Welcome to the Independent Vetcare Ireland Limited Privacy Notice. Independent Vetcare Ireland Limited is part of IVC Evidensia, a global leader in veterinary care. See our website www.ivcevidensia.com for details.
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data.
This notice explains how we collect, use, and protect information about you, who we may share it with, and the rights that you have. This notice covers most of the ways in which you will interact with us, through the website, in our practices, on social media or via our Apps.
It is important that you read this notice carefully so that you understand how we look after and process your personal data, and so that you are aware of your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
If we need to use your personal data in different ways, or for reasons not covered by this notice, we will let you know. This could include notifications, signage in specific locations or other messages. We will also update this notice from time to time.
Independent Vetcare Ireland Limited is the Data Controller for the purposes of data protection law. As part of the IVC Evidensia Group, our company also includes Pet Health Club, My Family Vets, VetsNow and Pet Drugs Online (PDOL) as well as other companies and brands.
Personal data processed by any company within the group will also be made available to other Group companies where we need to - for example, to provide or support our services to you, where we are under a legal obligation, or if you have given us your consent (for example for marketing purposes).
You can find a list of companies in the IVC Group here, which includes brands such as VetSuccess, VetsNow, PetAir, Pawsquad amongst others, which may be registered as separate controllers with the Data Protection Commission, and subject to their own privacy notices.
IVC Evidensia has appointed a Data Protection Officer. If you have any questions about this notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact them:
Other Controllers
Where you use our websites and click on external links, or visit our social media pages, your personal data may also be processed by the providers of those services – for example Facebook or Twitter. Those sites will collect further information about you for their own purposes, separately from IVC Group. Please take the time to review their applicable privacy policies.
Where we also use the data they collect, IVC Group might also be jointly responsible with the other company for determining how and why your personal data is used and making sure that it is protected.
Most of the personal data we collect is directly from you, as you use or request services from us, or get in touch. Technical information will be generated where you use our website, apps, or other online services.
Data that we collect may include:
Conduct marketing activities and provide information about products and services that may be of interest to you. This may include using your contact details to get in touch, where we feel there would be a health benefit to your animal. Such processing is in our legitimate interests to communicate with our customers, and where required by applicable law, conducted with your consent. If you do not want us to use some of your personal data, we may not be able to provide services to you – for example payment if you fail to provide your payment details, we may not be able to sign your pet up to a health plan and you will not receive any associated benefits.
We do not normally collect or use ‘special category’ personal data, such as health data, except where it is provided to us in the context of a customer query or claim, in which case we process such data in accordance with your consent or as necessary to exercise or defend our legal claims.
We use different methods to collect personal data. These include:
a) Directly from you - you may give us any of the above information by subscribing to one of our health plans or contacting us via social media, telephone, post, email, or face-to-face in one of our clinics. We may also collect personal data if you attend any events that we are participating in.
b) Automated technologies or interactions - as you interact with our website and apps, we will automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other tracking technologies. We may also receive this technical data about you if you visit other websites which employ our cookies – please review our cookie policy to read about how we use our cookies.
c) Third parties - we may receive the categories of personal data set out above in Section 2 about you from third parties such as:
Marketing and Telemarketing
Notwithstanding anything else stated in this Privacy Notice, we will use your contact details and information about your use of our products and services for marketing activities, including to provide information to you about our services, special offers, developments or any other information that may be of interest to you, or where we feel there would be a health benefit to your animal. We may, from time to time, contact you by telephone for such purposes. Sometimes, we rely on trusted third parties to help us conduct such marketing on our behalf as referred to under Section 4. Such processing is in our legitimate interests to communicate with our customers, or with your consent, where consent is required by applicable laws.
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages including contacting you by telephone at any time by either clicking “unsubscribe” on our emails or asking your practice to change your preferences.
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences from time to time if you ask us to provide further products and services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.
As well as using service providers to support our business, we might share information with other separate organisations who are also Controllers. This may include:
Where any part of our business is outsourced, sold, merged, or subject to bankruptcy or other business transaction or re-organisation and where permitted by law, we will share your personal data with the new provider so that services can continue to be provided to you as necessary in our legitimate interests to run a successful business.
IVC Evidensia is a multinational company, and some of our business processes may take place outside of your own country. We ensure that your data continues to be protected to the same standards by:
IVC Evidensia in Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) currently uses service providers in the following countries/regions:
We have security and other measures in place to help protect your data and limit how it can be access or used, and to identify and handle suspected breaches of personal data and other security threats
We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and service providers who have a need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality and other contractual terms to protect your data.
We will retain your data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax or reporting requirements.
Under the UK and EU data protection law you have some important rights available to you. In summary, these include:
Some of these rights may be limited in some circumstances, or subject to exemptions. If you want to exercise your rights, or to make a complaint, please complete a Rights request form or contact us at privacy@ivcevidensia.com.
If we cannot resolve a complaint as you would wish, you may also make a to the Data Protection Commission (this is the data protection regulator, and you can do this via their website.
We keep our privacy notice under regular review and will update it from time to time. If we do, we will post the revised version here and change the date above and/or contact you directly where we deem appropriate to do so under applicable law. You should check here regularly for the most up-to-date version of the notice.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us by contacting privacy@ivcevidensia.com or by visiting/contacting your practice directly.
This version was last updated in January 2025.
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