Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 February 2023

Section 1: Introduction

We, Veterinary Business Development, take protection of your personal data very seriously and strictly adhere to the rules laid out by data protection laws.

The following policy provides an overview of how we ensure this protection and what kind of data is collected for what purpose.

Accessing our site

You can visit Our Website without identifying Yourself or revealing any personal information. You do not have to provide personal information to Use the Site.
We undertake to continuously monitor Our management of the use and security of consumer information to uphold Your legal rights.

Collecting Your personal information

VBD will not collect, store or process any personal information about You unless You provide it voluntarily, and with implied or explicit consent.
From time to time VBD may ask for and/or You may choose to submit personal data to VBD (including Your email address and contact details) by filling out a feedback form, or signing up to Our mailing list, or otherwise by telling VBD about Yourself or Your activities. We require this information in order to understand Your needs and to provide You with a better service. We will also Use it to send You any information You have requested about future offers, events and new products or related activities that You may find Useful; and for operational, identification, marketing, administrative, advertising and promotional purposes of these, but only in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We will not bombard You with emails, but We would like to keep You informed of the developments of VBD.
We may also contact You for market research purposes or to give You information about new features on the Website. You will only be contacted if You have previously consented for Us to do so.
We will never collect sensitive information about You without Your explicit consent. An example of sensitive information would be Your religion or a medical condition.
If You do not want VBD to collect Your personal data, or sensitive data, please do not submit it, and do not consent to Us Using it, when given the opportunity to choose.
You undertake that all information that You provide is accurate and current.
If You are a new customer, We will give You the choice (for example once You have registered Your interest) whether or not You want Us or other relevant and reputable companies to contact You. It is Your responsibility to consider Your decision carefully, before making a decision, and to take legal advice if You are unsure what to do.
If You choose to register via a Social Network, You acknowledge and consent for Your data held by the Social Network Site (subject to the Social Network’s Terms and Conditions) to be processed and shared via a third party whom may be based outside of the European Economic Area and for such data to be processed by Us. The data obtained during the Social Network Registration may include:
1. Your name
2. Your email address

Storing Your personal information

Once collected, your personal information (data) will be held within the European Union and the European Economic Area.

Personal information relating to subscriptions for our newsletter, and to single, unique mailshots, is retained by The Rocket Science Group (MailChimp), who are based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Their data protection procedures comply with State and Federal United States legislation and international protocols and regulations. For more information contact MailChimp, The Rocket Science Group, LLC 675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE Suite 5000 Atlanta, GA 30308 USA (email [email protected]).

As required by the UK Data Protection Act 2018, VBD follow strict security procedures in relation to the storage of personal information, in order to prevent unauthorised access or Use of such data.
In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure We have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information We collect online. All employees who have access to Your personal data are contractually obliged to respect Your confidentiality. We have put in place technology measures and security policies and procedures to protect personal information from unauthorised access, improper Use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction or accidental loss.
In the event, however, that VBD or its officers or employees are required to undertake any act under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act or similar legislation by appropriate authorities, VBD or such person may be legally obliged to do so without informing You.

Disclosing Your personal information

We will not disclose Your personal data to third parties except insofar as You have consented to such disclosure, or We are required to do so by law.
Your personal information will only be Used for the specific purpose for which it was sought and to which You consented. It will not be Used for any other purpose whatsoever.
Your personal data may be disclosed to other companies within the Veterinary Business Development Ltd group, subject to Your consent. If You do not wish Your personal data to be disclosed in this manner, You should make this clear by sending an appropriately worded message: [email protected]
If We have or You believe that We have data about You that is incorrect or You wish Your data to be deleted or amended for any reason, or wish to withdraw Your consent for Us to retain it, please email VBD at the address below and the information will be corrected as soon as possible or removed from Our database as You request.
If You are unhappy with Our response in 4 above, You can ask the Information Commissioner to assess whether the requirements of the Data Protection Act have been met. Write to The Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF or click here.

Seeing the information, We hold about You

Details of the data We hold on You will be provided on request. Although the first copy will be provided free of charge, additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee (£10). Any request of this nature should be directed to the e-mail address shown at the bottom of this notice. If You have any questions about Our Privacy Policy or data collection and use, please email [email protected] or write to Veterinary Business Development Limited, Olympus House, Werrington Centre, Peterborough, PE4 6NA.

Section 2: Lawful basis of processing personal information

We only collect and use personal information about you when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we use it where we need to ensure:

Legitimate Interests – we may use and process your personal information where it is necessary, due to activities of which is our legitimate interest as a business to do so
Consent – while at specific events, we may collect information about you via consent forms. We will not process any information with signed declaration from yourself.

Less commonly, we may also use personal information about you where:

We need to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s interests)

Section 3: What information we collect

During your time with us, we may collect the following information on you:

Name (including maiden name if applicable)
Home Address
Work Address
Geographical location coordinates
Email Address (work and personal)
Contact Telephone Numbers (landline and mobile)
Financial Information
Job Title
RCVS membership number
Qualifications, Certificates and Diplomas
Qualification year
Country of Qualification
University attended
Gender
Species treated/seen
Audited validation question answer
Marketing preferences

Section 4: How long do we keep information for?

We pride ourselves on ensuring that your personal data is retained for the period that Veterinary Business Development needs it for. All personal information collect has a defined retention period, which is in line with our retention policy. If you would like a copy of this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

Section 5: Security of personal information

Veterinary Business Development is committed to handling your personal information with high standards of information security. We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption, we enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files, and we authorise access to personal information only for those employees who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities.

At Veterinary Business Development we have also ensured that all employees have sufficient information security training and have a media handling policy which help maintain, enforce and communicate best practices surrounding media handling throughout the business. If you would like a copy of this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

Section 6: Use of ‘Cookies’

Cookies are small text files (typically made up of letters and numbers) placed in the memory of your browser or device when you visit a website or view a message. Cookies allow a website to recognise a particular device or browser.

At Veterinary Business Development we set and use some cookies ourselves but only on our site. These are called first party cookies. When cookies are served by another domain they are called “third party cookies”. Please see https://www.vettimes.co.uk/cookie-policy/ for the full cookie policy.

Section 7: Children’s information

Veterinary Business Development does not knowingly collect information on children without consent from a responsible parent. If we have collected personal information on a child, please [email protected] so we can remove this information without undue delay.

Section 8: Your individual rights

In this Section, we have summarised the rights that you have under General Data Protection Regulation 2018. Some of the rights are complex, and not all the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Your principal rights under General Data Protection Regulation 2018 are:

Right to Access
Right to Rectification
Right to Erasure
Right to Restrict Processing
Right to Object
Right to Data Portability

You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee (£10).

If you have any question about these right, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

Section 9: Data transfers/third parties

9.1 Providing your information to others

Veterinary Business Development may disclose your personal data, listed in section 3, to any third parties insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes, and on the legal bases, set out in this policy. If you require more information about this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

9.2 Hotjar

Veterinary Business Development will use Hotjar for the purpose of improving user experience on our website. We do not collect any personal information from this third-party tool.

We understand that Hotjar is not currently GDPR compliant, but they have reassured us that compliance status will be confirmed soon. If you would like more information on their progress then please click here. If you would like to read their privacy policy to see how this will affect you, please visit www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy

9.3 Typeform

Veterinary Business Development will use Typeform to update your Vetfile subscriptions/preferences for the products and services offered by Veterinary Business Development Ltd. In addition, Typeform surveys are used by Veterinary Business Development Ltd to carry out market research surveys and competitions allowing us to capture data from opted in recipients from Vetfile. If you require more information about this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

9.4 MailChimp

If you sign up for our newsletter, we will store some of your information, including your email address and certain information about the links you click within our emails we send you, on a MailChimp server. Neither we nor MailChimp will ever sell your email address or share it with any other party, unless we are legally compelled to do so. If you contact MailChimp directly regarding your subscription to our newsletter, MailChimp may contact you directly; otherwise, MailChimp will never contact you. Only authorised MailChimp employees have access to our subscriber list. You are always free to unsubscribe from our newsletter, but as long as you are registered with Veterinary Business Development we may use MailChimp to send you information about your account.

9.5 SimplyHosting

For Veterinary Business Development to provide a swift and and secure service, our servers are hosted with SimplyHosting cloud provider. SimplyHosting do not have access to any of your personal information, unless we specific ask them to implement significant changes. SimplyHosting will also ensure our system has been backed up. The backup can only be accessed by an authorised member of SimplyHosting. If you have any question regard the media handling processes that SimplyHosting has implemented, please see please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

9.6 Pulse CRM

To personalise your experience and help provide a better response to your individual needs, Veterinary Business Development will send your personal information to Pulse. Pulse CRM is cloud-based secure customer management system allowing access for employees of Veterinary Business Development to access customer, prospects, supplier and contributor contact records, allowing the user to record activities like notes, email histories and meetings between both parties on relevant contact records.

Users have limited access to functionalities ensuring that all personal information held is secure and cannot be exported or deleted without a request to a superuser/Administrator.

Pulse CRM allows departments to manage workflow giving access to data in real time. If you require more information about this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

9.7 Social Media Platforms

A number of Veterinary Business Development websites may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion, and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account. Neither Veterinary Business Development websites nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms. We encourage Users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact us through primary communication channels. If you require more information about this, please see “additional information”, section 11 of this policy.

9.9 Shortened Links in Social Media

This Website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy URLs, for example: http://tinyurl.com/y4yt7tp2. Users are advised to take caution and good judgment before clicking any shortened URLs published on social media platforms by this Website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this Website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

9.10 Email Newsletters

Veterinary Business Development will take subscriptions with compliance of the UK Spam Law, which can be reviewed in the privacy and Electronic Communication Regulation 2003. All the personal information relating to subscriptions will be held and processed securely with accordance to the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation 2018. Under the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation 2018 you may have access to your own information. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee (£10). You also have the right to unsubscribe from communications, to which this can be fulfilled by contacting [email protected].

9.11 Information security with transfers

In this Section, we do provide information about the circumstances in which your personal data may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

We, Veterinary Business Development, may transfer personal information to third parties outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Veterinary Business Development ensures that information security at the highest standard is being used to protect all personal information. This would include the use of encryption on transit and ensuring that data protection laws are being pursued.

All Information that is being transferred within the EEA will follow our strict Information Transfer Policy, which can be requested from section 11 of this policy.

Section 10: Right to complaint

We take any complaints about our collection and use of personal information very seriously.

If you think that our collection or use of personal information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate, or have any other concern about our data processing, please raise this with us in the first instance.

To make a complaint, please email [email protected]

Alternatively, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

By Post:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

By Website: Click Here

By Email: Click Here

By Phone: 0303 123 1113 (Local rate) or 01625 545 745 (National rate)

Section 11: Additional information

Your trust is important to us. That is why we are always available to talk with you at any time and answer any questions concerning how your data is processed. If you have any questions that could not be answered by this privacy policy or if you wish to receive more in depth information about any topic within it, please email [email protected]

Section 12: Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated on 23 February 2023

12.1 Amendments

We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.

You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy. We will notify you of changes to this policy by email.