Welcome to Hometown Veterinary Hospital (collectively referred to as “Hometown”, we”, “us” or “our”).

It is important that you read this policy carefully so that you understand how we look after and process your personal data, and you are aware of your privacy rights and how the law protects you. 

Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information about how we collect and process your personal data in relation to providing veterinary services to the animal entrusted into our care. This covers your use of our website, app and veterinary services provided in our practice, and when you contact us.

Controller

In accordance with federal and provincial privacy legislation, Hometown Veterinary Hospital, 1265 Hanwell Road, Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3C 1A6, is the data controller who is responsible for your personal data.

Contact details

We have appointed a Privacy Coordinator who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice.

If you have any questions about this notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us:

• By telephone – +1 506-450-4663
• By post – Hometown Veterinary Hospital, 1265 Hanwell Road, Fredericton, NB, Canada, E3C 1A6
• By email – info@hometownvet.ca

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications.

In some instances, we may be “joint controllers” with this third party. This means that we might be jointly responsible with that third party for determining the collection and/or use of your personal information with this organisation.

Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.

You may find links on our website to other services operated by our group companies and by trusted third parties. Clicking on such links may allow third parties to collect or share personal data about you, so we encourage you to read the privacy notice on the websites and apps you visit.

The personal data we collect and how we use it

We process the following categories of personal data:

To register you with a practice

We obtain your full name, date of birth and contact details to register you and your animal at the practice.

To provide you with veterinary services and products

We use your full name, contact details, address and account information to book an appointment with one of our vets, make a referral to a specialist clinic, lab or other provider that supports us in providing veterinary care, prescriptions and prescription medication.

We use your full name, contact details, postal address and details about your order to deliver the products that you have purchased from us, or we have prescribed to you.

We use your payment card details to process payments you make through our practice. We share these details with our payment processor, who uses your payment card details to carry out the financial transfers necessary to complete the purchase. We do not store any financial details.

To provide customer service to you

We use your full name, contact details and any other information that you provide us with when contacting us through our website, app or social media account, via email or telephone or when visiting a practice to respond to your query or resolve a complaint.

We do not intend to collect or any sensitive data however, if you voluntarily provide us with this information, we will only process it in order to respond to your query. Any sensitive data you provide will be deleted as soon as your query is resolved.

To keep in touch with you

We use your full name, contact details and postal address to send you service communications, such as reminders of appointments, product recalls and important information relating to your practice or account.

To ensure our practice’s website and veterinary services operate properly

We use technical information about your device (such as your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types, versions and screen sizes, operation system and platform, URL clickstream to and from our website and app and download errors) to ensure the website is secure and works on your device. We also use this information for management information and reporting duties.

To develop and improve our products and services

We use information about how you interact with our website, emails, and services to learn how to provide services that are most relevant to you and to improve our customer service.

To comply with our legal obligations

We may use the data that we collect about you to ensure we comply with any legal obligations that may be imposed on us.

We will use information about you, how you interact with our services and your contact details to inform you of product recalls or other product quality issues, and to comply with our legal obligations in connection with the sale of age restricted products.

We use different methods to collect data including through:

a) Direct interactions – you may give us any of the above information when you use our website or when corresponding with us via telephone, post, email or face-face in our practice. We may also collect data if you attend any events that we are participating in.

b) Automated technologies or interactions – as you interact with our website, we will automatically collect some technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive this technical data about you if you visit other websites which employ our cookies.

c) Third parties – we may receive information about you from third parties such as:

• Providers of technical, payment and delivery services
• Microchip companies and databases
• Appointed persons or guardians
• Advertising networks (based on your cookie consent)
• Analytics providers
• Credit reference agencies
• Where the animal is referred to us from another practice, information that practice holds about you
• Debt recovery agencies
• Insurance companies

Where we have received information from other sources, we will have informed you when we collected that data that it may be shared internally and combined with the data that we collect about you from your use of this website.

Lawful basis for processing your personal data

Depending on the processing activity, we rely on at least one of the following lawful bases for processing your personal data under the Canadian federal and provincial legislation:

• Consent – where you have given us your consent (or explicit consent where appropriate)
• Contract – it is necessary for entering into or the performance of a contract
• Legal Obligation – it is needed to comply with a legal obligation that is imposed on us
• Legitimate Interest – it is necessary for our legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
• Vital interest – it is necessary in an emergency, such as emergency medical care
• Public task – it is necessary for the performance of a specific task that is in the public interest that is set out in law

If you fail to provide your information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested (such as your payment card details), we will not be able to provide veterinary care to the animal entrusted into our care.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at info@hometownvet.ca

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note, we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by applicable law.

Who we share your personal data with

We share your personal data with the following categories of companies so that we can provide the service you have requested from us.

• Companies that help us to form a contract with you such as payment service providers
• Partners that enable us to book your appointment and send you reminders
• Technology service providers that support our IT, host our websites and help us analyse the data we hold
• Companies where they assist us in providing our services to you
• Insurance and health plan providers
• Microchip registers
• Canadian Colleges of Veterinary Medicine (where it is in the public interest or the interests of animal welfare) 
• Indemnity providers
• Other professional and legal advisors
• Debt recovery agencies
• Law enforcement and fraud prevention agencies
• Companies approved by you (such as social media sites)
• Referrals to other vets or specialist clinics and labs or other providers who support us in providing veterinary services to the animal entrusted into our care
• Suppliers (when ordering products and when we are obliged to report a suspected adverse event associated with providing veterinary drugs or microchips)
• Advertisers and advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you, including Facebook
• Where any part of our business is outsourced, sold, or merged, and where permitted by law, we will share your data with the new provider so that we may continue to provide services to you. They may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this policy. We will of course inform you of any such change and give you an opportunity to opt out of your data being shared with a new provider.
• Academic bodies (some information about your account may be used by our vets and nurses when participating in academic research or completing additional qualifications)

Before we share your data with any third party, we will check:

They can provide sufficient guarantees regarding the confidentiality and security of your personal data;

We have a written contract with them which defines how they can use your data, how they can protect it and what to do with it when our relationship with them is terminated; and

We only share the data that they need in order to fulfil their services to us.

International Transfers

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of Canada, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in Canada which give personal data the same protection it has in Canada.

Please contact us at info@hometownvet.ca if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of Canada.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.

We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach, and we will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

If you would like to know more about how to protect your information and your computer and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and other online problems, please visit Get Cyber Safe. Get Safe Cyber Safe is free initiative set up by the Government of Canada.

Data retention

We will only 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.  

If you no longer wish to have an account, please contact your local practice to confirm that you wish to close your account. For app users you can delete your account through the app. If you have any questions in relation to closing your account and what data, we will retain please contact info@hometownvet.ca

Being in control of your own information

Under the federal and provincial privacy legislation you have some important rights available to you. In summary, these include:

• Be informed about how we use your personal data (hopefully this privacy notice explains it all)
• Access to the personal data that we hold about you
• Challenge compliance, if you believe you disagree with how we manage the processing of personal data.
• The right to complain to applicable regulator, within British Columbia and Alberta you will go to your provincial privacy regulator and for the rest of Canada you will go to the federal privacy regulator (British Columbia Complaints, Alberta Complaints, and Rest of Canada Complaints)

If you want to exercise your rights, please complete contact us.

Changes to this privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy notice under regular review.

This version was last updated on June 24 2025. 

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.