Privacy Policy | R.D. Owen Equine Clinic

1. Who We Are

R.D. Owen Equine Clinic ("we", "us", "our") is an equine veterinary practice based near St Asaph, North Wales. We are registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Our data controller contact is Richard Owen, who can be reached at the address below or via our telephone number.

This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect your personal data when you use our website (rdowenequine.co.uk), contact us, or use our veterinary services.

2. What Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data:

Contact information: Your name, telephone number, email address and postal address
Animal information: Details about your horse(s), including name, breed, age, medical history, vaccination records and passport information
Clinical records: Records of veterinary examinations, diagnoses, treatments and medications administered
Financial information: Payment details and invoice records (we do not store card details)
Website usage data: A cookie consent preference stored in your browser's local storage when you respond to our cookie banner. We do not currently use analytics cookies or advertising cookies.
Health Checker queries: If you use our AI Horse Health Checker tool, the text of your query is processed by an external AI service (see section 6). We recommend you do not include personal identifying details in your query.
Enquiry and correspondence data: Messages and queries you send us via our contact form or by email

3. How We Collect Your Data

We collect personal data in the following ways:

Directly from you when you register as a client, contact us by phone, email or web form, or bring your horse to us for treatment
From our appointment and clinical records systems
Automatically via our website through cookies and similar technologies
From third parties such as passport-issuing organisations (PIOs) or referral practices where relevant to the care of your animal

4. Why We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes and on the following legal bases:

To provide veterinary services (contractual necessity): To examine, treat and advise on your animals, to maintain clinical records, and to follow up on treatment
To comply with legal obligations (legal obligation): To maintain accurate clinical records as required under the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Code of Professional Conduct, to comply with the Veterinary Medicines Regulations and to respond to regulatory enquiries
To manage our client relationship (legitimate interest): To send appointment reminders, vaccination reminders and relevant practice information
To respond to your enquiries (legitimate interest): To respond to questions and enquiries submitted via our website or by telephone
To improve our website (legitimate interest): To analyse website usage and improve the user experience

5. Marketing Communications

We may occasionally send you information about practice news, seasonal health reminders and veterinary advice that we believe may be of interest to you. We will only do this where you have consented to receive such communications, or where we have a legitimate interest in keeping you informed about matters relevant to the care of your animals.

You may opt out of marketing communications at any time by contacting us at the details below or by using the unsubscribe link in any email we send you.

6. How We Share Your Data

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We may share your data in the following limited circumstances:

With referral specialists or hospitals when your horse requires specialist treatment or surgery — only the clinical information necessary for the referral will be shared
With passport-issuing organisations for the purposes of equine identification and passport administration
With our IT service providers who help us operate our practice management systems and website, subject to appropriate data processing agreements
With Anthropic (AI service provider) when you use the Horse Health Checker tool on our website — the text of your query is sent to Anthropic's Claude AI service to generate a triage response. This processing takes place outside our systems. We recommend you do not include your name or other personal details in your query. Anthropic's own Privacy Policy governs how they handle that data. The Health Checker provides general guidance only and does not constitute a veterinary diagnosis.
With Web3Forms when you submit our appointment request form — the details you enter are processed by Web3Forms, which delivers them to us by email. See Web3Forms' Privacy Policy.
With Vercel (our website host) which processes standard server logs and provides privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics — aggregated visit statistics that do not identify you personally. See Vercel's Privacy Policy.
With map and font providers — our Service Areas map and contact page load resources from OpenStreetMap, CARTO and the Leaflet library and use the postcodes.io service for postcode look-ups, and our pages load typefaces from Google Fonts. When these load in your browser, the provider may receive your IP address as part of delivering the content.
With regulatory authorities (e.g. RCVS, APHA, VMD) where we are legally required to do so
With the police or other law enforcement agencies in connection with the prevention or detection of crime or fraud

7. How Long We Keep Your Data

We retain clinical records for a minimum of seven years from the date of the last entry in the record, in accordance with RCVS guidance. Financial records are kept for a minimum of six years. If you have never used our clinical services (for example, if you only enquired via the website), we will delete your contact data within twelve months if no further contact is made.

8. Your Rights Under UK GDPR

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights:

Right of access: To request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
Right to rectification: To request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
Right to erasure: To request deletion of your data, subject to our legal obligations to retain records
Right to restriction: To request that we restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances
Right to data portability: To receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format where processing is based on consent or contract
Right to object: To object to processing based on legitimate interest, including direct marketing
Rights related to automated decision-making: We do not make decisions about you using solely automated processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in section 10 below. We will respond within one calendar month.

9. Cookies and Local Storage

Our website currently uses only one item of browser storage: a local storage entry (similar in function to a cookie) that records whether you have accepted or declined our cookie consent banner. This allows us to avoid showing you the banner on every visit. It does not identify you personally and is stored locally on your device only. We do not currently use analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or any third-party tracking cookies.

You can clear this preference at any time by clearing your browser's site data or local storage in your browser settings. The cookie consent banner will reappear if you do so.

We use Vercel's privacy-friendly analytics to understand how the website is used. This measures aggregate visit data (such as page views) without setting cookies and without identifying you personally. Separately, some pages load resources from third parties (Google Fonts, and the map services described in section 6); these providers may log your IP address as a normal part of delivering that content, but we do not use them to track you across other websites.

Please note that our website includes a link to our Facebook page. If you visit or interact with Facebook, their own cookies and tracking technologies may apply — please refer to Facebook's Privacy Policy for details.

10. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, wish to exercise your data rights, or wish to raise a concern about how we handle your data, please contact us:

R.D. Owen Equine Clinic
Merllyn Waen, St Asaph, Denbighshire, LL17 0AL
Telephone: 01745 584 516

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly before you contact the ICO.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with a revised "last updated" date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.