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Privacy policy

How we look after your data, carefully.

Vet Verified is a directory of UK veterinary practices. Some of what we do touches your data, so this page sets out exactly what we collect, what we don't, who else sees it, and the controls you have over it.

Last updated 6 May 2026

The short version.

If you read nothing else on this page, read this. The rest is the long form of the same answer.

You can use Vet Verified anonymously. Browsing the directory, looking up a practice, reading an article: none of it requires an account, and none of it asks for personal information. We measure traffic with privacy-respecting analytics that don't profile you across the web.

If you give us your details on purpose, by emailing us, signing up for practice alerts, or claiming a practice listing, we use them only for the thing you asked us to do. We don't sell pet-owner data to practices. We don't run advertising on practice profiles. We don't share what you looked at with anyone.

You have the full set of UK GDPR rights over anything we hold about you, and you can exercise them by writing to support@vetverified.com. A real person reads every email.

What we collect, and why.

  1. 01

    Anonymous browsing.

    When you read the directory, we collect a small amount of technical information needed to deliver the page: your approximate location at country level, the page you're on, the browser and device type, and a referrer if one was sent. We do not set advertising cookies and we do not build a profile of you across other sites. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running and improving the directory.

  2. 02

    Things you send us on purpose.

    If you email support, ask a question through a contact form, or sign up for an alert, we hold the contents of that message and the email address you sent it from. We use it to reply, to keep a record of the conversation, and for nothing else. The lawful basis is performance of a service you've asked us to provide.

  3. 03

    Practice accounts.

    When a practice claims its listing, we hold the named contact's full name, work email address, role at the practice, and a hashed password (or an OAuth identifier if signed in via a third party). We hold the practice's own information, such as opening hours, team, photos, and accreditations, that the practice chooses to publish. The lawful basis is performance of the contract between Vet Verified and the practice.

  4. 04

    Billing, for paid plans.

    For practices on a paid plan, our payment processor holds card details on our behalf. We never see or store full card numbers. We do hold the practice's billing address, the plan, and a record of paid invoices, because we need them for accounting and HMRC reporting. The lawful basis is performance of the contract and our legal obligations under UK tax law.

  5. 05

    Public-register data about practices.

    We hold a record of each UK practice's RCVS registration number and the accreditations it has earned, drawn from public registers maintained by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the awarding bodies. This is public information about a business, not personal data, and it sits at the heart of what verification means here.

Your rights, and how to use them.

Under UK GDPR you have a defined set of rights over the data we hold about you. Each one of them is exercised the same way: by writing to support@vetverified.com. We respond within thirty days, usually a lot sooner.

Access.
Ask us for a copy of everything we hold about you. We'll send it back in a readable format, free of charge.
Rectification.
If something we hold about you is wrong, tell us and we'll correct it. Practices with an account can also fix most of it themselves from the dashboard.
Erasure.
Ask us to delete what we hold. We'll do it, except for the small set of records we're legally required to keep (paid invoices for HMRC, for example), which we'll keep for the minimum period the law requires and no longer.
Portability.
Ask for the data you've given us in a structured, machine-readable form so you can take it elsewhere. JSON or CSV, your choice.
Objection & restriction.
Object to a specific use of your data, or ask us to pause processing while we sort something out. We'll honour the request unless we have an overriding legal reason not to, in which case we'll explain it.
Complaint to the ICO.
If you don't think we've handled your data properly, you can complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We'd ask you to write to us first so we can fix it, but the ICO is your right and we'll never discourage it.

Cookies, and what we measure.

A short list, because there isn't much to say. We don't use advertising trackers, and we don't load third-party scripts that watch you elsewhere on the web.

  • Strictly necessary cookies. Used to keep you signed in to a practice account and to remember the dismissal of one-off banners. These cannot be turned off without breaking parts of the site.

  • Privacy-respecting analytics. Aggregated page-view counts and referrer data, processed in the EU, without IP address storage and without cross-site tracking. We use this to know which pages help and which don't.

  • No advertising or behavioural cookies. We don't run them, we don't embed them, and we don't allow third-party content that would set them. If that ever changes, this page changes first and we ask before turning anything on.

Who else sees this.

Running the site needs a small handful of trusted suppliers. Each one is contracted under a UK GDPR–compliant data processing agreement and only sees what they need to do their job.

Hosting.
Our application and database run on infrastructure provided by a reputable hosting partner under a UK GDPR-compliant data processing agreement. The hosting provider sees encrypted application traffic, not message contents.
Transactional email.
Sign-in links, receipts, and replies to your emails are delivered through a transactional email provider contracted under a UK GDPR-compliant data processing agreement. They see the recipient address and the contents of the email.
Payments.
For practices on a paid plan, payments are handled by a PCI-DSS-certified payment processor. They hold card details under their own privacy policy. We never see full card numbers.
Analytics.
Page-view counts and referrer data are aggregated by a privacy-respecting analytics provider that does not store IP addresses or build cross-site profiles.
Up-to-date list.
The named list of current sub-processors is available on request. Write to support@vetverified.com and we'll send it back the same day.

Retention & security.

We keep what we have to keep, for as long as it's useful, on infrastructure that's locked down to the people who need it.

We keep personal data only for as long as it's needed for the thing you asked us to do, and longer where the law requires it, for example accounting records that have to be retained to meet HMRC obligations. When data is no longer needed for a lawful purpose, it is deleted or anonymised.

Data is encrypted in transit using TLS, and at rest on the database and backups. Access is restricted to a small number of named staff, all on UK contracts, and is logged. We run automated vulnerability monitoring against our application and dependencies. If we ever suspect a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the ICO within seventy-two hours, with a clear account of what happened and what we're doing about it.

Changes, and how to get in touch.

When this page changes, the date at the top changes too, and material updates are explained in plain English. If you'd rather just talk to a human, all of the contact routes below land in the same inbox.

Vet Verified is a trading name of Yellow Flag Ltd, the company that runs this directory, registered in England and Wales. Yellow Flag Ltd is the data controller for the purposes of UK GDPR. Our registered office is available on request.

For any privacy question, including a request to exercise one of your rights, write to support@vetverified.com. The same inbox handles everything else, so you don't need to remember a second address. The Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk is your right at any time, and we'd encourage you to use it if we haven't done well enough.

A real person reads every email. We reply, usually within two working days.

Two ways in from here.

If you're a pet owner, use the directory to search and compare local veterinary practices today. If you run a vet, earn your verification and begin connecting with new clients today.

Find a vet Become Verified

Still got questions? Write to us at support@vetverified.com.