Bark Buddiez privacy notice

In short

Catherine Anne Bryden, trading as Bark Buddiez Grooming, is responsible for your information. DataSolace Ltd runs this website for us, with Cloudflare providing security and spam protection. We collect what you enter in the enquiry form — your contact details and information about your dog — to respond and to arrange grooming appointments. We do not use analytics, sell your information, or send marketing. Enquiries that do not become appointments are deleted after 30 days; customer and pet records are kept for two years after your last appointment, and accounting records for tax. Pet photos and copied Google reviews appear only with written permission, which you can withdraw at any time. You can ask to see, correct, or delete your information, or complain to the ICO. The full notice below has the details.

Who we are

Catherine Anne Bryden, trading as Bark Buddiez Grooming, is responsible for deciding how and why personal information is used through this website and in the resulting customer relationship.

Contact us about privacy, your information, or a complaint:

• Email: [email protected]
• Business address: 111 College Road, Cranwell Village, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, NG34 8DN

DataSolace Ltd operates and hosts this website and its contact-form service on our behalf. DataSolace Ltd acts as our processor for those activities and does not decide how we use enquiries or customer records after delivery.

Information used when you visit the website

When you visit, the website and its service providers may process:

• your IP address and general network/request information;
• browser and device information, user agent, language, and operating-system information;
• requested page, referring page, date/time, response status, and security information; and
• Cloudflare security and bot-detection signals.

We use this information to deliver the site, keep it secure, identify faults, and protect the website and contact form from misuse.

We rely on our reasonable interests in providing and protecting a reliable website, preventing abuse, and keeping limited security and fault records. These records are minimised and are not used for advertising or profiling.

Hosting and Cloudflare

The website is hosted by DataSolace Ltd on UK-based server infrastructure. Public traffic passes through Cloudflare, which provides DNS, content delivery, security, and encrypted public connections.

Cloudflare may process request and network information on its global network.

See Cloudflare's privacy policy for information about Cloudflare's own processing.

Analytics, cookies, and similar technologies

Bark Buddiez does not intentionally use visitor analytics, advertising cookies, or embedded social-media content. Cloudflare may use storage or access technologies necessary to deliver and secure the website and operate Turnstile. Any new analytics, advertising, embedded content, or other non-essential technology will be assessed before use, and this notice and any consent controls will be updated where required.

Grooming and appointment enquiries

When you use the contact form, we collect:

• your name;
• your email address;
• your optional phone number;
• your dog's optional name and age;
• your dog's breed and size;
• the grooming package or help you are asking about;
• information you choose to give about the date of the last groom, coat condition, temperament, routine, or other handling needs;
• the page from which you sent the form; and
• anti-abuse and security information, including a Cloudflare Turnstile token and related network information.

Your name, email address, dog breed and size, and request details are required so we can assess and respond to the enquiry. The phone number, dog name, and dog age fields are optional. If you do not provide the required information, we may not be able to assess the requested service or reply through the form.

The form sends an appointment or quote request. It does not create a confirmed appointment until Bark Buddiez accepts it.

We use this information to:

• understand what service may be suitable;
• reply with availability, questions, and an indicative or confirmed price;
• arrange and manage an appointment;
• communicate about the requested grooming service by email, phone, or SMS;
• maintain necessary customer and pet service information for repeat appointments, coat care, temperament, safety, and continuity;
• create appointment-diary, payment, and accounting records where the enquiry becomes a service; and
• handle changes, complaints, disputes, or safety issues.

Where you ask us to quote, arrange, or provide a service, we use information because it is necessary to take the steps you requested or provide the agreed service. We may also use necessary customer/pet information because we have a reasonable interest in safe, consistent care, genuine business communications, and limited complaint or claims evidence, provided this does not override your rights. Necessary financial records are kept to meet tax and accounting requirements.

Pet information is not automatically sensitive human personal information, but it becomes part of your customer record when linked to you. Please do not include unnecessary health or other sensitive information about yourself or another person in the message.

We do not use form details or phone numbers for promotional texts, mailing lists, profiling, sale, or AI analysis under the current service.

How the form is delivered

DataSolace Ltd and Cloudflare validate the enhanced form, check for automated misuse, and deliver accepted enquiries to Bark Buddiez's Google-hosted mailbox. Cloudflare receives the request IP address and Turnstile response for bot detection. The form service delivers your enquiry to Bark Buddiez and does not keep a copy.

If the enhanced form is unavailable and you choose the email fallback, your email application sends the message directly to Bark Buddiez through your and Bark Buddiez's email providers instead. The DataSolace Ltd form service does not receive that fallback message.

Information used after an enquiry

If an enquiry becomes an appointment or customer relationship, Bark Buddiez may collect or keep:

• your name, address, telephone number, and contact history;
• your dog's name, breed, age, health conditions, allergies, coat condition, temperament, behaviour, handling needs, and service history;
• your veterinary practice's name and contact details;
• appointment, grooming, cancellation, payment, and accounting information;
• emergency veterinary-treatment authority;
• signed grooming terms and publication choices; and
• correspondence about queries, complaints, incidents, or claims.

We use these records to provide and manage the requested grooming service, contact you about appointments, support safe and consistent care, choose appropriate products and handling, arrange authorised emergency veterinary care, manage payments, and deal with questions, complaints, or claims.

Pet photographs and copied Google reviews

The website may contain customer-pet photographs and copies of Google reviews. A pet image, review, display name, filename, metadata, social link, or surrounding context may connect published content to an identifiable owner.

Bark Buddiez asks for optional written permission before it publishes a customer-pet photograph on its website or its own social-media pages. Refusing permission does not affect the grooming service. People are not intended to appear in these photographs; an identifiable person's image requires separate permission.

Where a customer publishes a Google review about Bark Buddiez, Bark Buddiez may reproduce the review's wording, star rating, and Google display name on its website or its own social-media pages only where the customer has given optional written permission for that use. Bark Buddiez does not copy the customer's Google profile photograph.

Where published content is personal information, we rely on your consent. The permission request identifies the content and approved website and social-media use.

No Google review embed, Google Places API, or third-party review widget is used. Approved reviews are rendered locally, so a later edit or deletion on Google does not automatically update the local copy. Ordinary links to Bark Buddiez's Google profile remain available.

You may withdraw publication permission at any time by contacting Bark Buddiez. Bark Buddiez will stop new use and remove the relevant content from the website and social-media pages it controls promptly. It cannot undo copies that other people have already made or shared. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of use before it was received. A minimal record of the permission, publication, withdrawal, or related complaint may still be kept for the limited period described below.

Who receives information

Depending on the activity, information may be received by:

• Bark Buddiez and authorised people supporting the business;
• DataSolace Ltd, for website hosting and form operation;
• Cloudflare, for website delivery, security, Turnstile, Worker execution, operational records, and email delivery;
• Bark Buddiez's Google-hosted email provider;
• phone/SMS providers used for service communications;
• a veterinary practice where necessary to protect a dog's welfare or obtain authorised emergency treatment;
• Bark Buddiez's outside accountant or bookkeeper and other professional, insurance, legal, or regulatory recipients where necessary; and
• members of the public on the website and Bark Buddiez's own social-media pages where a pet photograph or copied Google review has been approved for publication.

Ordinary links to Facebook, Instagram, Google reviews, and other external websites do not send your form submission to those services or load their content into this page. If you follow a link, the third party applies its own privacy information and may use cookies or similar technologies on its service.

We do not sell personal information.

International processing

Cloudflare and Google may process information outside the UK as part of their global services. Cloudflare's current data-processing addendum says that restricted UK transfers use approved contractual clauses amended by the UK Addendum, and that the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework is used where it applies. Google says that it participates in the UK Extension and relies on applicable UK adequacy regulations for relevant transfers.

See Cloudflare's data-processing addendum and Google's data-transfer frameworks. You may contact Bark Buddiez for more information about relevant safeguards.

How long information is kept

The following criteria apply:

• Unconverted enquiries: delete 30 days after the last message if the enquiry has not resulted in an appointment.
• Active customers and pet profiles: keep information necessary for appointments, repeat-service continuity, coat/temperament/safety needs, queries, and complaints while the relationship remains active. Delete it two years after the last completed appointment, unless a specific record is still needed for an unresolved complaint, claim, legal requirement, or another documented reason.
• Phone/SMS: treat service messages as part of the customer/service record and apply the same two-year rule, unless a specific message is still needed for an unresolved complaint, claim, legal requirement, or another documented reason.
• Paper appointment diary: retain appointment information under the same two-year customer/service rule unless an entry also forms part of an accounting record or is still needed for an unresolved complaint or claim.
• Accounting/payment records: keep records required for Self Assessment for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for the relevant tax year, and longer where another tax, insurance, legal, complaint, or claims requirement applies.
• Photographs and copied Google reviews: keep them only while they remain in active use and the relevant permission remains in place. Remove controlled published and working copies promptly if permission is withdrawn or the content is no longer used.
• Publication-permission evidence: keep the signed permission while the content is in use and for two years after its last publication or withdrawal. Keep a specific record longer only where necessary for an unresolved complaint, claim, or legal requirement.

We do not keep information merely because storage is available.

Security

DataSolace Ltd and Bark Buddiez use proportionate measures, including encrypted connections, restricted access, and locked paper records, to protect information. No internet service is completely secure.

Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have rights to:

• ask for a copy of your personal information;
• correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
• ask for deletion;
• restrict how information is used;
• object to processing based on reasonable interests;
• receive certain information in a portable format; and
• withdraw consent where an activity genuinely relies on consent.

Some rights are conditional and may not apply where information must be kept for legal obligations or legal claims.

To exercise a right, contact Bark Buddiez using the details at the top of this notice. We may need enough information to identify the relevant records and verify the request.

Complaints

Please contact Bark Buddiez using the monitored business email above if you have a privacy concern or complaint. We will consider the issue and keep you informed about the outcome.

You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. You do not have to finish our complaint process before contacting the ICO.

Changes to this notice

We will update this notice when what is collected, or how it is used, materially changes. The effective and last-updated dates at the top show which version applies.