Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 8, 2026

Independent Vet (“Independent Vet,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) operates independentvet.com and the Independent Vet apps for iPhone and Android to help people find and learn about independently owned veterinary practices. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and share it, and the choices available to you. The section The Independent Vet Apps explains what the apps keep on your phone, what they send to us, and how the optional app account works.

For privacy questions or requests, contact info@independentvet.com.

Information We Collect

Information you provide

We may collect information that you choose to submit through the website or by email, including:

Your name, email address, relationship to a practice, and supporting notes or evidence when you verify a listing or report an issue.
Practice names, addresses, websites, coordinates, ownership information, and other details submitted through the Add a Practice form.
Owner and practice-manager names, business phone numbers, owner email addresses, social-media links, ownership certifications, and practice messages submitted when claiming a listing.
Your name, email address, optional phone number, current location, work experience, qualifications, professional links, and message when you express interest in a job through Independent Vet.
Communications you send to us and information needed to respond to or investigate them.

Please do not submit sensitive personal information, confidential patient information, or information that you are not authorized to provide.

Practice and professional information

We compile professional and business information about veterinary practices and their owners from public sources, practice websites, corporate and government records, community reports, and direct submissions. This may include professional names, roles, business contact information, ownership information, and sources used to support our editorial classifications.

Information collected automatically

When you visit the site, our hosting, security, analytics, map, and content-delivery providers may receive technical information such as your IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring page, pages viewed, approximate location derived from your IP address, and request timestamps.

We use Google Analytics to understand aggregate site usage. Google Analytics may use cookies or similar technologies. You can learn how Google uses information from sites that use its services and use the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on if you prefer.

The rotating cat image in the site sidebar uses session storage to avoid immediately repeating the same image. That preference normally expires when your browser session ends.

Location features

If you choose “My Location” on the map, your browser asks for permission to provide your approximate location. Independent Vet uses that location in your browser to center the map and calculate nearby distances; we do not intentionally store your precise device location on our servers. Map-tile providers may nevertheless receive requests corresponding to the area of the map you view.

How We Use Information

We use information to:

Operate, secure, maintain, and improve the website and map.
Review, verify, correct, claim, add, classify, or remove practice listings.
Contact submitters when clarification or verification is needed.
Display approved practice messages, professional information, and social links.
Relay job-interest submissions to the practice that posted the opening without publishing or returning the practice’s recipient address.
Respond to questions, privacy requests, and disputes.
Detect spam, fraud, abuse, automated extraction, and security incidents.
Understand aggregate website usage and performance.
Comply with legal obligations and protect our rights and the rights of others.

We do not sell or rent personal information. We do not use personal information for targeted advertising. We send promotional email only when a recipient has expressly agreed to receive it. Operational messages about a submission, claim, correction, or account are not promotional messages.

Information That May Become Public

Practice names, addresses, professional owner names, ownership status, business contact information, practice websites, approved social links, verification dates, and approved practice messages may appear publicly on the site. A claim form identifies the fields intended for public display. Private contact details supplied solely for verification, such as an owner email address, are not intentionally published unless they are already presented as public business contact information or you ask us to publish them.

We share information only as reasonably necessary for the purposes described above, including with:

Cloudflare, which provides hosting, network delivery, security, and serverless form-processing services.
A veterinary practice when you ask us to relay your interest in that practice’s job listing. The submission includes the contact details, current location, work experience, qualifications, professional links, and message you choose to provide so the practice can respond to you.
Google, which provides Google Analytics and the Google Apps Script and Google Sheets services used to receive and review submissions.
OpenStreetMap and content-delivery providers, which supply map tiles, software libraries, fonts, and other site resources requested by your browser.
Professional advisers, service providers, or authorities when reasonably necessary to comply with law, investigate abuse, resolve disputes, or protect rights and safety.
A successor if the project or substantially all of its assets are reorganized, transferred, or acquired, subject to appropriate protections.

These providers process information under their own terms and privacy practices. We do not authorize them to use private submission information for their own targeted advertising.

Retention

We generally retain private submission and claim records, including contact details, for up to three years after the last interaction or final review action. We may retain them longer when reasonably necessary to investigate a dispute, document consent, prevent fraud or abuse, comply with law, or complete an ongoing ownership review.

Job-interest contact information and submission details have a maximum retention period of 30 days. We retain them during that period so an Independent Vet administrator can investigate or resend a submission that the practice reports as missing. We may retain non-personal delivery status, timestamps, references, and audit records for longer.

We may retain non-personal listing information, public-source evidence, editorial decisions, and de-identified audit history for longer periods because ownership can change and historical provenance helps us maintain an accurate map. Analytics and security records are retained according to the settings and schedules of the applicable service providers.

When information is no longer reasonably needed, we may delete, aggregate, or de-identify it.

The Independent Vet Apps

This section applies to the Independent Vet apps for iPhone and Android. The rest of this policy also applies to the apps where it is relevant, for example to our website’s forms that you open from an app. For help with the apps, see Independent Vet app help.

What stays on your phone

Your pets and their vaccinations, medical records, scanned pages, photos, the text read from scans, medications, dose schedules, and dose history are stored on your phone, in the app’s protected storage.
Record scans and medication labels are read on your phone. Clinic names in a record are matched against practices already stored on your phone, so record text, images, and medication details are not sent to us or to anyone else to be read.
Your device location is used on your phone to center the map and calculate distances. The apps do not store or send your device location. Map requests describe only the area of the map being shown, which may be around you.
You can lock pet records with Face ID on iPhone, or with your fingerprint, face, or screen lock on Android.
Pet records leave your phone only when you choose: when you export or share them, for example as a PDF, or when you turn on encrypted sync with an account (described below).
On Android, Google’s ML Kit reads scans and labels on the phone, and the app switches off ML Kit’s usage reporting.
If you use your phone’s own backup, such as iCloud Backup or Android backup, it may include the app’s data on your phone. Those backups are provided by Apple or Google under their terms.

What the apps send, with or without an account

An account is optional, and the apps work without one. To show the map, My Vets, My area, and the nearest emergency hospitals:

The apps send independentvet.com the area being shown (the map view, your home area, or the area around you), the filters you choose, the text of searches, and the IDs of your saved practices so their current ownership status can be checked. Nothing about your pets is included. Our map service answers these requests without storing them.
The apps load map tiles for the area being shown from tiles.independentvet.com.
When you set My area, the app asks your phone’s geocoder for the name of the place at its center: Apple’s geocoder on iPhone, and Android’s geocoder, which is a Google service on most Android phones.
When you report an issue with a listing or suggest a missing practice in the app, the app sends us what you enter: your report or the practice’s details and, only if you choose to give them, your name and email address, together with the listing’s details, the app’s platform and version, and a random ID the app creates for that installation. We handle your submission as we handle the same forms on our website: it goes to the Google Sheet and email inbox our team reviews (see How We Share Information) and is kept as described in Retention. To prevent abuse and handle retries, our server uses one-way, salted hashes of the installation ID, your IP address, and the submission. Temporary rate-limit records expire within two days, and temporary retry records for accepted submissions expire after 24 hours. Expired records are removed during cleanup triggered by later form requests, so they may remain stored beyond those expiry times. Separately, a delivery ID and submission hash are kept alongside the submission in our review sheet to prevent duplicate delivery; these follow the same retention period as the submission. Nothing about your pets is included.
Web pages you open from an app, such as a practice’s website or our form for claiming a listing, open in a browser view. Our pages are covered by the website sections of this policy, including Google Analytics.

Job applications from the app

The apps show jobs posted by independent practices. Browsing jobs, saving them, and filling in your details send nothing about you to us: saved jobs and the optional job seeker profile that fills in the form are kept only on your phone, are not synced, and can be edited or deleted in Profile.

When you send an expression of interest for a job:

The app sends us what you enter: your name, email address, phone number if you give one, current location, work experience, qualifications and professional links if you give them, and your message, with the job it is for, the app’s platform and version, and a random ID the app creates for that installation. No account is needed, and nothing about your pets is included.
We email it to the practice that posted the job, so the practice can reply to you directly, and send you a copy. The practice’s recipient address is not shown to you. See How We Share Information.
We keep your submission for 30 days, as for expressions of interest sent from our website (see Retention), so we can investigate or resend it if the practice reports it missing. After that the details are deleted; a delivery status, reference and timestamps may be kept.
To prevent abuse and handle retries, our server keeps one-way, salted hashes of the installation ID, your email address and your IP address for rate limits, for up to two days, and a salted hash of the submission with the application until its details are deleted.

The optional account

You can create an account by signing in with Apple, with Google, or with a one-time code sent to your email address. Sign-in is provided by Clerk.

Clerk keeps your email address; if you sign in with Apple or Google, the information that provider shares, such as your name and your account ID with that provider; your sign-in sessions; and technical details of sign-in requests, such as your IP address (from which Clerk derives an approximate location for its list of signed-in sessions), device model, and operating system and app versions. Our own servers do not store your email address or name; we can see them through Clerk’s dashboard, for example to answer a deletion request.
Our account servers store the following in readable form, because syncing between your devices and alerts about your saved practices and home area need it:
- an account ID issued by Clerk, and when the account was created and last used;
- your saved practices (My Vets): each practice’s ID, its role (primary, emergency, or saved), the order, and whether alerts are on for it;
- your home area (My area), if you set one: its center, rounded to a grid of about 2 km, the radius you chose, and a short place name such as a city or postal district, never a street address;
- your alert settings: ownership and My area alert choices, quiet hours, and time zone. Other app settings stay on your phone;
- a registration for each installation of the app that you sign in on: a random ID the app creates for that installation, the platform, the app’s identifier and version, the operating system version, the language and region setting, the time zone, and, if server alerts are on and you allow notifications, the push token that Apple or Google issues for that installation;
- a record of the alerts we have sent you, so that the same change is not alerted twice, and notifications waiting to be delivered.

End-to-end encrypted pet records

If you turn on encrypted sync, your pets, vaccinations, records, scanned pages, photos, medications, schedules, and dose history are encrypted on your phone before they are uploaded. Our servers store them only in that encrypted form. We cannot read them, and neither can Cloudflare, which hosts them.

The key that opens them is created on your phone and kept on your devices. On iPhone it is kept in iCloud Keychain, which Apple end-to-end encrypts, so iPhones and iPads signed in to the same iCloud Keychain can open your records. On Android it is also saved with Google’s Block Store, which copies it to Google’s cloud only when Block Store can end-to-end encrypt it, so a new Android phone set up from your old one can open your records.
Our servers keep copies of that key only in locked forms: one locked with your recovery key, which we never receive, and one for each passkey you add to unlock your records, locked with a key that only that passkey can produce. For each passkey we also store its ID, whether it was added on an iPhone or an Android phone, the type of phone, and when it was added and last used. The passkey itself stays in your password manager; we never receive it, and it is not used to sign in to your account.
We can see how many encrypted items and files your account has, their sizes, and when they change. Dose history is not uploaded at the moment you log a dose, so upload times do not reveal a medication schedule. Doses of pets you share with a household are the exception (see below).

With an account and encrypted sync, you can share pets with up to five other people in a household: a family member, a partner, or a pet sitter. Each person has their own account. The person who creates the household chooses who joins and can end it; any other member can leave at any time.

What is shared: the pets you or another member choose to share, with their profiles, photos, records and scanned pages, vaccinations, medications, schedules, and dose history, including which member logged each dose. Your other pets, My Vets, notes on practices, home area, alert settings, and whether your phone reminds you about shared medications stay yours.
End-to-end encrypted: shared pets are encrypted on the members’ phones with a key that only members’ phones hold. Our servers store them only in encrypted form, and we cannot read them. When someone is removed, the key is changed, so they cannot read anything added after they leave. They keep what was already on their phone.
Keys: each member’s phones have a key pair used to receive the household’s key. Our servers keep its public part, and the private part only encrypted with your records’ key.
Invitations: an invitation link or QR code contains a secret that is never sent to our servers. The names of the person inviting and of the pets, shown to the person invited, are encrypted with that secret.
What our servers know: which accounts are in a household and which one created it, the number of members, when people were invited, asked to join, joined, left, or were removed, and the number, sizes, and times of changes of the household’s encrypted items and files. Because doses of shared pets are uploaded when they are logged, so that the other members’ reminders clear, we can see when doses of shared pets are logged, but not which pet, which medication, or what was given.
Approving someone who asks to join: when someone uses an invitation link, our server reads their account’s name and email address from Clerk to show them to the person who created the household, so they can decide. We do not store them. Members’ names inside the household are chosen by each member and are encrypted like the pets.
Notifications: the person who created the household gets a notification when someone asks to join, and members’ phones get a silent notification that tells the app to sync. These notifications contain no names, pets, or other details.
Ending: when a household ends, its members have 7 days to keep a copy of the shared pets on their own accounts, then everything stored for the household is deleted. Deleting your account removes you from your household, and ends a household you created.

Your recovery key and passkeys

When you turn on encrypted sync, the app creates a recovery key. You need it to open your synced pet records on a phone that does not already have the key and has no passkey for them, including when you move between an iPhone and an Android phone. The app asks you to save it when you turn on encrypted sync; if you also protect your records with a passkey, you can save it later, and the app reminds you. The app can make a recovery kit, a PDF with the key, a QR code of the key, your account email address, and the date it was created. The kit is made on your phone and shared only where you choose; it is never uploaded to us.

You can also add a passkey, so that you unlock your records with Face ID, Touch ID, or your phone’s fingerprint, face, or screen lock. The passkey is kept by your password manager, such as iCloud Keychain on iPhone or Google Password Manager on Android, so a new phone of the same kind that uses the same password manager can open your records without the recovery key. A passkey added in the iPhone app works only in the iPhone app, and one added in the Android app only in the Android app. You can remove a passkey in the app.

We never receive your recovery key or your passkeys and cannot recover them for you. If you lose your recovery key and your passkeys, and no longer have a device that can open your records, your synced pet records cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. If you still have a phone with your records, you can reset encrypted sync from it: the encrypted copy in your account is erased, and that phone’s records are uploaded again under a new recovery key. Records that were only on your other devices are lost.

Notifications

Medication, refill, and vaccine reminders are scheduled on your phone. They do not come from our servers.
The apps check your saved practices and your home area themselves, about every 12 hours, and alert you on the phone when a saved practice changes ownership or new independent practices appear near you.
With an account, our server can also send these ownership and My area alerts as push notifications, through Apple Push Notification service on iPhone or Firebase Cloud Messaging (a Google service) on Android, to installations that registered a push token. These notifications contain public practice information only, such as a practice’s name and its new ownership status. They never contain pet data, your account or device ID, your home area, your practice roles, or your settings. My area alerts do not name any practice.
If you are in a household, our server also sends the household notifications described above, which contain no details.

Service providers for the apps

The apps rely on these providers, which process information on our behalf or provide services that you choose to use:

Clerk, for sign-in and account management, as described above.
Cloudflare, which hosts the website, the map service, and the map tiles, and stores account data and encrypted pet records.
Google, whose Apps Script, Sheets and email services receive the reports and practice suggestions you send from the app.
Apple and Google, when you choose Sign in with Apple or Google; for delivering push notifications (Apple Push Notification service and Firebase Cloud Messaging); and for the services on your phone described above, such as the geocoder, iCloud Keychain, and Block Store. These services handle information under Apple’s and Google’s own terms.

We do not sell app data, share it for advertising, or give it to data brokers.

No analytics or tracking

The apps contain no analytics, advertising, or crash-reporting software. They do not use advertising identifiers and do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites. If you have chosen in your phone’s settings to share crash reports or diagnostics with app developers, Apple or Google may provide them to us under their terms.

How long app data is kept

On your phone: until you delete it in the app or remove the app.
Account data (saved practices, home area, alert settings, and encrypted pet records): until you change or delete it, reset encrypted sync, or delete your account. When you delete a pet record, its encrypted content is removed and a small marker with no content remains, so your other devices learn of the deletion.
Installation registrations: removed when you sign out on that installation. We keep at most the 20 most recently used installations for an account.
Encrypted files (scanned pages and photos) that no record uses any more are deleted 7 days after they are dropped, so an undo can still restore them. Files that were uploaded but never attached to a record are deleted after 24 hours.
Alert history: 90 days. Notifications are deleted 7 days after they are delivered or expire.
Records of recent requests, kept so that a request the app retries is not applied twice: 24 hours.
Reports and practice suggestions sent from the app, including their delivery receipts: as for the same forms on our website (see Retention). Temporary abuse-prevention and retry records expire and are cleaned up as described above.
Expressions of interest sent from the app: 30 days, then the details are deleted (see Job applications from the app).
Households: your membership, until you leave, are removed, or the household ends. A household’s encrypted items and files are kept while the household exists, and deleted 7 days after it ends. Invitations are deleted 30 days after they expire. A record of why each of your memberships ended (you left, were removed, or the household ended) is kept, at most 20, until you delete your account.
Clerk keeps your sign-in account until you delete your account. Deleting your account deletes it.
After you delete your account: we keep a record that an account ID was deleted, with no name, email address, or other details, so a device that is still signed in cannot recreate the account. Our database provider keeps backups for up to 30 days, and deleted data is gone from them after that.

Deleting your account and app data

In the app: go to Profile, then Account, then Delete account. Deleting your account removes everything we store for it, including your encrypted pet records and your Clerk sign-in account. It cannot be undone.
Without the app: see Delete your Independent Vet account, or email info@independentvet.com from the email address you sign in with.
Data on your phone: deleting your account does not remove the pet records on your phone. To remove them, use Delete all data on this phone on the app’s privacy screen, under Privacy and data in Profile, or remove the app.
If you signed in with Apple, you can also stop using Sign in with Apple for Independent Vet in your Apple Account settings.

Questions about the apps, and privacy requests about app data, may be sent to info@independentvet.com.

Your Choices and Requests

You may ask us to:

Tell you what personal information we maintain about you.
Correct inaccurate personal or professional information.
Delete private information you submitted, subject to legitimate retention needs.
Withdraw consent to promotional email.
Object to or ask questions about how we use your information.

Send requests to info@independentvet.com. We may need to verify your identity and authority before changing a practice listing or disclosing or deleting information. Depending on where you live, applicable law may provide additional rights and an appeal process.

Browser “Do Not Track” signals are not governed by a uniform standard, and the site does not currently respond differently to those signals. Because we do not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, opt-out preference signals do not change those practices.

Security

We use reasonable administrative and technical measures intended to protect information. No website, email system, or storage service can guarantee absolute security, so please avoid sending unnecessary confidential or sensitive information.

Children

The site and the apps are intended for a general audience and are not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child submitted personal information, contact us so we can review and delete it.

United States Operation and External Links

Independent Vet is currently directed primarily to users and veterinary practices in the United States. Information may be processed and stored in the United States. The site links to third-party websites whose privacy practices we do not control.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the site changes. We will post the revised policy here and update the effective date. Material changes may also be announced on the site or through another reasonable notice.

Contact

Questions, corrections, and privacy requests may be sent to info@independentvet.com. For help with the apps, see Independent Vet app help.