Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 14, 2024

This Privacy Policy explains how PetSmart Charities of Canada (“PetSmart Charities”, “we,” or “us”) collects, uses, and discloses information about you when you access our website, attend PetSmart Charities events, contact us, engage with us on social media, or otherwise interact with us.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our website homepage or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.

Collection of Information

Information You Provide to Us

We collect information you provide directly to us. For example, we collect information when you create an account, fill out a form, participate in a survey, review, contest, or promotion, make a purchase, communicate with us via third party social media sites, request customer support, or otherwise communicate with us. The types of information we may collect include your:

name;
email address;
postal address;
phone number;
credit/debit card number and other payment information;
donation information;
age;
location;
pet’s information (name, breed, date of birth, gender, etc.);
pet’s photographs;
other information you choose to provide to us.;

Other Information We Collect

When you interact with us, we automatically collect information about you, including:

Adoption Information: When you adopt a pet at one of our Adoption Centers, we collect information about the adoption, including the pet and your reason for adopting, and date and location of the adoption.
Log Information: We collect information related to your access to and use of our website, including the type of browser you use, app version, access times, pages viewed, your IP address, site interaction data, and the page you visited before navigating to our website.
Device Information: We collect information about the computer or mobile device you use to access our website, including the hardware model, operating system and version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information.
Location Information: We may derive the approximate location of your device from your IP address. In accordance with your device permissions, we may also collect information about the precise location of your device. You have the ability to stop the collection of location information at any time (see Your Choices below for details).
Information Collected by Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies: We (and our service providers) use different technologies to collect information, including cookies and web beacons and other tracking mechanisms. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in your device memory that help us improve our services and your experience, see which areas and features of our website are popular, and count visits. Web beacons (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFs”) are electronic images that may use in our services or emails and help deliver cookies, count visits, and help us understand usage and campaign effectiveness. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, see Your Choices below.

Information Collected from Other Sources

We may also obtain information about you from other sources. For example, we may collect information about you from third parties, such as mailing list providers and data enhancement sources. We also collect information from publicly available sources, including information you submit in a public forum (e.g., a blog, chat room, or social media). Additionally, if you create or log into your account through a social media site or app, we may have access to certain information from that site, such as your name, account information, and friend lists, in accordance with the authorization procedures determined by such social media site or app.

Use of Information

We use the information we collect to deliver PetSmart Charities’ services and customize your experience with us. We also use the information we collect to:

Provide, maintain, and improve our services;
Facilitate donations;
Connect you with third parties that perform services in connection with PetSmart Charities, such as animal rescue or spay/neuter organizations;
Conduct outreach and communicate with you about services and events offered by PetSmart Charities and others, and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you (see Your Choices below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);
Administer outreach surveys and focus groups;
Personalize your online experience when you visit our website;
Count ad impressions and verify positioning and quality of ad impressions;
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and protect the rights of PetSmart Charities, visitors, supporters, charitable operations, and assets;
Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
For limited, internal, and operational use, such as to enable our website to function;
Conduct internal research and analysis;
Investigate claims or incidents regarding associates, supporters, vendors, pets, and pet adopters;
Comply with regulatory or legal obligations;
Facilitate contests, sweepstakes, and promotions and process and deliver entries and rewards;
Create de-identified, anonymized, or aggregated information that we process only in a de-identified fashion and will not attempt to re-identify except as permitted by law; and
Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.

Disclosure of Information

We may disclose your personal information as follows:

To vendors, service providers, and consultants that perform services for us, including e-mail and mobile marketing, analytics, web hosting, call center services, payment processing, printing, sweepstakes administration, and data enhancement;
In response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;
To detect fraud, enforce agreements, inform law enforcement of a violation of law, or protect the rights and safety of PetSmart Charities, our supporters, pets in the care of organizations that we work with, the public or others;
In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of PetSmart Charities by another entity;
Between and among PetSmart Charities and our current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership; and
With your consent or at your direction.

We may also disclose aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

Data Retention and Security

Data Retention

We keep the personal information we collect about you for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes in this Privacy Policy or any other notice provided at the time of collection, such as providing services to you, supporting our business functions and operations, enabling us to communicate with you, providing marketing and personalization, conducting research, making data-driven business decisions about new offerings, satisfying our legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, or contractual obligations, and resolving disputes. Where required, we will dispose of the information we collect when we no longer need it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or any other notice provided at the time of collection, in accordance with PetSmart Charities’ retention policies and procedures.

Criteria we use to determine these retention periods include:

How can we minimize the retention period?
Do we need to keep personal information to ensure the experience that individuals expect?
Are individuals able to update or delete the personal information themselves?
Is PetSmart Charities subject to a legal or contractual obligation to keep or delete the personal information?

Data Security

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect your personal information. However, no website is completely secure. You are also responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect your personal information, such as using strong passwords and using different passwords across your online accounts. We will never request your password or credit card information through email.

Children’s Personal Information

We recognize the particular importance of protecting the privacy of children. We do not knowingly collect, sell, or share personal information from children under the age of 16.

Transfer of Information

PetSmart Charities is based in Canada. We process and store information in Canada and other countries. Therefore, we and our service providers may transfer your information to, or store or access it in jurisdictions that may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your home jurisdiction.

Your Choices

Account Information

As always, you can see and update certain account information at any time by logging into your account or calling 1-800-423-7387.

Cookies

Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but provide settings to accept all cookies, notify you when a cookie is issued, or not receive cookies. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our services.

Promotional Communications and Sharing with Other Organizations

You may opt out of receiving promotional emails, direct mail, or phone calls from PetSmart Charities by following the instructions in those emails, logging into your account and changing your preferences, or by calling 1-800-423-7387. If you opt out, we may still send you non-promotional emails, such as those about your account or our ongoing business relationship.