We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation, which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

Key terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this policy:

We, us, our

S. J. Hales Ltd, t/a Veterinary Speciality Products and S. J. Hales Products.

Personal information

any information about a living individual and will include information such as your name, address, email address, date of birth etc.

Personal information we collect about you

We may collect and use the following personal information about you:

This personal information is required to provide products and services to you. If you do not provide personal information we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing products and services to you.

Personal information does not include information relating to animals.

How your personal information is collected

We collect most of this personal information directly from you—in person, by telephone, text or email and/or via our website. However, we may also collect information:

How and why we use your personal information

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal information if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

The table below explains what we use (process) your personal information for and our reasons for doing so:

What we use your personal information for

Our reasons

To provide products and services to you

For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

To prevent and detect fraud against you or S. J. Hales Ltd

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging for us and for you

Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. under health and safety regulation or rules issued by our professional regulator

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you

Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price

Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect trade secrets and other commercially valuable information

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Statistical analysis to help us manage our business, e.g. in relation to our financial performance, customer base, product range or other efficiency measures

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price

 

 

Preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Updating customer records

For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our customers about existing orders and new products

Statutory returns

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you

Marketing our services and those of selected third parties to:

 

—existing and former customers;

 

—third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services;

 

—third parties with whom we have had no previous dealings.

 

For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing and former customers

External audits and quality checks, e.g. for ISO or Investors in People accreditation and the audit of our accounts

For our legitimate interests or a those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations

Promotional communications

We may use your personal information to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our products and services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new products and services.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal information for promotional purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal information’). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional communications. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your personal information with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time by:

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further products and services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

Who we share your personal information with

We routinely share personal information with:

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal information if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal information. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to ensure they can only use your personal information to provide services to us and to you. We may also share personal information with external auditors, e.g. in relation to the audit of our accounts.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may also need to share some personal information with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

We will not share your personal information with any other third party.

Where your personal information is held

Information may be held at our offices and those of our group companies, third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see above: ‘Who we share your personal information with’).

How long your personal information will be kept

We will keep your personal information while you have an account with us or we are providing products and services to you. Thereafter, we will keep your personal information for as long as is necessary:

We will not retain your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of personal information.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal information, we will delete or anonymise it.

Your rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

Access

The right to be provided with a copy of your personal information (the right of access)

Rectification

The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal information

To be forgotten

The right to require us to delete your personal information—in certain situations

Restriction of processing

The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal information—in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data

Data portability

The right to receive the personal information you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations

To object

The right to object:

—at any time to your personal information being processed for direct marketing (including profiling);

—in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests.

Not to be subject to automated individual decision-making

The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you

 

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under the General Data Protection Regulation.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to us —see below: ‘How to contact us’; and

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your information.

The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this privacy policy

This privacy policy was published on 29th June 2018.

We may change this privacy policy from time to time—when we do we will inform you via our website or other means of contact such as email.

How to contact us

Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.

Our contact details are shown below:

Our contact details

Write to us at: S.J. Hales Veterinary Group, P. O. Box 1, Rosemary Lane, Whitchurch, Shropshire, SY14 7WF

 Email us at: post@sjhales.co.uk

Telephone number: 01948 780624