24 Hour Emergency

Privacy Policy

What is the purpose of this privacy notice?

At Medivet Group Limited ("Medivet", "we", "us", "our") we recognise that it is important for you to understand how we use your personal data. Therefore, please read the following information carefully as it contains important information regarding how we use the personal data you provide to us: (i) in our veterinary practices, (ii) through our website, currently accessible at www.medivetgroup.com (this/our "Site") and (iii) when you get in contact with us.

We will only use personal data in ways that are described in this notice and only ways that are consistent with our obligations and your rights under applicable data protection laws.

For the purpose of applicable data protection laws, the data controller (in other words, the organisation that determines how and for what purposes your personal data is used) will be Medivet Group Limited. This is true for all subsidiaries of Medivet Group Limited, veterinary practices operating under the ‘Medivet’ brand name and other veterinary practices operated by Medivet and trading under a different name.

Data Protection Principles

Medivet will comply with the data protection principles which say that the personal information we hold about you must be:

  • Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  • Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  • Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  • Accurate and kept up to date.
  • Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  • Kept securely.

The kind of information Medivet may hold about you

Medivet offers a wide range of services to ensure that your pet has access to the most sophisticated healthcare treatments available and we want you to understand the types of information that we collect about you when you use these services or otherwise in the course of our business.

Personal data you provide to us directly.

Ways in which you might provide the data to us

This is personal data about you that you give us, which can happen in a wide variety of ways, including when you register at one of our practices, by asking us to provide you with products and services and your use of those products or services, signing up to our newsletter, corresponding with us by e-mail, telephone or SMS or if you mention or interact with us on social media (for example by mentioning/tagging us or by contacting us directly). It also includes personal data you provide when you provide us with feedback, report a problem with our Site, enter into a contract with us or otherwise provide us with any personal data.

If you visit our Site you may also share your personal data with us by allowing the use of certain cookies and similar technologies that run on our website, by filling out a ‘contact us’ form, by signing up to our preference centre, or by applying to one of our open positions via our careers portal.

If you book appointments online, you will also be required to share some personal data with us when you sign up for the online booking service and set up an account, such as your name and email address, grant us access to some of the features of your Facebook or Google profiles, such as your name and profile picture (if you chose to sign in using those instead of creating a personalised user account).

What type of data might be included?

The personal data you give us may include but is not limited to: your name, postal address, e-mail address and phone number (including mobile number), gender (and preferred salutation), date of birth, social media handle and personal data on your social media account, financial and credit card personal data, thoughts about our products and services (including complaints and reviews). If you are a licensed breeder then we will collect and store your Breeder License number.

We will only ever ask you to give us personal data which we need in order to give you an offer for our products or services (should you ask us for one), provide you with the products or services that you have requested from us, or to comply with legal requirements.

Personal data we collect or generate about you.

Ways in which we might collect or generate the data

When you visit one of our practices, visit our Site, or get in touch with us, we may collect, generate, store and use certain personal data about you.

What type of data might be included?

We may process your personal data in the form of video recordings via our CCTV in our practices. In the event of any criminal investigations, we may be required by law, to share the data captured with the relevant authorities.

If you visit our Site, we may collect personal data that may include: technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet, your login information (if accessing an account with us), and any phone number used to call our customer service number. In addition, the following data may also be collected and may be considered personal data in so far as it can be used to uniquely identify you: browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, device types, operating system, time and date of consent and platform.

It may also include information about your visit to our Site, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our Site (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs) and methods used to browse our Site. For more information on the way we collect this kind of information when you visit our Site, please check our Cookies Policy page www.medivetgroup.com/cookies-policy.

Personal data we receive from other sources.

We may occasionally receive personal data about you from other sources, for example if you use other websites or service providers (such as Facebook) to interact with us, you are aware and agree to, the sharing of your personal information with us. This may include basic personal identifiers, such as name and contact details.

Also, in the event that you chose to log in to your online booking account (if applicable to you) using your Facebook or Google accounts, you are aware and acknowledge the fact that Facebook or Google may share some information of yours with us, mainly your name and profile picture.

Why and how does Medivet use your personal data and what is our lawful basis?

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Whenever we process your personal data, we are required to identify and maintain a valid "lawful basis" (i.e. a legally compliant justification) for the processing. To help you to understand what we do with data and why, we have described the various relevant lawful bases that we rely on in the table below. Where we rely on our legitimate interests, we will always make sure that we balance these interests against your rights.

How and why we use your personal data What is our legal justification for processing your personal data

To provide you with the information and services that you request from us (i.e. to complete certain tasks and processes, reminders about your pet’s treatments and vaccinations, and to communicate with you regarding those services that you request from us and respond to your questions and comments).

To measure the quality and effectiveness of our services, including how satisfied our visitors and our clients are and provide customer service (including troubleshooting in connection with your requests for services or when you ask us questions by email, on the phone or on social media).

We rely on our contractual arrangements with you as the lawful basis on which we collect and process your personal data in relation to an order for products and services.

Alternatively, in some scenarios, we rely on our legitimate interests as a business (for example, it is in our interests to measure client satisfaction and troubleshoot client issues or to send you messages concerning your pet’s healthcare and treatments).

To prevent or detect crime, fraud or abuses of our products and services or our Site and to enable third parties to carry out related technical, logistical, research or other functions on our behalf related to these purposes.

In some circumstances we will use your personal data because it's necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation (for example, if we receive a legitimate request from a law enforcement agency).

In other cases (such as the detection of theft, fraud or ensuring security of our Site) we will rely on our legitimate interests in keeping our employees and our Site secure and to prevent theft and fraud.

To send you newsletters, updates, information about new products or services, or information about pet treatments and wellbeing, that we think might interest you including via email, text message or post.

To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you.

To carry out market research or similar surveys.

Unless we are contacting you in a business to business capacity, we will only use your personal data to send you electronic marketing messages if we have consent from you to do so (or if you are an existing client and have not opted out of receiving marketing materials).

You can amend your preferences or opt out from marketing communications at any time by using the unsubscribe links within our marketing messages, by using the following link: Medivet UK | Exceptional Care, Always There or by contacting us at the contact details set out at part 17 of this privacy notice below.

To find out more about the visitors to our Site and our client base as a whole (and not to find out more about you as an individual) to ensure that the products and services that we offer are most likely to interest our Site visitors and clients.

We may use cookies to do this.

We have a legitimate interest to make sure that we are providing you with the information that we think is most relevant to you.

We will not place cookies other than "strictly necessary" cookies on your device unless you have told us that you are happy for us to do so, but using the toggle on/off option of our Cookies Banner when you visit our Site. For information on how we use cookies, please see our cookie policy www.medivetgroup.com/cookies- policy

To notify you about changes to our services and terms and conditions.

We rely on our contractual arrangements with you as the lawful basis for this processing. In some cases, we rely on our legitimate interests as a business to send you these updates.

For administrative or business purposes, where you contact us for a particular reason other than those set out above, such as to report problems with our Site.

We have a legitimate interest to respond to your contact for the purposes of administering our business.

We may use CCTV in our practices, for the safety of and prevention of any crimes committed against our staff, our clients, our patients, our suppliers and other visitors, our equipment and our properties, not for other monitoring purposes. If we do so there will always be a notice board to let you know what we’re doing.

We have a legitimate interest to ensure the safety of and prevention of any crimes committed against our staff, our clients, our patients, our suppliers and other visitors, our equipment and our properties.

In some circumstances we will use your personal data because it's necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation (for example, in the event of any criminal investigations, we may be required by law, to share the data captured with the relevant authorities.).

We sometimes run events, fairs, or even host school visits in our practices. This may entail the production of photographic, video or audio material.

If this media contains images of you, we will only make use of it if we have obtained and recorded your consent. Should any media contain images of children, we will only make use of it with the consent of the child's parent or guardian.

We will also let you know what we do with this information (for example, place it on the practice’s website or social media page). You can always contact us or the relevant practice and ask for the removal of any such media featuring you or your child.

We may use incoming call recording in our practices for training and monitoring purposes. If we do so there will always be a voice message prior to us answering your call to let you know what we’re doing. If you receive such a voice message and you do not wish your call to be recorded, please inform our member of staff when they answer your call and they will call you back – outgoing calls are not recorded. Records of phone calls which have been recorded are encrypted and password protected. They are deleted within 60 calendar days unless we are under a legal obligation to retain those for a longer duration (for example if they are required as evidence for civil, criminal or administrative proceedings).

We have a legitimate interest to record incoming calls for training and monitoring purposes.

We may also be under legal obligations to retain and share this information with law enforcement agencies.

 

What if you fail to provide personal information?

Please make sure you provide us with certain information when requested as if you don't we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as, to provide you with veterinary services or products), to offer you our services or products (when you asked us for an offer). In this case, we may have to stop providing you with the service you have with us, be unable to offer you our services or products, but we will make our best efforts to notify you if this is the case at the time.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it. If we need to use your personal information for a purpose other than that for which it was collected, we will provide you, prior to that further processing, with information about the new purpose, we will explain our legal justification for doing so and we will provide you with any relevant further information. We may also issue a new privacy notice to you.

Your privacy controls

It’s really important to us that you are comfortable with the way that we are using your data and you can tell us any time if you’d like to change the way that things are working. To make that easy for you we’ve built a web-based preference centre that you can use to change your preferences for the way that we communicate with you. You’ll find a link to our preference centre on our Site or you can request that your practice sends it to you in an email or SMS message. You can also access it directly here.

If you wish to discuss our data protection practices, please contact us (using the contact details set out at part 17 of this privacy notice below).

Sharing your data

Medivet may share your personal information:

  • with other veterinary practices or professionals, if your pet requires a particular treatment or if you wish to transfer your pet to another veterinary practice;
  • with insurance companies, with whom your pet is insured or with whom we or our personnel are insured in the event of any incidents involving you or your pet;
  • with third party suppliers, who we work with in order to deliver services and treatment for your pet, these include:
    • data partners that support us with analysis and insights to continuously improve the service that we offer;
    • direct marketing companies who enable us to communicate with you;
    • social media companies for the purposes of marketing and advertisement as well as receiving and providing feedback on our products, services and operations;
    • IT service providers who support our organisation's IT systems, including our Site and practice management systems; and
    • review companies that may invite you to review the service we have provided;
  • with regulatory bodies, government departments or agencies and law enforcement bodies where we believe that we’re required to disclose such information due to legal or regulatory requirements or to protect your interests or those of any third party;
  • with our professional advisors including tax, legal, accounting, insurance brokers or other corporate advisors who provide professional services to us;
  • in the event that we consider selling or buying any business or assets we will disclose your personal information to any prospective sellers or buyers of such business or assets;
  • with other entities in our group and our investors as part of the administration of our business. For example, we may share personal information as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data; or
  • with any other third party where you have consented to such disclosure.

We participate in the VetCompass scheme, which is run by the Royal Veterinary College. VetCompass is dedicated to learning from current veterinary experience of our pets and using this knowledge to improve understanding for the pets of the future. All client data sent by us for this scheme is aggregated and anonymised. However, we understand if you might wish to opt out of the scheme. If this is the case, please let your practice know. For more information on the scheme, please visit our VetCompass page. 

Where we share your personal information with third parties identified above, we take steps to ensure such third parties treat your personal information securely and in accordance with applicable data protection law. We ensure that we only provide the information to third parties to the extent that it is required to perform their obligations or deliver services, and that they only use your personal information for the particular purpose that we have engaged them to provide.

How do we protect your personal information?

We take the security of your personal information very seriously and have put in place physical, technical, operational and administrative strategies, controls and measures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use or disclosure as required by law and in accordance with accepted good industry practice. We will always keep these under review to make sure that the measures we have implemented remain appropriate. You can obtain further information about these measures from us (using the contact details set out at part 17 of this privacy notice below).

In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, partners, workers, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know in order to perform their job duties and responsibilities. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How long do we keep your personal information?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and processed, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, tax, health and safety, reporting or accounting requirements. This means your personal data will be erased from our systems when we no longer need it.

Personal information which is no longer to be retained will be securely and effectively destroyed or permanently erased from our IT systems and we will also require third parties to destroy or erase such personal information where applicable.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you. In this case, we may retain such information for a longer period without further notice to you.

Your rights in connection with your personal information

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes so that our records can be updated. We cannot be held responsible for any errors in your personal information in this regard unless you have notified us of the relevant change.

Data protection law grants you a number of specific rights in respect of your data in addition to the broad and general right to have your data protected. We have set out some information in respect of each of those specific rights, below:

  • Right to be informed about how your personal information will be processed. This enables you to receive information about how we use your personal information. We have set this information out in this notice.
  • Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • Request erasure of your personal information (commonly known as the "right to be forgotten"). This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information 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 information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your personal information 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. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
  • Not to be subject to a decision solely based on automated processing. We do not anticipate making decisions about you based solely on automated decision making where that decision would have a significant impact on you. If we ever make a decision about you automatically by a computer or an algorithm without human intervention you can ask us to have that decision reviewed by a human.

If you want to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us (using the contact details set out at part 17 of this privacy notice below).

Processing your personal information in other territories

Given the international location of some of our clients and suppliers, your personal information may be transferred in and out of the UK and the European Economic Area ("EEA") where local laws may not provide legal protection for personal data in the same way as is applicable in the UK or the EEA. We may transfer personal data outside the UK or to an international organisation only on the basis that that country, territory or organisation is designated as having an adequate level of protection, has appropriate safeguards in place to ensure the protection of the data, or that one or more of the derogations recognised by Data Protection Laws for specific situations have been met.

If we feel that we can’t ensure the adequate protection of your personal information we will not share your personal information until and unless you have provided us with your explicit consent to do so, after we explained to you the risk of consenting to such transfer of your personal data outside the UK, EEA or territories who are considered to have an adequate level of protection of personal data.

Cookies

Our Site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our Site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Site and allows us to improve our Site and our services.

We will not place cookies other than "strictly necessary" cookies on your device unless you have told us that you are happy for us to do so. For information on how we use cookies, please see our cookie policy.

Third-party websites

Our Site may, from time to time, contain links to third-party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update or amend this privacy notice at any time, including where we intend to further process your personal information for a purpose other than that for which the personal information was collected or where we intend to process new types of personal information. We will issue you with a new privacy notice as soon as practicable when we make significant updates or amendments. We may also notify you about the processing of your personal information in other ways from time to time.

Complaints

We encourage you to contact us first if you have any queries, comments or concerns about the way we handle your data (our details are in the section immediately below). We will try to put things right. Please contact our Group Data Protection Officer (see details in part 17 below) and allow us to handle your request in the best possible way.

However, if you are not satisfied with our handling of any request by you in relation to your rights or concerns, you also have the right to make a complaint to the UK's Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO"). You can contact the ICO at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF; 0303 123 1113; or https://ico.org.uk/.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, you can contact us directly here or by emailing us at mydata@medivet.co.uk. Alternatively, you can contact your Veterinary Practice or directly via post at: Group Data Protection Officer, Medivet Support Centre, First Floor, The Hyde, 38 Clarendon Road, Watford, WD17 1HZ.

 

Additional Privacy Notices;

 

Privacy Notice - Medivet Candidates - General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) / Data Protection Act 2018 

Click here to view the full policy

Privacy Notice - General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)  Employees, Former Employees, Workers And Contractors

Click here to view the full policy