Petco recognizes that protecting data privacy is fundamental to maintaining pet parents’ trust. Privacy governance involves a continually evolving landscape of laws, regulations, and best practices – all of which impact our efforts and strategies related to this area. Against this backdrop, Petco has developed policies, procedures, and governance structures to assist us with meeting our goals related to data privacy. We remain committed to continuing to develop and evolve our privacy program to address this changing landscape.
Petco’s Data Privacy Goals
To help us achieve our data privacy and security goals, we have integrated several privacy principles into our policies and procedures, including:
Transparency: Petco is committed to notifying our guests about, among other things, the personal information we will collect from them, how their data will be used, and what rights they may have to access or delete their data. Detailed information about how we handle our guests’ personal information can be found within our Privacy Policy, which is updated periodically.1 We are committed to updating our Privacy Policy if there is a change in our personal information handling practices or developments in applicable law. We expect to conduct an annual review to validate that our Privacy Policy provides appropriate notice to our guests regarding our data handling practices. We aim to provide timely notice to our guests if we make material changes to our privacy policies. Should guests have any questions or concerns regarding data privacy, our Privacy Policy provides a variety of methods for guests to contact us with questions or concerns regarding data privacy.
Limited Collection and Use: We aim to limit our collection of personal information to that which is consistent with our publicly available privacy policies, notices, and disclosures, and that which is necessary to accomplish our business purposes. We aim to limit our use of personal information to the purposes for which it was collected, the purposes disclosed in our privacy policies, and purposes that are compliant with or required by applicable law. In addition, while we do use closed circuit security cameras to monitor our premises, we have pledged not to use facial recognition technology to personally identify guests while they are in our retail stores. We also conduct Privacy Impact Assessments for new technologies and practices that will involve personal information.
Data Subject Rights: We offer California residents the right to request access to or deletion of their personal information pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act. We continue to develop and implement plans for processing data subjects’ requests under emerging privacy laws in a variety of states.
Training: We have established an annual privacy training and awareness program for all employees, where Petco partners become familiar with our policies, procedures, and expectations regarding data privacy. In addition, certain teams receive specialized and more frequent privacy training based on their functional areas and responsibilities.
Security: While no website or system can be 100% secure or “hacker-proof,” we are committed to maintaining certain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the personal information we collect from our guests. We have defined internal procedures for timely responding to and recovering from data security incidents, if and when they occur. We continue to monitor for risks, improvements, and best practices in the data security field.
1 In addition, we publish detailed information about how we treat our guests’ personal information on our other owned sites, available at Pupbox.com/tos, Petcoach.co/privacy-policy/, and PetInsuranceQuotes.com/privacy-policy.
PETCO MEDIA CONTACTS
Ventura Olvera, (858) 453-7845 x222820 or ventura.olvera@petco.com
Yvonne Tarrab, (858) 453-7845 x223256 or yvonne.tarrab@petco.com
Governance Structure of Petco’s Privacy Program
Petco’s privacy program operates under the oversight of our Chief Legal Officer and our Associate General Counsel of Compliance, who help manage Petco’s efforts to comply with internal policies and applicable laws. In addition, Petco has a cross-functional team involving stakeholders from across the business, who meet regularly to assess privacy risks and challenges. Our privacy program’s policies and procedures are subject to controls such as internal reviews and audits, industry benchmarking, and legal assessments, all of which serve to promote ongoing compliance by the business. We apprise certain committees of the Board of Directors regarding privacy and security issues, as appropriate. We also regularly monitor for new and modified federal, state, and local laws, as well as relevant interpretations of existing laws.
Privacy Challenges
Laws related to data privacy are often inconsistent and sometimes competing, and regulations in this area are constantly emerging and developing. As a result, our privacy practices and the statements made here are subject to change at any time. More information can be found in our publicly filed disclosures.
Our Future
We remain committed to continuing to develop and evolve our privacy program. We will continue to monitor for opportunities to institute measures that will help us maintain the trust of pet parents.
