Background
This Notice gives information on how Colin Tait, trading as Equitait Veterinary Practice (Equitait or the Practice) collects, uses and protects the personal data held about clients, intermediaries and other business contacts. This Notice describes how we will fulfil our obligations under applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR).
Information we may collect
Equitait collects from time to time, personal data on clients, suppliers and other business contacts from a number of sources, including from: client registration forms; consent forms; other Equitait forms (including website forms); client credit agreements; correspondence; conversations with clients or their agents; advisers; business cards; referral hospitals; other clinicians; other equine service providers (such as physiotherapists and farriers); insurance companies; other third parties and from public sources. This information may be collected directly from clients, intermediaries and business contacts, or indirectly from third parties, as follows:
From you
We may collect from you and process the following personal data, depending on the nature of our business relationship with you:
- Your name; address (including proof of name and address); photo identification; contact details both personal and work (for example, your email and phone numbers); hobbies and interests; job title and company; nationality; citizenship; date of birth; adviser details; banking details; signed contracts with you; business cards, contact sheets and biographies; financial dealings; family connections; details of your company’s directors, secretaries, authorised signatories and identification documents; details of any complaints made; data received from other veterinary practices or other equine professionals; responses to surveys and competitions; fraud enquiries (for example, information from police reports); images captured by CCTV cameras on our premises; recordings of telephone conversations and electronic communications with our staff.
- By the use of cookies on this site in accordance with our Cookies Policy set out below.
From third parties
We may collect personal data about you from third parties, depending on the nature of our business relationship with you, in particular:
- Third party service providers (for example, previous veterinary practices; veterinary referral practices; other equine veterinary professionals).
- Publically available sources such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media sites – information available includes contact details and photographs.
How we will use the information we collect
The information we collect and use will depend on the nature of our business relationship with you, as follows:
- In relation to prospective clients, we may process personal data for identification purposes (prior to becoming a client of Equitait), for the purposes of completing your registration, for seeking information from other vet practices, and credit-worthiness checks, and for any other applicable legal or regulatory reasons. Failure to provide relevant information may mean that we will not be able to on-board a potential client.
- In relation to clients, we may process information collected for the purpose of account administration and other general business purposes (for example, booking calls; sending out vaccination reminders; carrying out client requests; handling any enquiries or complaints; sending client communications, including bills and statements of account). In addition, in order to comply with regulatory obligations, we may collect and disclose certain information about our clients to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Veterinary Defence Society or to HM Revenue & Customs and/or other relevant tax authorities overseas.
- We may from time to time process personal data of clients to comply with legal and regulatory requirements impacting our business. In particular, we may need in the context of our business: to obtain legal advice on legal and regulatory requirements; to report to relevant regulators.
- In relation to intermediaries who introduce investors into our funds (such as distributors, platforms and independent financial advisers), we may process personal data to conduct market research, gauge product sales or product performance or assess the creditworthiness of intermediaries. In addition, we may process the personal data of investors introduced to our funds, as outlined above.
- In relation to our general business contacts (including veterinary practices and other equine professionals), we may process personal data for general business purposes such as: for public relations and corporate communications purposes; networking/relationship building; conducting market research and gathering industry statistics; evaluating products and services; and assisting with any queries.
- Monitoring purposes: we may process personal data to analyse the performance of IT systems, monitor usage of resources and systems and to improve products, services and usability of our technology platform, including telephone calls and electronic communications with our staff which may be recorded for the purposes of retaining a record of communications, in the interests of security, for training and compliance monitoring purposes and/or to comply with legal or regulatory obligations.
- We may process your personal data for the purposes of informing you (for example, by telephone, mail and email) about products and services available from Equitait Veterinary Practice and of marketing campaigns and event invitations. We will give you details of how to unsubscribe from these should you wish to do so.
We are entitled to use your personal data in these ways because:
➢ We have legal and regulatory obligations that we have to discharge;
➢ We may need to in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights or for the purpose of legal proceedings;
➢ The use of your personal data as described is necessary for our legitimate business interests (or the legitimate interests of one or more of our affiliates);
➢ The use of your personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract with you;
➢ You have provided your consent to us processing your personal data either for marketing purposes or otherwise.
Disclosure of your information
- We may disclose your personal data to any employee, contractor, business adviser or partner of Equitait, for internal business and administrative purposes (including to administer our products and services and for risk management purposes) and to provide you with information on related products and services. We may also disclose personal data relating to our clients to referral hospitals or other clinicians who will see your animal.
- We may disclose your personal data to third parties that are specifically engaged by us to provide services to us, in which case we will require those parties to keep that information confidential and secure and to use it solely for the purpose of providing the specified services to us. The following is a list of the types of third parties who process your personal data on our behalf:
➢ third party service providers (for example IT service providers)
➢ credit reference agencies, debt collection agencies and other companies for use in credit decisions, for fraud prevention, to pursue debtors and for the verification of identity
➢ insurance brokers;
➢ professional advisers (for example, accountants/tax advisors and legal advisors).
- We may disclose to relevant tax authorities, regulators, government departments or competent authorities of the UK or of other countries, any personal data in order to comply with a court order or to meet legal and regulatory requirements arising in the conduct of our business. Such disclosure may be made directly to such regulators or competent authorities or made indirectly to our advisers or providers who will make such filings or disclosures on our behalf.
How long will we store your data?
Personal data held by us will be kept confidential. How long we hold your personal data for will vary and will be determined by various criteria, including:
- the purpose for which we are using it – we will need to keep the data for as long as is necessary for that purpose; and
legal obligations – laws or regulation may set a minimum period for which we have to keep your personal data.
- Your rights in relation to your data
If you wish to contact us for any of the reasons below, please e-mail us at enquiries@equitait.com
- You have a right to access the information which we hold about you. If you wish to make an application to access or obtain this information, please contact us. In some circumstances, you have the right to receive some personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or request that we transmit that data to a third party where this is technically feasible. Please note that this right only applies to personal data which you have provided to us.
- We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal data we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. Please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Please also contact us if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up to date.
- If you wish us to erase or restrict using your data, please contact us. We may need to discuss with you the basis of your request as there may be circumstances where we are legally entitled to continue processing your personal data/refuse your request.
- If you have previously provided your consent to our use of your data and you wish to withdraw such consent, please contact us. We may need to discuss with you whether our use of your data needs to continue for lawful purposes (i.e. because we have another legitimate reason (other than your consent) for doing so).
- If you have any complaints in relation to the way we have used your information, please contact us in the first instance. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF (Tel: 0303 123 1113) if you think that any of your rights have been infringed by us.
Cookies Policy
Cookies are small data files that are sent to and stored on your computer, smartphone or other device used to access the internet, whenever you visit a website. We use cookies to enable and improve certain functions on our website and gain feedback on how our website is used. If you choose to switch certain cookies off, it will affect how our website works.
We use analytics cookies to collect information on website activity (such as the number of users who visit our website, the date and time of visits, the number of pages viewed, navigation patterns, what country and what systems users have used to access the site and, when entering our website from another website, the address of that web site). This information on its own does not identify an individual but it does provide us with statistics that can be used to analyse and improve our website. Visit Google’s site for an overview of privacy at Google and information on how to opt out of the Google Analytics cookie. These Cookies are ‘session’ cookies.
The browsers of most computers, smartphones and other web-enabled devices are usually set up to accept cookies. If your browser preferences allow it, you can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when cookies are set. Please remember that cookies are often used to enable and improve certain functions on our website. If you choose to switch certain cookies off, it will affect how our website works and certain functionality may not work. More information about cookies can be found on allaboutcookies.org
Links to other web sites
Our web site may contain links to non-Equitait web sites. While such links are provided for your convenience, you should be aware that the information handling practices of the linked web sites might not be the same as ours. You should review any privacy policies on those linked websites. We are not responsible for any linked websites.
Changes to our Privacy Notice
This Notice was updated in May 2018. We reserve the right to change this Notice at any time. We will ensure that any changes to this Notice are added to the Notice available on our website on their effective date.
