Privacy Policy

Last updated: 17 April 2026 · Effective immediately

    Your privacy is central to what vetsi does. This policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how we protect it, and what rights you have. We've written it to be readable, not just legally complete.
  

1. Who We Are

vetsi is a UK-based veterinary career and recruitment platform. References to "vetsi", "we", "us" or "our" in this policy refer to the vetsi team. We are the data controller for personal data processed through the platform.

Contact: hello@vetsi.co.uk

This Privacy Policy applies to all users of vetsi, including veterinary professionals ("Candidates") and veterinary practices ("Practices").

2. Data We Collect

2.1 Candidates

Data	Why we collect it	Legal basis
Email address	Account creation, login, and communications	Contract performance
First name, last name	Profile display (only to practices you share with)	Contract performance
Phone number	Shared with practices only at Full profile visibility	Consent
Specialty and years of experience	Matching you with relevant practices	Contract performance
Location / postcode	Map-based practice discovery and distance calculation	Contract performance
Salary target, schedule preference	Profile matching and display to practices (based on your privacy setting)	Consent
Bio and qualifications	Shared with practices based on your chosen privacy level	Consent
Messages sent to practices	Delivering communications within the platform	Contract performance
Expressions of interest	Notifying practices of your interest and managing your pipeline status	Contract performance
Vet Space posts and replies	Community functionality	Consent

2.2 Practices

Data	Why we collect it	Legal basis
Email address	Account creation, login, and billing communications	Contract performance
Practice name, address, postcode	Displaying your practice on the map to candidates	Contract performance
Practice bio, culture, salary range	Enriching your practice profile visible to candidates	Legitimate interests
Subscription and billing data	Processing payments via Stripe	Contract performance
Messages sent to candidates	Delivering communications within the platform	Contract performance
Pipeline stage data	Candidate management within your dashboard	Contract performance

2.3 Technical data collected automatically

When you use vetsi, we automatically collect certain technical data including your IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, pages visited, and actions taken within the platform. This data is collected for security, debugging, and platform improvement purposes.

3. The Privacy Mechanic — How Candidate Visibility Works

Candidate privacy is a core feature of vetsi, not an afterthought. Here is exactly what each visibility level means:

Anonymous: The practice can only see your specialty and years of experience. No name, no contact details, no bio. Your identity is entirely hidden.
Semi-visible: The practice can see your name, specialty, experience, and bio. Your email and phone number remain hidden.
Full profile: The practice can see your complete Career Snapshot including your name, qualifications, email address and phone number.

When a candidate sends a direct message to a practice without expressing interest, only their specialty and years of experience are visible. The candidate's name and contact details remain hidden until they explicitly express interest and choose a visibility level.

You can change your visibility level with any practice at any time through the Messages tab. Upgrading your visibility is always your choice.

4. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data strictly for the following purposes:

Providing the platform: Enabling account creation, login, practice discovery, expressions of interest, messaging, and pipeline management.
Matching: Helping candidates find relevant practices and practices find relevant candidates based on specialty, location, and experience.
Communications: Sending you notifications about activity on your account, including new messages, new candidate interest, and account updates. We also send service emails such as billing confirmations.
Payment processing: Processing subscription payments through Stripe.
Platform improvement: Analysing usage patterns to improve the product.
Legal compliance: Meeting our obligations under applicable law.

We do not sell your personal data to any third party. We do not use your data for advertising or marketing purposes outside of vetsi.

5. Who We Share Data With

We share personal data only in the following circumstances:

5.1 With practices (candidates only)

Your candidate data is shared with practices only to the extent of your chosen privacy level, and only for practices where you have expressed interest or sent a message. We never share candidate data with practices you have not engaged with.

5.2 With candidates (practices only)

Practices' profile information — name, address, salary range, and bio — is displayed to candidates browsing the map. This is necessary for the platform to function.

5.3 Service providers

We use the following third-party service providers who process personal data on our behalf:

Supabase — database hosting and authentication. Data is stored in data centres within the EU. Supabase Privacy Policy
Stripe — payment processing for practice subscriptions. Stripe Privacy Policy
Anthropic (Claude API) — AI-powered job advert generation for practices. Practice profile data is sent to Anthropic's API for this purpose only. Candidate data is never sent to Anthropic. Anthropic Privacy Policy
Resend — transactional email delivery. Resend Privacy Policy

5.4 Legal obligations

We may disclose personal data if required to do so by law, court order, or government authority. We will notify you of any such disclosure where legally permitted to do so.

6. Vet Space Anonymity

Posts and replies in Vet Space are displayed under a randomly assigned anonymous identity (e.g. VetsiVet4821). Your real name and account details are never displayed in Vet Space.

However, your anonymous identity is linked to your account in our database. We retain this link so that we can investigate and act on reports of harmful, unlawful, or professionally inappropriate content. If required to do so by law or court order, we may disclose the identity behind a Vet Space post.

Vet Space posts are not end-to-end encrypted. Do not post information in Vet Space that you would not want disclosed in legal proceedings.

7. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active and for a reasonable period thereafter to comply with our legal obligations.

Active accounts: Data is retained for the lifetime of your account.
Deleted accounts: We delete or anonymise personal data within 30 days of an account deletion request, except where retention is required by law (e.g. financial records must be kept for 6 years under UK tax law).
Messages: Messages between candidates and practices are retained for the lifetime of both accounts. If one account is deleted, messages may be retained for up to 30 days before deletion.
Vet Space posts: Posts are retained indefinitely unless reported and removed, or unless your account is deleted.

8. Your Rights Under UK GDPR

As a data subject under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights:

Right of Access

Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you (a Subject Access Request).

Right to Rectification

Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.

Right to Erasure

Ask us to delete your personal data ("the right to be forgotten"), subject to legal obligations.

Right to Restriction

Ask us to restrict how we process your data in certain circumstances.

Right to Portability

Receive your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format.

Right to Object

Object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing.

Right to Withdraw Consent

Where processing is based on consent, withdraw that consent at any time.

Right to Complain

Lodge a complaint with the ICO at ico.org.uk if you believe we have mishandled your data.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello@vetsi.co.uk. We will respond within one calendar month.

9. Cookies and Tracking

vetsi uses the following types of cookies and local storage:

Authentication cookies: Used to keep you signed in. These are strictly necessary and cannot be disabled without breaking the platform.
Session storage: Used to maintain your session state within the browser tab.

We do not use third-party advertising cookies. We do not use Google Analytics or similar tracking tools that share data with advertisers. We do not sell browsing data.

10. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data, including:

Encryption of data in transit using TLS/HTTPS.
Row-level security policies on our database, meaning users can only access data they are authorised to see.
Separate authentication sessions for candidate and employer accounts to prevent cross-contamination.
Access controls limiting which members of the vetsi team can access user data.

No system is completely secure. In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you and the ICO as required by law.

11. International Data Transfers

Your data is primarily stored within the European Union via Supabase. Where data is processed outside the UK or EU (for example, by Anthropic's Claude API which may operate in the US), we rely on appropriate safeguards including Standard Contractual Clauses or adequacy decisions to protect your data.

12. Children's Privacy

vetsi is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If we become aware that a child has provided us with personal data, we will delete it promptly.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal requirements. We will notify registered users of material changes by email or by displaying a prominent notice on the platform. The "last updated" date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was most recently revised.

14. Contact and Complaints

For any privacy-related questions, requests to exercise your rights, or concerns about how we handle your data, please contact:

vetsi Privacy
Email: hello@vetsi.co.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK's supervisory authority:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
Website: ico.org.uk
Helpline: 0303 123 1113