract we must process the information you give us. Some of this information may be personal information.
We may use it to:
- Provide you with our services
- Sell products to you
- Organise fulfilment of your orders
- Provide you with suggestions and advice on products, services and how to obtain the most from using our website
- Verify your identity for security/exam purposes
- Fulfil your qualification or approval process with the awarding body or British Isles Grooming Association
We process and store this information on the basis there is a contract between us, or that you have requested we use the information before we enter into a legal contract.
For learner information on GDPR for City & Guilds Learners, please refer to City and Guilds policy on privacy. Information can be accessed by following the link https://www.cityandguilds.com/learner-policy
For learners wishing to join the British Isles Grooming Association, click here for: The terms of Use
Additionally, we may aggregate this information in a general way and use it to provide class information, for example, to monitor our performance concerning a particular service we provide. If we use it for this purpose, you as an individual will not be personally identifiable.
We shall continue to process this information until the contract between us ends or is terminated by either party under the terms of the contract.
Removal of your information
If you wish us to remove personally identifiable information from our system website, you may contact us at info@absolutelyanimals.biz
This may limit the service we can provide to you.
Disclosure and sharing of your information
We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties:
- If we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
- If Absolutely Animals Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
- If we are under a duty to disclose or share your data to comply with any legal obligation, to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction such as CCTV images for security and to prevent crime or damage within or outside the business.
Job application and employment
If you send us information in connection with a job application, we may keep it for up to three months in case we decide to contact you at a later date.
If we employ you, we collect information about you and your work from time to time throughout your employment. This information will be used only for purposes directly relevant to your employment. After your employment has ended, we will keep your file for six years before destroying or deleting it.
Sending a message to our support team
When you contact us for support by telephone or through our website by e-mail, we collect the data you have given to reply with the information you have requested. We do not store your information on record once we have responded to you. If you respond to a support ticket your information will then reappear on our database for anywhere from 1 to 7 days.
Via our support team, we do not store information even if you start a course or become a customer based on your support contact information. We may look for deleted support tickets as a reference if needed.
Verification of your information
When we receive any request to access, edit or delete personal identifiable information we shall first take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access or otherwise taking any action. This is important to safeguard your information.
Information relating to your method of payment
Payment information is always taken in a secure process over the phone. Details are never recorded or repeated in front of other persons. Payments taken by us or transferred to us either through our website or otherwise are accepted through a monitored and controlled system. Our employees and contractors never have access to it.
At the point of a website payment, you are transferred to a secure page or through our online outlets, such as PayPal, World Pay or another reputable payment service provider. That page may be branded to look like a page on our website, but it is not controlled by us.
Use of site by children
We do not sell products or provide services for purchase by children, nor do we market to children.
If you are under 18, you may use our website only with consent from a parent or guardian.
We collect data about all users and visitors to these areas regardless of age, and we anticipate that some of those users and visitors will be children.
Such child users and visitors will inevitably visit other parts of the site and will be subject to whatever on-site marketing they find, wherever they visit.
The retention period for personal data
Except as otherwise mentioned in this privacy notice, we keep your personal information only for as long as required by us:
To provide you with the services you have requested;
To comply with other laws, including for the period demanded by our tax authorities;
To support a claim or defence in court.
Complaints and Compliments
When we receive a complaint, we record all the information you have given to us. We use that information to resolve your complaint.
If your complaint reasonably requires us to contact some other person, we may decide to give to that other person some of the information contained in your complaint. We do this as infrequently as possible, but it is a matter of our sole discretion as to whether we do give information, and if we do, what that information is.
We may also compile statistics showing information obtained from this source to assess the level of service we provide, but not in a way that could identify you or any other person.
If you have been pleased with our services and would like to give us a good review on our website we will only put the name that you supply us with and the name of your dog on our website, with your permission. As soon as this is live your e-mail address will be deleted from our records.
How you can complain
If you are not happy with our privacy policy or have a complaint then you should notify us either by phone or an initial email. Our email address is info@absolutelyanimals.biz
If a dispute is not settled then we hope you will agree to attempt to resolve it by engaging in good faith with us in a process of mediation or arbitration.
If you are in any way dissatisfied with how we process your personal information, you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. This can be done at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Review of this privacy policy
We may update this privacy notice from time to time as necessary. The terms that apply to you are those posted here on our website on the day you use our website. We advise you to print a copy for your records.
