Privacy policy

This privacy policy explains which personal data Puppymakelaar processes, why, for how long, and what rights you have. We collect no more data than necessary and never sell it on.

1. Who is responsible?

The data controller is:

2. What data do we process?

• Account data: name, email address, password (stored only in encrypted form), account type (buyer or breeder) and, for breeders, your approval number (HK number). Breeders in the Netherlands provide their UBN and upload proof from Mijn RVO. Only administrators can see that file; we use it solely to verify your registration and keep it for as long as your account exists. We display your UBN on your listings.
• Billing data: company name, address, country and VAT number, if you provide them.
• Listings: everything you include in a listing, such as breed, date of birth, municipality and province, price, description, photos, details of the puppies and the parent dogs, and your website. This data is publicly visible on the site.
• Messages and contact: messages you exchange with other users through Puppymakelaar. To monitor the service, administrators can see who contacted which advertiser (by message or by clicking on email, phone or website), but not the content of messages. If you send an advertiser a message, they receive it by email together with your email address, so that they can reply to you.
• Payments and invoices: amount, date, what you bought and the payment status. Your card or bank details go directly to our payment provider; we do not see them.
• Reports and feedback: reports about listings, appeals against a suspension, and bug reports or feedback messages (including the page from which you sent them).
• Technical data: IP address, browser type and times of visits in the server logs, and the cookies described in section 7.

3. Why, and on what legal basis?

• To provide our service (performance of a contract): managing your account, displaying listings, forwarding messages, processing payments and issuing invoices.
• To comply with the law (legal obligation): retaining invoices and accounting records, and complying with VAT rules.
• To keep the platform safe and reliable (legitimate interest): preventing abuse and fraud, moderating listings, and checking whether an HK number is valid in the public register of approved breeders and whether a VAT number is valid via the European VIES system.

4. Who do we share data with?

We share data only with service providers that we need in order to operate Puppymakelaar, and only for that purpose:

• hosting of the website and the database;
• Cloudflare, for the security and speed of the website;
• Stripe, for processing payments;
• an email service for sending emails (e.g. password resets, invoices). We keep a log of the emails we send (recipient, subject, time and delivery status) in order to follow up on delivery problems. We keep the content for no more than 90 days, and never for messages between users or emails containing a security link. We delete the log after one year;
• an invoicing and accounting platform for sending invoices, including via the Peppol network.

We do not load fonts, scripts or images from external servers: everything comes from Puppymakelaar itself. If you click "Directions" on a listing, Google Maps opens in a new window. Only then does your browser connect to Google, and Google’s privacy policy applies. Some of our service providers are located outside the European Union; in that case, the transfer takes place subject to appropriate safeguards, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Your listings are public, so other users can contact you through the platform. Beyond that, we only disclose data where we are required to do so by law.

5. How long do we keep your data?

• Account and listings: for as long as your account exists. If you ask us to delete your account, we erase your data, except for what we are legally required to retain.
• Invoices and payment data: 10 years, as required by Belgian accounting and VAT legislation.
• Messages: for as long as the accounts of both parties to the conversation exist.
• Server logs: only for as long as necessary for security purposes and to trace errors.

6. Your rights

You have the right to access your data, to have it rectified or erased, to have its processing restricted, to receive your data in a commonly used format, and to object to processing based on our legitimate interest. You can change much of your data yourself via your profile. For anything else, email us at [email protected]. We will respond within one month.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your data, you can lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (www.dataprotectionauthority.be).

Newsletter

If you subscribe to the newsletter, we store your email address, your language, your choice (looking for a puppy or being a breeder), the page on which you subscribed and the time of your subscription and of your confirmation. Your subscription takes effect immediately and you will receive a welcome email. The newsletter may contain promotions from partners; we do not pass your details on to them. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in every newsletter, after which we will no longer send you the newsletter. If you signed up for alerts about a breed, you will continue to receive those alerts until you stop them via the link at the bottom of each alert.

7. Cookies

Puppymakelaar uses no advertising or tracking cookies and no third-party analytics tools. We only use what is necessary for the site to work:

• a session cookie that keeps you logged in during your visit and secures forms;
• a "stay logged in" cookie (30 days), only if you choose this yourself;
• your choice of light or dark theme, stored in your own browser.

To find out how many people visit the site and the listings, we count visits ourselves, without cookies and without external services. For this purpose we do not store any IP address, only an irreversible code derived from it, which we delete after 31 days. This means we only see totals, never who you are. If you are logged in, administrators can see in a live overview which page you are viewing at that moment, linked to your account. We use this for support and to detect abuse, and we keep it for no more than one hour. We do this on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the site and providing advertisers with accurate figures.

Some partner adverts use the advertiser's own code or a tracking pixel. We only load these if you give your consent via the notice that then appears, and always in an isolated frame with no access to your data on Puppymakelaar. The advertiser may set its own cookies in doing so; its own privacy policy applies to those. Your choice is stored in your own browser for 6 months and you can change it at any time via Cookie settings at the bottom of every page.

8. Security

We protect your data with measures including an encrypted connection (HTTPS), encrypted passwords and restricted access to the administration area.

9. Changes

We may amend this privacy policy, for example if the service changes. The date at the top shows when it was last amended. We will inform you of any significant changes.