Greyhounds as Pets (GAP) is committed to protecting your privacy. GAP collects information for different purposes and this privacy statement sets out how we collect, hold, use and disclose information about you in addition to your rights to access this information. By using our website, applying to adopt or foster, volunteering, donating, or making a purchase from our online shop or subscribing to our newsletter, you provide your consent to your information being used in the ways outlined below. We reserve the right to update this statement from time to time.
The personal information we collect is provided by you through your interactions with GAP, such as, but not limited to, our communications, fundraising events, donations, use of our website and adoption enquiries.
• Adoption and Fostering – when you fill in our online questionnaire for adopting or fostering a greyhound, we collect your personal information that includes your name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, as well as your household information relevant to the adoption process, including, but not limited to, number of adults and children in your household, existing pets, property fencing, being legally permitted to add a greyhound to your property, if you have previously been disqualified from owning a dog, your greyhound preferences and your expectations of greyhound ownership.
• Volunteering – if you sign up to be a volunteer, we will also collect additional information relevant to processing your application such as name, address, phone number and email address.
• Donating – when you make an online donation, we collect your name and email address and the information about the donation date, and amount in order, to provide you with a receipt.
Purchasing from our online shop – when you make a purchase from our online store, we collect information regarding the items purchased, your name, address and phone number and payment method. As GAP uses a third-party payment processing agency, we do not collect or hold specific details such as credit or debit card information.
The GAP website uses cookies (small information files that placed in you web browser by the websites you visit). They help us to track the traffic to our website and serve the most relevant content to our website users. Cookies, including third party services that set cookies such as Google Analytics (which we use to track the effectiveness of our marketing and website) do not provide us with any personally identifiable information – just the IP address, operating system and the domain being used to access our website from. If you do not want this to happen, you can disable cookies through your browser settings, but by doing this you may not be able to access certain features of our website.
How we use your information
We use your personal information for general administrative and marketing purposes, which are outlined below. This information is used to:
• reply to your queries
• provide you with updates and information on GAP and our dogs
• find the right match for you, with a dog for adoption
• provide aftercare following adoption
• request and process donations from you
• contact you about volunteering
• let you know about offers we think may be of interest to you, except if you have told us that you do not want to receive these types of communications from us
• tailor information on this website to your preferences
• improve our website, systems, and processes
• conduct market research from time to time
• let you know about competitions or petitions you have engaged with
• comply with the law where applicable
When you provide us with information to adopt, foster, donate or volunteer, and if you purchase items from the shop you agree to be opted in to receive our regular GAP newsletter. We will send this to the email address details you provided us with. We will also send you our newsletter if you specifically opt in to receive it through our website. You can unsubscribe from our electronic marketing communication at any time through the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
How we store your information
We store personal data electronically on our GAP database and in paper form. Our database is password protected with controlled access. Personal information on our database is kept secure using generally accepted practices and standards, which includes:
• Security patches applied within seven (7) days of notification
• Controlled user access with encrypted passwords
• Compliance with Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) standards
• Configuration to avoid SQL injection attacks
• SSL-protection to safeguard usernames, passwords and other sensitive data.
Who we share your information with
We may share your information with third parties which we believe are of interest to you – an example of this would be animal nutrition providers, veterinary services, etc. GAP sometimes employs contractors, service providers and other third parties to perform functions on our behalf (i.e. mailing houses). In doing this, we may provide them with access to your personal information, which is limited to their requirement to perform their function.
We will also disclose your information to a third party if required to for the purposes of registering ownership of a dog you have adopted in accordance with the Dog Control Act 1996, or of legal proceedings or other legal investigations by law.
How long do we hold your personal information for?
We will keep your personal information for only as long as is necessary to achieve the purpose for which we collected it.
Your rights over your information
GAP is committed to complying with the Privacy Act 2020 and this gives you the right to access and correct your personal information. If you would like to understand the information we hold about you, or amend it, please contact us at lucy@gap.org.nz.