Privacy and cookies policy

1. Introduction

1.1 The EU General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, has set guidelines for the collection and processing of personally identifiable information of individuals within the European Union. We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors; in this policy we explain how we will treat your personal information.

1.2 By using our website and agreeing to this policy, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy.

2. Personal information

2.1 This section details the type of personal information we may collect, our intended use of such information, and the period for which the personal information will be stored.

(a) Unidentifiable Information: information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths). We have a legitimate interest in processing this data, to include administration of our website and business, analytics, site security and performance, etc. This information is generally unidentifiable, and will be retained indefinitely;

(b) Registration Information: information that you provide to us when registering with our website (including your name, institution and email address). This information is provided to us with your consent, and is used to enable your use of the services available on our website, send you email notifications and other non-marketing commercial communications, send you marketing communications relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you, by post or, where you have specifically agreed to this, by email or similar technology, for which you have provided consent, deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to our website, and verify compliance with the terms and conditions governing the use of our website. We will delete personal data associated with a user account 2 years following the closure of that user account;

(c) Use Information: information that you provide to us when using the services on our website, or that is generated in the course of the use of those services (including the timing, frequency and pattern of service use). This information is provided to us with your consent, and is used to provide third parties with non-identifiable statistical information about our users (but those third parties will not be able to identify any individual user from that information);

(d) Account Information: information relating to any purchases you make of our services or any other transactions that you enter into through our website (including your name, address, telephone number, email address, banking and credit card details). This information is provided to us in order to fulfill our contract with you, and is used to send statements, invoices and payment reminders to you, and collect payments from you. We retain this information for a period of up to 2 years following the end of the financial year during which your purchased from us;

(e) Published Information: if you submit personal information for publication on our website, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the license you grant to us. This information is provided to us with your consent, and may be retained indefinitely;

(f) Communications: information contained in or relating to any communications that you send to us or send through our website (including the communication content and meta data associated with the communication). This information is provided to us with your consent, and is used to respond to you and attend to related business. We retain this information for a period of 2 years from the closure of your account (if any), or 2 years from the last communication on the relevant subject matter, whichever period is greater; and

(g) any other personal information that you choose to send to us, which will be kept as long as needed to handle the nature of the communication.

2.2 Before you disclose to us the personal information of another person, you must obtain that person's consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with this policy.

3. Disclosing personal information

3.1 We may disclose your identifiable personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors, as well as our parent company Veterinary Information Network, Inc., insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

3.2 We may disclose your personal information:

(a) to the extent that we are required to do so by law;

(b) in connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;

(c) in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);

(d) to the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset that we are (or are contemplating) selling, if such personal data will be used for the purposes for which it was collected; and

(e) to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.

3.3 All our website financial transactions are handled through our payment services provider, Stripe. You can review the provider's privacy policy at https://stripe.com/privacy. We will share information with our payment services provider only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing payments you make via our website, refunding such payments, dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds and fraud prevention and detection.

3.4 Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

4. International data transfers

4.1 Information that we collect may be stored and processed in and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate in order to enable us to use the information in accordance with this policy.

4.2 Information that we collect may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area. Some of these countries do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the European Economic Area.

4.3 Personal information that you publish on our website or submit for publication on our website may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use or misuse of such information by others.

4.4 You expressly agree to the transfers of personal information described in this Section.

5. Security of personal information

5.1 We will take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

5.2 We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall-protected) servers.

5.3 All electronic financial transactions entered into through our website will be protected by encryption technology.

5.4 You acknowledge that the transmission of information over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

5.5 You are responsible for keeping the password you use for accessing our website confidential; we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).

6. Amendments

6.1 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. If we make important changes, like how we use your personal information, we’ll let you know. If you don’t agree to the changes, then you can always stop using our services, delete your account and stop giving us any more personal information.

7. Your rights

7.1 You have the following data subject rights:

(a) The right to be informed – we must inform you how we are going to use your personal data. This information is contained within this Privacy Policy.

(b) The right of access – you have the right to access your personal data that we hold, free of charge.

(c) The right to correct – if you think the data we hold on you is incorrect, let us know, and we will make the corrections.

(d) The right to be forgotten – upon your request we will delete your personal data, unless we have a legal reason for keeping it.

(e) The right to data portability – you can obtain and reuse your electronic personal data for your own purposes.

(f) The right to object to marketing – you can opt out of digital or direct marketing strategies.

(g) Breach notification – you will be notified without undue delay whenever there has been a data breach that is likely to result in a high risk to your rights and freedoms.

(f) Complaints – you have the right to raise any issues or concerns directly with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

8. Third party websites

8.1 Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third party websites.

8.2 We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

9. About cookies

9.1 A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

9.2 Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

9.3 Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

9.4 Cookies can be used by web servers to identify and track users as they navigate different pages on a website and identify users returning to a website.

10. Our cookies

10.1 We use both session and persistent cookies on our website.

10.2 The names of the cookies that we use on our website, and the purposes for which they are used, are set out in the table below.

11. Analytics cookies

11.1 As indicated in the table above, we use Matomo to analyze the use of our website.

11.2 Our analytics services provider generate statistical and other information about website use by means of these cookies.

11.3 The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website.

12. Blocking cookies

12.1 Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies; for example:

(a) in Internet Explorer (version 11) you can block cookies using the cookie handling override settings available by clicking "Tools", "Internet Options", "Privacy" and then "Advanced";

(b) in Firefox (version 34) you can block all cookies by clicking "Tools", "Options", "Privacy", selecting "Use custom settings for history" from the drop-down menu, and unticking "Accept cookies from sites"; and

(c) in Chrome (version 39), you can block all cookies by accessing the "Customize and control" menu, and clicking "Settings", "Show advanced settings" and "Content settings", and then selecting "Block sites from setting any data" under the "Cookies" heading.

12.2 Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

12.3 If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

13. Deleting cookies

13.1 You can delete cookies already stored on your computer; for example:

(a) in Internet Explorer (version 11), you must manually delete cookie files (you can find instructions for doing so at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies#ie=ie-11);

(b) in Firefox (version 34), you can delete cookies by clicking "Tools", "Options" and "Privacy", then selecting "Use custom settings for history" from the drop-down menu, clicking "Show Cookies", and then clicking "Remove All Cookies"; and

(c) in Chrome (version 39), you can delete all cookies by accessing the "Customise and control" menu, and clicking "Settings", "Show advanced settings" and "Clear browsing data", and then selecting "Cookies and other site and plug-in data" before clicking "Clear browsing data".

13.2 Deleting cookies will have a negative impact on the usability of many websites.

14. Our details

14.1 This website is owned and operated by IVALA Ltd.

14.2 We are registered in England and Wales under registration number 7931234, and our registered office is at IVALA LTD c/o BWBCA, Dukes Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5BH, UK.

14.3 Our principal place of business is also at IVALA LTD c/o BWBCA, Dukes Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5BH, UK.

14.4 You can contact us by writing to the business address given above, by using our website contact form, by email to support@ivalalearn.com or by telephone on +44 20 3920 0335

14.5 The data controller responsible for your personal information for the purposes of the applicable European Union data protection law is: IVALA LTD c/o BWBCA, Dukes Court, Duke Street, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5BH, UK, +44 20 3920 0335, support@ivalalearn.com. If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our data collection practices, please contact us at the address, telephone number or email listed above and specify your country of residence and the nature of your questions. You may also contact us by using our website contact form.