Our Privacy Policy
My Vet Mate
1. Privacy Statement
My Vet Mate (we, us, our) considers your privacy to be important and we take our responsibility to protect your personal information seriously. Personal information is information or an opinion of an individual whose identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained.
This Privacy Policy (Policy) sets out how we collect, hold, use and disclose information about individuals who deal or interact with us. We treat all personal information collected by us in accordance with this Policy and the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act). If there is any inconsistency between the Privacy Act and this Policy, the Privacy Act will prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.
2. Personal Information collected by us
We collect a variety of personal information that is reasonably necessary for the purposes of conducting and improving our business and our Services. This information is collected from a range of sources including:
(a) our website <www.myvetmate.com.au> (the Site);
(b) use of our Services;
(c) marketing research;
(d) by otherwise having contact with an individual such as by mail, telephone, email or internet;
(e) other business activities or events where we interact with people; or
(f) where you otherwise voluntarily provide us with your data (for example, where you respond to a survey or feedback request).
Personal information collected by us includes:
(a) your name;
(b) your post code;
(c) your contact details such as your mobile number, telephone number and email address;
(d) information about your pet(s);
(e) your previous consultation history with us; and
(f) all logs, which may include information such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser version, clickstream data, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time spent on any pages of our site and other log related information relating to your use of our website.
2.2 Account payment information
Account payment information including credit card details are collected directly and stored by our third-party payment processing provider, Stripe. These details are not collected by us and only accessed via API.
3. Use of personal information
We automatically gather information in the course of providing our Services. In general, we use personal information for providing, evaluating, improving, personalising and developing our business and our Services.
More specifically we use personal information for:
(a) Engaging
Where you have accessed our Site or requested that we provide you with our Services, we need to use your data to:
(i) enter into our agreement with you;
(ii) deliver to you our Services; and
(iii) have an account on our Site or other Platform (where applicable).
(b) Legitimate Business Purposes
We may also use your data (even where it is not related to us entering into an agreement or contract with you) where we consider:
(i) you will not be detrimentally impacted;
(ii) you would reasonably expect us to engage in such use of data; and
(iii) it is necessary to fulfil our legitimate interests.
This may include, for example, processing your data to improve our Site or our Services, or to enable our third-party service providers (including Google Analytics and Stripe) to provide us with Services.
(c) Consent
In certain circumstances we may request that you specifically consent to our use or processing of your data. Where we do so, we will provide an explanation of the nature of the processing to which you are consenting. If we have requested your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the contact information on our Site.
4. Protecting your personal information
4.1 Steps we take
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information we hold from:
(a) misuse, interference and loss; and
(b) unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
The precautionary steps we take to protect personal information include:
(a) adopting measures to protect our computer systems and networks for storing, processing and transmitting personal information;
(b) adoption of procedural and personnel measures for limiting access to personal information by our staff;
(c) regularly reviewing our information collection, storage and processing practices; and
(d) such other security measures we consider reasonable and appropriate from time to time.
Notwithstanding that we use our best endeavours to protect all personal information we collect and hold, we unfortunately cannot guarantee the complete security of the personal information.
4.2 De-identifying and deleting personal information
When your personal information is no longer required to be kept by us, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or delete the personal information in a confidential manner.
5. Third parties
We may use third party tools to track your usage of our site.
Our site may also contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.
You acknowledge that we have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party sites or services whatsoever.
You should be aware that your ability to opt-out of a third-party tool or platform will depend on the conditions governing your agreement with that third party.
6. Disclosure of personal information and data
We do not disclose your personal information to any third party, other than those requiring such information for the purposes for which the information was collected or with your express consent. For example, we may provide your personal information or data to:
(a) veterinary clinics as requested by you for the purpose of you receiving further veterinary services or ongoing care from them; or
(b) our contractors who are engaged to provide Services to you.
7. Overseas Disclosure
7.1 Overseas disclosure
To provide customer support, perform back-office functions, store information, undertake fraud prevention tasks or to otherwise assist us in providing our services to you, we may engage staff or third-party service providers that are located in a country other than that in which you are based. For example, we utilise the services of Zendesk to perform administrative tasks and manage customer relations.
This does not lessen our obligation to protect your personal information, and we have implemented security measures to protect the security of your personal information. However, as with any transfer of data, there are still risks of data breaches.
By requesting our Services you are explicitly consenting to the international transfer and processing of your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, in full and informed knowledge of the risks associated with such transfers and processing.
7.2 Disclosure for analytics
We may use Google Analytics to track your usage of our Site. Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google. Google utilises the data collected to track and examine the use of the Site, to prepare reports on the Site’s activities and share them with other Google services.
Google may use the data collected to contextualise and personalise the ads of its own advertising network. Personal data collected by Google includes cookie and usage data, which is processed in the USA. You can find Google's privacy policy here: http://www.google.com.au/policies/privacy/.
7.3 Consent to overseas disclosure
Other than as contemplated in this clause 7, we will only disclose your personal information to an overseas recipient if:
(a) you consent to the transfer; or
(b) the disclosure of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian law, other applicable law or a court/tribunal order.
8. Cookies
Cookies are files with small amounts of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer's hard drive.
Like many sites, we use "cookies" to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some features of our site.
9. Web beacons
Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or web bugs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to Cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users or to access Cookies.
Unlike Cookies which are stored on the user’s computer hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on web pages (or in e-mail).
Web beacons may be used to deliver or communicate with Cookies, to count users who have visited certain pages and to understand usage patterns.
Like many sites, we use web beacons to collect information which is done in accordance with this policy.
10. Accessing and updating your personal information
If you have established an account with us, your personal information is open and freely available for you to access through our Site following your log on.
If you are an individual who has provided personal information to us outside of our Site and account creation process, you may request access to it at any time. If you wish to obtain access, please send your request by email to us. Depending upon the personal information you seek to access, you may be asked:
(a) to put your request in writing with evidence of your identity to verify that you are who you say; and
(b) to provide further details to assist us in responding to your request in a timely manner.
We will respond to a request for access to personal information within a reasonable period after the request is made.
10.1 Access to Personal Information
We will provide you with access to your personal information held by us unless:
(a) giving access would be unlawful; or
(b) denying access is required under the Privacy Act or any other applicable law.
10.2 Amending your personal information
We endeavour to keep all personal information we hold accurate, up to date and complete. If at any time you wish to correct any of your personal information, please contact us.
If we elect not to correct your information, we will notify you, within a reasonable time, of the reason for our refusal, the mechanisms available for you to complain about our refusal and such other matters required by the Privacy Act.
If you wish to have your Personal Information deleted, please let us know and we will take all reasonable steps to delete it, unless we need to keep it for legal reasons.
11. International Users
If you are located outside the Australia and choose to provide your personal information to us, your personal information will be transferred to Australia and processed.
12. Complaints
We strive to ensure our compliance with this Policy and to regularly review our practices against it.
If at any time you have a complaint against us regarding our Policy, including a breach of the Privacy Act, we invite you to make a complaint to the contact details located on our ‘contact us’ page.
All complaints made will be dealt with in confidence. We endeavour to respond within 30 days of receipt of a complaint with a resolution or proposed resolution to the issue raised.
Please note that you may also make a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) about the handling of your personal information. Information on making a privacy complaint can be found on their website at http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/making-a-privacy-complaint.
13. Variations
We reserve the right to vary this Policy from time to time without further notice to you. Any variations made will be updated on our Site. It is your responsibility to check this Policy every now and again to ensure you are aware of any changes made to it. We will not reduce your rights under this Policy without using our best endeavours to first provide you with notice.
14. Definitions
Services means veterinary information and consulting services provided via our Site or Platform, including any ancillary services.
Site means the Site located at the domain name www.myvetmate.com.au.
Platform means any platform we use to communicate with you and provide the Services.
