Privacy notice

The short version

We hold what we need to walk your dog safely and bill you correctly, and nothing else. We do not sell your information, we do not share it for marketing, and there is no advertising or analytics tracking anywhere on this website. We will not put a photograph of your dog online unless you have told us we may, and you can change that answer whenever you like.

The rest of this page is the detail: exactly what we hold, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do about it.

Who we are

The Crate Escape provides dog walking, grooming and pet care in Chesterfield and the surrounding area. We are the data controller for the information described on this page, which means we decide what is collected and why, and we are responsible for looking after it.

• Email: info@thecrateescape.biz
• Phone: 07495 295621
• Address: 12 Church Street North, Old Whittington, Chesterfield, S41 9QW

What we collect, and when

When you make an enquiry

The enquiry form asks for your name, email address, phone number and postcode, which service you are interested in, some details about your dog, the days and times that suit you, and anything you want to tell us in your own words. We keep a copy of exactly what was submitted, so that nothing you told us is lost if we later change the form.

When we set up your account

If we take you on, we create an account for you. We store your email address and a scrambled version of your password, which cannot be turned back into the password itself. We also keep a record of sign-in attempts on your account, successful or not, including the browser they came from, so we can tell if somebody is trying to get into it.

Your household record

Your name, email address, phone number, home address and postcode; the name and number of someone to contact if we cannot reach you; your vet's name and number; and our own notes about looking after your dogs.

The registration form

After the home visit we ask you to fill in a registration form. It covers how we get to your dog and back, which is the most sensitive thing on this website: where we collect and return them, whether we hold a key or use a key safe, what we need to know about gates, locks and alarms, and who else has access to your home. We deliberately ask you not to type a key-safe code into it.

The same form records your emergency contact and their relationship to you, your permission for us to ring them, your authorisation for us to seek veterinary treatment in an emergency and any wishes you have about that, your pet insurance provider and policy number if you have one, how you heard about us, anything else you want us to know, and the name you sign the declaration with together with the date and time you signed it.

About your dog

Their name, breed, size, date of birth or age, sex, whether they are neutered, colour, microchip number, how long you have had them and whether they came from a rescue. On health: medical conditions, allergies, medication, any restrictions on exercise, and the date of their last vaccination. On behaviour: how they are with dogs, people and children, any history of aggression and the details of it, fears, situations to avoid, their recall, and whether they may go off lead.

Some of that is uncomfortable to write down. We ask because the person holding the lead needs to know it, and because a walker who has not been told is the way dogs get hurt.

When we walk your dog

The bookings you make, when they were made and by whom, whether the walk happened, was cancelled or was missed and why, the note the walker writes for you afterwards, and any photograph they send you with it.

Billing

We record which weeks you have settled. We never take a card payment on this website, and we hold no card number, bank details or anything else you would use to pay: what you owe is worked out from the walks themselves, and paying is something you do outside this site.

Information about other people

Two things we ask for are about somebody else: your emergency contact, and your vet. When you give us an emergency contact's name, number and relationship to you, please make sure they are happy for you to do that, and let them know we may ring them if we cannot reach you and your dog needs something.

Why we use it, and what allows us to

Data protection law asks us to have a specific reason for holding each thing. Ours are:

• To provide the service you have asked for.Your contact details, address and access arrangements, your dog's health and behaviour, your bookings and your bill. Without these we cannot walk your dog at all. This is what the law calls performance of a contract.
• To answer an enquiry. Before you are a customer, we handle your enquiry because you asked us to and because we have a genuine business interest in replying to people who contact us.
• To keep dogs, people and our team safe. Disclosures about aggression, medication and allergies are shown to the walker who is holding the lead. We have a legitimate interest in that, and so does everyone else on the walk.
• To protect the accounts on this site. Sign-in records exist so we can spot somebody trying to get into your account. Again a legitimate interest, in security.
• Because you have said yes. Using photographs or videos of your dog publicly, and joining the boarding waiting list, both happen only on your consent, and you can withdraw it at any time.
• Because the law requires it. Records that go with running a business and paying tax.

Where we rely on a legitimate interest, you can object to it and we will look at your particular situation rather than apply a policy at you.

Photographs of your dog

There are two different things here, and it is worth keeping them apart.

The photograph your walker sends you after a walk appears with their note in your account. It is stored privately and has no public web address at all: the only way to see one is to be signed in as you, or to be the walker who took it, or to be the owner of the business. Ask us not to photograph your dog and we will stop.

Photographs and videos we use publicly, on this website or on social media, need your permission first. The registration form asks whether we may, the question is optional, and your answer makes no difference to your booking or its price. If you have not answered, we treat that as a no. Tell us at any time that you have changed your mind, in either direction, and we will act on it, including taking down something already posted.

Who else can see it

Inside the business, your record is visible to the owner and to the walkers who look after your dogs. Anything to do with money, or with another household's records, is restricted to the owner. You can see your own household and nobody else's.

We use a small number of companies to run the website, and they process information on our behalf and on our instructions only. They are not allowed to use it for their own purposes.

• Vercel hosts the website and runs the code behind it.
• Neon hosts the database, on servers in London.
• Resend delivers our email, on servers in Ireland. Enquiry alerts, the receipt we send you, and account set-up and password links pass through it.
• Vercel Blob stores walk photographs, privately.

Beyond that: we may share information with your vet in an emergency, with our insurer if there is an incident, and with anyone the law requires us to. We do not sell your information and we do not share it for anybody's marketing, including our own.

Enquiry alerts are sent to more than one of our own mailboxes, so that an enquiry cannot be lost to a single mailbox failing.

Where your information is kept

In the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. The companies above are American, and their support staff may occasionally need access from outside the UK; where that happens it is covered by the safeguards UK data protection law requires for transfers abroad.

Cookies and tracking

This website sets one cookie, and only once you sign in. It is called crate_session, it holds a random value that tells us you are signed in, and it cannot be read by any other website or by scripts in your browser. It lasts 30 days on a customer account and 12 hours on a staff one, and signing out deletes it.

That is the only cookie there is. We use no analytics, no advertising, no pixels, no session recording and no third-party embeds. Nothing on the public pages is loaded from anybody else's server, including the fonts, which are served from this site. We do not track you here or anywhere else, so there is no cookie banner to click, because there is nothing to consent to.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries that do not become bookings — up to 12 months.
• The boarding waiting list — until boarding launches, or until you ask us to remove you.
• Customer and dog records, and booking history — while you are a customer, and for six years after your last invoice, which is how long we are expected to keep business and tax records.
• Walk photographs — up to 12 months. Ask us to delete one sooner and we will.
• Sign-in records — kept while they are useful for spotting misuse of an account, and cleared out periodically.

If you ask us to delete something before these periods are up, we will, unless we have to keep it — an unpaid invoice or an incident involving a dog being the usual reasons.

How we keep it safe

Passwords are stored scrambled and are never readable, by us or by anyone else. The same is true of the tokens behind sign-in links and password resets. Walk photographs have no public address and are checked against who is asking before they are served. Everything travels over an encrypted connection. Within the business, people see what their role needs and not more.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• Give you a copy of what we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete it, where we do not need to keep it.
• Stop using it in a particular way, or pause while a dispute is sorted out.
• Send it to you, or to somebody else, in a portable form.
• Withdraw a consent you have given, such as photographs or the waiting list. That does not undo what was done while the consent stood.

Email or ring us using the details at the top of this page. We will not charge you, and we will reply within one month. We may ask you something to check who you are first, so that nobody else can ask for your information by pretending to be you.

If you are not happy

Please tell us first, so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator for data protection, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. Their address is Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Children

Our service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information about children, beyond a customer telling us how their dog behaves around them.

Automated decisions

We do not make any decision about you by automated means, and we do not profile you. A person decides whether we can take your dog on.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle your information we will update this page and change the date at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will tell you rather than leave you to notice.

The terms you agree to when you register are on our terms of service page.