Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how TouchVet (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, stores, and protects information when veterinary clinics and pet owners use our veterinary clinic management service. By using our service, you agree to the practices described in this policy.
1. Who We Are
TouchVet provides a cloud-based veterinary clinic management system used by veterinary clinics to manage appointments, medical records, billing, inventory, staff, and communications with pet owners. We act as a data processor on behalf of the veterinary clinics that use our service, and those clinics act as data controllers for the information they collect about their clients and patients.
2. Information We Collect
From veterinary clinics (clinic administrators and staff):
- Clinic name, address, city, phone number, and GSTIN
- Staff names, email addresses, phone numbers, qualifications, specializations, and registration numbers
- Login credentials for staff accounts
- Clinic settings and preferences
From pet owners (entered by clinic staff or directly by pet owners):
- Full name, phone number, email address, and city
- Pet details including name, species, breed, date of birth, gender, weight, color, and profile photos
- Portal login credentials if the pet owner is granted portal access
Clinical and operational data:
- Appointment records including date, time, type, reason, status, and assigned staff
- Medical records including visit type, clinical notes, diagnosis, prescriptions, and treatment history
- Vaccination, deworming, tick and flea treatment schedules and due dates
- Laboratory and diagnostic records including test types, results, and uploaded files
- Invoices, payment status, billing details, and line items
- Inventory items including names, categories, quantities, pricing, and GST rates
- Service packages created and assigned to pet owners
- Certificates issued including fitness, vaccination, travel, euthanasia, sterilization, microchip, and health checkup certificates
- Follow-up reminders and schedule entries
Automatically collected data:
- Log data such as IP addresses, browser type, pages accessed, and timestamps
- Usage data related to features accessed within the system
- Push notification delivery status and interaction events (e.g., whether a notification was opened or dismissed)
- Queries and inputs submitted to the AI Assistant feature, along with the responses generated
3. How We Use Your Information
We use the information collected for the following purposes:
- To provide and operate the veterinary clinic management service
- To allow clinic staff to manage appointments, medical records, billing, inventory, and communications
- To allow pet owners to access their pet’s health information through the owner portal
- To send WhatsApp notifications and reminders to pet owners on behalf of the clinic, including vaccination reminders, appointment confirmations, deworming alerts, and follow-up messages
- To deliver push notifications to clinic staff and pet owners regarding appointments, alerts, and system updates
- To power the AI Assistant feature, which uses clinic and patient data to answer queries and support clinical workflows
- To generate invoices, certificates, and clinical documents
- To display dashboard summaries and analytics to clinic administrators
- To maintain account security and authenticate users
- To troubleshoot issues and improve system performance
- To comply with applicable legal obligations
4. WhatsApp Notifications
Our service sends automated WhatsApp messages to pet owners on behalf of the veterinary clinic. These messages may include appointment reminders, vaccination due-date alerts, deworming reminders, follow-up notifications, and portal access credentials. Messages are sent using the phone number provided by the clinic for each pet owner. Pet owners who do not wish to receive WhatsApp notifications should inform their veterinary clinic directly.
5. Push Notifications New
TouchVet sends push notifications to clinic staff and, where applicable, to pet owners who have installed the TouchVet mobile or web application. Push notifications are used to deliver real-time alerts including:
- Appointment reminders and scheduling updates
- Vaccination and deworming due-date alerts
- Follow-up and task reminders assigned to staff
- System-level alerts and important account notifications
Push notifications are delivered through third-party notification infrastructure (such as Firebase Cloud Messaging or equivalent services). To deliver notifications, your device token is shared with our notification service provider. This token does not identify you personally but is associated with your device and account within our system.
You can manage or disable push notifications at any time through your device settings or within the TouchVet application. Disabling push notifications will not affect your ability to use the service, but you may miss time-sensitive alerts.
6. AI Assistant New
TouchVet includes an AI Assistant feature designed to help clinic staff with tasks such as drafting clinical notes, answering queries related to patient records, generating summaries, and supporting day-to-day clinical workflows.
How the AI Assistant works:
When you interact with the AI Assistant, the text of your query and relevant contextual data from your clinic (such as appointment details, medical records, or patient information necessary to answer your question) may be sent to a third-party AI model provider to generate a response. We currently use third-party AI providers to power this feature. These providers process the input submitted and return a generated response; they do not store your data for their own model training purposes under our agreements with them.
Data transmitted to the AI provider:
- The text of your query or prompt as entered in the AI Assistant
- Relevant clinic or patient data included as context for the query (e.g., a patient’s medical history if you ask a question about that patient)
- No data is shared beyond what is necessary to generate the requested response
Encryption and data security:
All data transmitted to the AI provider is sent over encrypted connections using TLS (Transport Layer Security). Data is not stored by the AI provider beyond what is necessary to fulfill the request, and is not used to train or improve third-party AI models. Your clinic’s data remains isolated and is not shared with or accessible by other TouchVet customers.
Important limitations:
The AI Assistant is a support tool intended to assist clinic staff. Its responses should not be treated as definitive medical, legal, or diagnostic advice. Clinic staff are responsible for verifying AI-generated content before acting on it. TouchVet does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of AI-generated outputs.
If you prefer not to use the AI Assistant, you may simply not engage with the feature. Use of the AI Assistant is voluntary, and all core clinic management functions remain available without it.
7. Data Sharing and Disclosure
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We may share information in the following limited circumstances:
- With the veterinary clinic: All data entered by or about a pet owner is accessible to the clinic that manages their pet’s records.
- With service providers: We work with third-party providers for hosting, messaging (including WhatsApp delivery), push notification delivery, and AI model inference. These providers are bound by confidentiality obligations and may only process data to deliver the service.
- With AI model providers: When the AI Assistant feature is used, query content and relevant contextual data are transmitted to our AI provider over encrypted connections. The AI provider processes this data solely to generate a response and does not retain or use it for independent purposes beyond the scope of our service agreement.
- For legal compliance: We may disclose information when required by law, court order, or government authority.
- Business transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, user data may be transferred. We will notify affected parties before data is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
We do not share clinical records, pet owner information, or any personally identifiable data with advertisers or unaffiliated third parties for marketing purposes.
8. Data Isolation and Multi-Clinic Architecture
Each veterinary clinic’s data is stored in isolation. Clinic A cannot access, view, or retrieve data belonging to Clinic B. Staff members can only access data belonging to the clinic they are assigned to, and their access is further restricted based on the roles and module permissions set by the clinic administrator. This isolation extends to AI Assistant interactions — queries and context from one clinic are never shared with or visible to another clinic.
9. Data Retention
We retain clinic and pet owner data for as long as the clinic’s account remains active. If a clinic cancels its subscription or account, data may be retained for a reasonable period (up to 90 days) to allow for data export requests, after which it will be deleted from our systems. AI Assistant query logs, if retained for debugging or service improvement purposes, are stored for a limited period and are subject to the same deletion timelines. Certain records may be retained longer where required by applicable law.
10. Security
We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect the information we hold against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or alteration. These measures include access controls, role-based permissions, nonce-based request authentication, secure data transmission (TLS encryption), and encrypted communication with third-party AI and notification providers. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
11. Pet Owner Portal Access
Pet owners who are granted portal access by their veterinary clinic can log in to view their pet’s appointment history, medical records, invoices, and vaccination schedules. Portal access is created and managed by the clinic. Pet owners may contact their clinic to request changes or removal of their portal access.
12. Children’s Privacy
Our service is intended for use by veterinary professionals and adult pet owners. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under the age of 18. If we become aware that such information has been collected without appropriate consent, we will take steps to delete it promptly.
13. Your Rights
Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:
- The right to access the personal information we hold about you
- The right to request correction of inaccurate information
- The right to request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal retention obligations
- The right to object to or restrict certain processing of your data
- The right to data portability where technically feasible
- The right to opt out of push notifications through your device or application settings
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below. We will respond within a reasonable timeframe. Note that for clinical records, requests may need to be coordinated with the veterinary clinic, as they are the data controller for that information.
14. Third-Party Links and Services
Our service integrates with or references third-party platforms including WhatsApp, push notification delivery services, and AI model providers. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties beyond the obligations established in our service agreements with them. We encourage you to review their privacy policies independently.
15. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. If changes are material, we will notify clinic administrators through the service or by email. Continued use of the service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
16. Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at:
TouchVet
Email: info@touchvet.com