Introduction
In the UK and Europe Ruffwear is supplied by Accapi Ltd, Ruffwear’s exclusive distribution partner.
Accapi respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
You can view the privacy notice on our websites www.accapigroup.com; www.ruffwear.co.uk; the websites”) or please ask us for a hard copy. Please use the Glossary at the end to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.
Important information and who we are
Purpose of this privacy notice
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how Accapi collects and processes your personal data when you purchase products from us directly (trade customers) or through your use of the websites, including any data you may provide through the websites when you sign up to our newsletter, purchase a product or take part in a competition.
The websites are not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
Controller
Accapi Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "Accapi”, "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy notice).
We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.
Contact details
Data Protection Manager:
Email address: info@accapigroup.com
Postal address: Tanfield Lea Business Centre, Stanley, County Durham, DH9 9DB, UK.
Telephone number: +44 (0) 1207 291 247
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
Inform us of changes
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
Third-party links
Our websites may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our websites, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
The data we collect about you
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:
- Identity Data includes first name, last name
- Contact Data includes address, email address, telephone and fax numbers.
- Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our websites.
- Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel the contract you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
How is your personal data collected?
We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in application forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- apply for our products;
- apply for a trading account;
- create an account on our websites;
- request a service from us;
- request marketing to be sent to you
- enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
- give us some feedback.
Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties as set out below:
- Technical Data from analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU;
- Identity and Contact Data from publicly availably sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the EU, or social media platforms.;
- Credit Reference Agencies.
- Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our websites, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.
How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
- Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.
Purposes for which we will use your personal data
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
Purpose/Activity |
Type of data |
Lawful basis for processing |
| To register you as a new customer | (a) Identity (b) Contact | Performance of a contract with you |
| To process and deliver your order including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Marketing and Communications | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us) |
| To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you including events we may hold and sending out newsletters | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical | (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business) (b) Consent (see below) |
| To administer and protect our business and websites (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical | (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
| To manage our relationship with you which will include: (a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Marketing and Communications | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services) |
| To decide whether to offer credit to you | (a) Identity (b) Contact | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests |
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising:
Promotional offers from us
We may use your Identity and Contact Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).
You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us and/or previously purchased products from us and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing. We may send you marketing communications relating to other brands we distribute.
Third-party marketing
We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside Accapi for marketing purposes.
Opting out
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us at any time or selecting the unsubscribe option on any email we send you. Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or other transactions.
Cookies
A cookie consists of information sent by a web server to a web browser, and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our websites may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see the full cookie policy below
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
Disclosures of your personal data
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.
External Third Parties:
- Service providers and agents who process data on our behalf e.g. internet service and platform providers, payment processing providers and those organisations we engage to help us send communications to you.
- Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
- HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances and to any third party when required by law.
- Credit reference agencies.
- Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
International transfers
The Ruffwear website uses software platforms which can be accessed by the Ruffwear brand team in the U.S.A. This includes marketing, content management and analytics software, we do not transfer sensitive information such as payment data outside of the European Economic Area.
Data security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
Data retention
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
We will generally store your personal data for a maximum of six years after services in relation to you come to an end (invoices are stored for seven years), after this period all data will be securely destroyed. However, we reserve the right to keep information from longer if we feel that this is in our legitimate interests.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.
Your legal rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please view the glossary at clause 10 below for further details.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
Glossary
LAWFUL BASIS
Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Your legal rights
You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
This version was last updated on 20 February 2019.
Our Cookies Policy
Our website uses cookies, these are small text files containing a unique identification number, not the tasty treat kind (sorry!).
There are three main types of cookies:
Session cookies
Session cookies are used on our website to maintain something called session state. This helps us to remember where you are on our site and make your browsing experience better. If you think of your visit to our site like we’re having a conversation, the cookies help to remind us what has happened in the conversation for example, if you add one of our products to your shopping basket our session cookies will make sure that it’s still there next time you check your basket. Session cookies are required for our website to function but are not used to identify you personally in any way.
Third party tracking devices
Our site uses web analytics services provided by Google, Inc ("Google"). Google Analytics uses cookies, to help analyse how visitors use our website. The information generated by the cookie about the use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for us and providing other services relating to website activity and Internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We may also use third party cookies from advertising partners such as Facebook and Google to help optimise advertising and show you relevant ads from Ruffwear.
Opting out
Although you cannot block "session" cookies as they are required for our website to function correctly you can configure your Internet browser so that it can reject "third party" cookies. How you do this will depend upon the Internet browser you use (for example, Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari etc). Please refer to the relevant Internet browser manufacturer's website where you should be able to receive all the information you need.
More information about cookies can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org
Mobile Terms of Service
Ruffwear UK
Last updated: June 28, 2023
The Ruffwear UK mobile message service (the "Service") is operated by Ruffwear UK (“Ruffwear UK”, “we”, or “us”). Your use of the Service constitutes your agreement to these terms and conditions (“Mobile Terms”). We may modify or cancel the Service or any of its features without notice. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may also modify these Mobile Terms at any time and your continued use of the Service following the effective date of any such changes shall constitute your acceptance of such changes.
By consenting to Ruffwear UK’s SMS/text messaging service, you agree to receive recurring SMS/text messages from and on behalf of Ruffwear UK through your wireless provider to the mobile number you provided, even if your mobile number is registered on any state or federal Do Not Call list. Text messages may be sent using an automatic telephone dialing system or other technology. Service-related messages may include updates, alerts, and information (e.g., order updates, account alerts, etc.). Promotional messages may include promotions, specials, and other marketing offers (e.g., cart reminders).
You understand that you do not have to sign up for this program in order to make any purchases, and your consent is not a condition of any purchase with Ruffwear UK. Your participation in this program is completely voluntary.
We do not charge for the Service, but you are responsible for all charges and fees associated with text messaging imposed by your wireless provider. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Check your mobile plan and contact your wireless provider for details. You are solely responsible for all charges related to SMS/text messages, including charges from your wireless provider.
You may opt-out of the Service at any time. Text the single keyword command STOP to Ruffwear UK or click the unsubscribe link (where available) in any text message to cancel. You'll receive a one-time opt-out confirmation text message. No further messages will be sent to your mobile device, unless initiated by you. If you have subscribed to other Ruffwear UK mobile message programs and wish to cancel, except where applicable law requires otherwise, you will need to opt out separately from those programs by following the instructions provided in their respective mobile terms.
For Service support or assistance, text HELP to Ruffwear UK or email bark@ruffwear.co.uk.
We may change any short code or telephone number we use to operate the Service at any time and will notify you of these changes. You acknowledge that any messages, including any STOP or HELP requests, you send to a short code or telephone number we have changed may not be received and we will not be responsible for honoring requests made in such messages.
The wireless carriers supported by the Service are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. You agree to provide us with a valid mobile number. If you get a new mobile number, you will need to sign up for the program with your new number.
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree that we will not be liable for failed, delayed, or misdirected delivery of any information sent through the Service, any errors in such information, and/or any action you may or may not take in reliance on the information or Service.
We respect your right to privacy. To see how we collect and use your personal information, please see our Privacy Notice.