Last Update: July 21, 2010:

1. Copyright
2. Overview
3. Information We Collect
4. Our Use and Disclosure of Information
5. Information Security
6. Accessing and Changing Your Information
7. Accountability
8. Refund and Return Policy
9. Delivery Methods and timing

This Privacy Policy applies to all European Union countries except Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the Vatican City.

The Privacy Policy below governs your Hoofprints transaction or account and any information you provide on this site.

1. Copyright

The photos posted in the Image Showcases are for viewing purposes only. Copying, downloading or using the photo in any manner without written permission from the photographer is prohibited and a copyright violation. 

This also applies to hardcopies purchased and may not be used in any social networking, advertisement or any other transmission. Licenses for use can be purchased online or by contacting Hoofprints.  

2. Overview

In order to operate the Hoofprints service and to reduce the risk of fraud, Hoofprints ("www.Hoofprints.ie" or "we"), the data controller, must ask you to provide us information about yourself and your credit or debit card and/or bank account. This is transmitted by a secure portal to the Merchant Services provider Elavon or Paypal. We do not hold any of this information on file but is remitted automatically through the secure payment providers portals. These Terms & Conditions should be read in conjunction with your normal card payment provider, and Paypal. By consenting to, and agreeing the terms of, the Privacy Policy, you also expressly consent and agree to us processing your data in the manner set out in the Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy describes the information we collect and how we use that information. Hoofprints takes the privacy of your personal information very seriously and will use your information only in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information or a list of our customers to third parties. However, in order for us to offer our services to our users; to enhance the quality of its service from time to time; and to protect the interests of our users, we will in limited circumstances and as further described in more detail throughout this policy, share some of your information with third parties under strict restrictions. It is important for you to review this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy applies to all services that are hosted on the Hoofprints website.

By accepting the Privacy Policy and User Agreement in registration, you expressly consent to our use and disclosure of your personal information and direct us to do so in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to the terms of the Hoofprints User Agreement.

If you disagree with the terms of Privacy Policy, please do not register for nor use the Hoofprints service.

PRIVACY STATEMENT OF HOOFPRINTS.IE

If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact:

Donal O'Beirne
Tel: +353 86 2327966,
Hoofprints Photo
Brook Cottage, Parkmore, Moneystown, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
 

Information Collection

Hoofprints.ie is the sole owner of the information collected on Hoofprints.ie other than credit card information which goes directly to our payment processing partner Elavon.com (Customer Service: +353 1850 20 21 20), Romancart, Realex payments or PayPal.com (help@paypal.com).

Order

We request information from the user on the Romancart or PayPal Shopping Carts order forms. A user must provide contact information (such as name, email & phone) and financial information (such as credit card number & expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill customer's orders.

Sharing

Legal Disclaimer

Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site.

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)

We do not share aggregated demographic information with any partners or advertisers.

Third Party Advertisers

We do not use any banner or other advertising on the sites.

Third Party Intermediaries

We use an outside company for credit card processing companies (Elavon or PayPal) to collect money from customer's credit cards or debit cards. This company does not automatically retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. 

Links

This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, Hoofprints.ie, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our sites and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by these web sites. 

Security

This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web sites, their information is protected both online and off-line.

When the Roman cart or PayPal Shopping Cart asks users to enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as the PayPal Shopping Cart, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just 'surfing'. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment, in a locked world class facility. 

If users have any questions about the security at our Web sites, users can send an email to info@hoofprints.ie.

Supplementation of Information

We do not supplement the information we receive with information from 3rd party sources.

Purchasing History

We do not combine any information that we collect with any third party.

Enhancement of Marketing Profile

We do not purchase third party marketing data.  

Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.

This policy may be revised over time as new features are added to the Hoofprints service or as we incorporate suggestions from our customers. We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting a revised version on our web site. The revised version will be effective at the time we post it. In addition, if we propose to change this Privacy Policy in a substantial manner, we will provide you with at least 30 days' prior notice of such a change by posting notice on the "Policy Updates" on our website(s). After this 30 days notice, you will be considered as having expressly consented to all amendments to the Privacy Policy. If you disagree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, you may close your account at any time.

Please check the Hoofprints website at https://www.Hoofprints.ie at any time for the most current version of our Privacy Policy.

Some pages on the Hoofprints website include links to third party websites. These sites are governed by their own privacy statements, and Hoofprints is not responsible for their operations, including but not limited to their information practices. Users submitting information to or through these third party websites should review the privacy statement of these sites before providing them with personally identifiable information. 

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3. Information We Collect

Required Information

To open a Hoofprints account or transact, you may need to provide your name, address, phone number, and email address. In order to make certain payments through Hoofprints, you must provide credit card, debit card or bank account information. We may also ask you to choose two different security questions to answer (such as your city of birth or your pet's name). This required information may be  necessary for us to process transactions, issue a new password if you forget or lose your password, protect you against credit card fraud and current account fraud, and to contact you should the need arise in administering your account.

We may also require other commercial and/or identification information if you send or receive certain high-value transactions or high overall payment volumes through Hoofprints. 

Transaction Information

We may also collect the Internet address (IP address) and other identifying information about the computer or device you use to access your Hoofprints account, in order to help detect possible instances of unauthorised transactions. 

Information about You from Third Parties

In order to protect all our customers against potential fraud, we verify the information you provide with bank processors. In the course of such verification, we may receive personally identifiable information about you from such services through a secure portal. In particular, if you register a credit card or debit card with Hoofprints, we will use card authorisation and fraud screening services to verify that your card information and address match the information that you supplied to Hoofprints, and that the card has not been reported as lost or stolen.

If you send or receive high overall payment volumes through Hoofprints, in some circumstances we may conduct a background check on your business by obtaining information about you and your business from a credit bureau or a business information service such as Dun & Bradstreet. If you owe us money, we may conduct a credit check on you by obtaining additional information about you from a credit bureau, to the extent permitted by law. Hoofprints, at its sole discretion, also reserves the right periodically to retrieve and review a business and/or consumer credit report supplied by such credit bureau for any account, and reserves the right to close an account based on information obtained during this credit review process. 

Additional Verification

If we cannot verify the information that you provide, or if you request a withdrawal by cheque to an address other than your verified credit card billing address, we ask you to send us additional information by fax (such as your driving licence, credit card statement, and/or a recent utility bill or other information linking you to the applicable address), or to answer additional questions online to help verify your information. 

Customer Service Correspondence

If you send us correspondence, including emails and faxes, we retain such information in the records of your account. We will also retain customer service correspondence and other correspondence from Hoofprints to you. We retain these records in order to keep records of our relationship, to measure and improve our customer service, and to investigate potential fraud and violations of our User Agreement. We may, over time, delete these records if permitted by law. 

Questionnaires, Surveys and Profile Data

From time to time, we offer optional questionnaires and surveys to our users for such purposes as collecting demographic information or assessing users' interests and needs. The use of the information collected will be explained in detail in the survey itself. If we collect personally identifiable information from our users in these questionnaires and surveys, the users will be given notice of how the information will be used prior to their participation in the survey or questionnaire. 

Non-member Recipients and Requests

When a member either sends a payment to, or requests a payment from, an individual who is not a registered member of Hoofprints, we will retain the information that the member submits to us, including, for example, the other party's email address, Skype ID (if applicable), phone number and/or name, for the benefit of the member who is attempting to contact the non-member, so that the member can see a complete record of his or her transactions, including uncompleted transactions. Although this information is stored indefinitely, we will not market to the non-member in any way at any time. Additionally, these non-members have the same rights to access and correct information about themselves (assuming that their detail(s) were correct enough to reach them) as anyone else who uses Hoofprints.

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4. Our Use and Disclosure of Information

Internal Uses

We collect, store and process your personal information on servers located in the Ireland. Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, and customised experience. You agree that we may use your personal information to:

provide the services and customer support you request;

resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;

prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce our User Agreement;

customise, measure, and improve our services and the content and layout of our website;

tell you about targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on the communication preferences you have defined for your Hoofprints account (please refer to the section Our contacts with Hoofprints customers below);

compare information for accuracy, and verify it with third parties.  

Disclosure to Third Party Merchants

We work with third party merchants to enable them to accept payments from you using Hoofprints. In doing so, a merchant may share information about you with us such as your email address when you are attempting to pay that merchant. We may use this information to confirm to that merchant that you are a Hoofprints customer and that the merchant should enable Hoofprints as a form of payment for your purchase. Also, if you request that we validate your status as a Hoofprints customer with a third party, we will do so. Please note that merchants you buy from and contract with have their privacy policies, and Hoofprints may not be held responsible for their operations, including, but not limited to, their information practices. 

By accepting this Privacy Policy, you expressly agree that each time you pay or attempt to pay another Hoofprints customer or a third party merchant by using your Hoofprints account, Hoofprints may then transfer the aforementioned relevant data to the other Hoofprints customer or to the third party merchant, who may be located outside the European Union, in order to process, execute or otherwise deal and provide information about the payment. 

Disclosure to Third Parties Other Than Hoofprints Customers

Hoofprints will not sell or rent any of your personally identifiable information to third parties, and will only disclose this information in the limited circumstances and for the purposes described in this policy. This includes transfers of data to non-EU member states. Specifically, you consent to and direct Hoofprints to do any and all of the following:

Disclose information including, without limitation, transaction, account information, personal details and the contents of communications to the police, security forces, competent governmental, intergovernmental or supranational bodies, competent agencies (other than tax related authorities), departments or regulatory, self-regulatory authorities or organisations (including, without limitation, the Agencies set out in the table under the heading "Agencies" below) or other third parties that we in good faith believe is appropriate to cooperate in investigations of fraud or other illegal activity or potential illegal activity, or to conduct investigations of violations of our User Agreement. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies and law enforcement agencies may access and use this information. We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering. Please contact us on the details set out at the end of this privacy policy if you want to receive further details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies. We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies.

Disclose information in response to requirements of civil or criminal legal process.

Disclose information to the "Category" of third parties listed in the table below. The purpose of this disclosure is to allow us to provide our service to you. We also set out in the table below, under each "Category", non-exclusive examples of the actual third parties we currently disclose your account information, together with the purpose of doing so, and the actual information we disclose (these third parties are limited by law or by contract from using the information for secondary purposes beyond the purposes for which the information was shared). Category Party Name and jurisdiction (in brackets)  Purpose  Data disclosed   

Payment processors 

 Elavon.com, PayPal.com, Realex.com and Romancart.com 

Our Contacts with Hoofprints Customers

We communicate with users on a regular basis via email to provide requested services, and we also communicate by phone to resolve customer complaints or claims made by users via Hoofprints, respond to requests for customer service, inform you if we believe your account or any of your transactions have been used for an illegitimate purpose, confirm information concerning your identity, business or account activity, carry out collection activities, conduct customer surveys or investigate suspicious transactions. We use your email or physical address to confirm your opening of a Hoofprints account, to send you notice of payments that you send or receive through Hoofprints (including referral payments described below), to send information about important changes to our products and services, and to send notices and other disclosures required by law. Generally, users cannot opt out of these communications, but they will be primarily informational in nature rather than promotional. 

We also use your email address to send you other types of communications that you can control, including the Hoofprints Periodical newsletter, auction tips, customer surveys and notice of special third-party promotions. You can choose whether to receive some, all or none of these communications when you complete the registration process, or at any time thereafter, by logging in to your account on the Hoofprints website and changing your preferences in the Profile page of the My Account tab. 

Your Use of Information and Our Services

By entering into our User Agreement, you agree that, with respect to other users' personally identifiable information that you obtain through the site or through a Hoofprints-related communication or Hoofprints-facilitated transaction, you will only use this information for: (a) Hoofprints-related communications that are not unsolicited commercial messages, (b) using services offered through Hoofprints (e.g. insurance, delivery and fraud complaints), and (c) any other purpose that such user consents to after adequate disclosure of the purpose(s).

In all cases, you must provide users with the opportunity to remove them from your database and review any information you have collected about them. More generally, you must comply with all applicable privacy regulations, in particular as they relate to the sending of marketing emails.

Hoofprints does not tolerate spam. We strictly enforce our Anti-Spam Policy. To report Hoofprints-related spam to Hoofprints, please contact us.

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5. Information Security

Hoofprints is committed to handling your customer information with high standards of information security. We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption, we enforce physical access controls to our buildings and files, and we authorise access to personal information only for those employees who require it to fulfil their job responsibilities.

For more information on Hoofprints' security practices, please visit the Hoofprints Security Centre.