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New Zealand's Veterinary Diagnostic Experts

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Privacy Policy

VetPath NZ is committed to ensure all personal information is secured and risks to confidentiality are managed appropriately in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

Veterinary Clinic Clients:

Your Vet Clinic will have a Privacy statement that should include the information that they collect and provide to sub-contractors or pathology laboratories to enable your veterinarian to provide the best possible service to you. VetPath NZ will fall under this category. By agreeing to a laboratory test from your Veterinarian we believe you are agreeing to them sharing the following information with us:

  • Name
  • Contact information
  • Farm Name and/or Dairy Supply Number
  • Animal’s details

We collect your personal information in order to:

  • Provide the best service we possibly can to your veterinarian to allow them to make the best possible decision for your animal/s.
  • Ensure the submitted samples are traceable back to the correct owner of the animal
  • Allow us to communicate with your vet regarding results, registration of submissions, extra requests secure in the knowledge we can correctly identify your animal.
  • We may be required to pass on your information to MPI if a notifiable disease is suspected (Biosecurity Act 1993)

If you choose not to allow your vet to pass on this information, we may find it difficult to positively identify your animal’s submission and extremely difficult to communicate with your vet regarding this submission.

Veterinary Clinics, Veterinarians and support staff:

We collect information from Veterinarians and Veterinary Clinics to allow us to perform our contracted services and invoice for these services. We also collect information when running training/CPD courses and when consumables are ordered.

We collect the following information:

  • Name
  • Contact information including Phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses and physical and Postal addresses (for the clinic only)

We collect this information in order to provide our advertised service to you. This information allows us to register submissions, process samples, send results, contact you if required to clarify or discuss submissions, and invoice you for results. We may be required to pass on your information to MPI if a notifiable disease is suspected (biosecurity Act 1993)

If you choose not to allow us to use this information, we will be unable to provide you with our services.

Sharing Your Information

We will treat all information we hold about you in confidence. We will not use it or share it unless:

  • You agree or ask us to; or
  • The law requires us to; or
  • There are valid grounds for disclosure, including but not limited to emergency situations

Data Storage and Security

Your data is stored on our trusted providers servers who are ISO 27001 certified and provide contractual GDPR and NZ Privacy Act 2020 commitments. Access is restricted to relevant staff and all devices are secured using recognised access controls. Physical copies are secured on our alarmed premises with restricted access during opening hours.

Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as we have a lawful purpose to use it and it is destroyed by securely erasing all digital information and shredding any hard copies using a certified document destruction service.

What happens if your data is breached?

If VetPath NZ suffers a privacy breach we will immediately take action to prevent further damage and harm, and we will follow the guidance of the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner. https://privacy.org.nz/privacy-for-agencies/privacy-breaches/.

If we believe that the breach is likely to cause anyone serious harm, we will notify the Privacy Commissioner and any affected persons as soon as practicable.

Your Rights

You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at info@vetpath.co.nz, or 0800787522, or PO Box 10304 ,Te Rapa Hamilton 3241.

Complaints and queries about our privacy practices

If you have any concerns about the way we’ve collected, used or shared your personal information, or you feel we have incorrectly refused a request for private information, please contact us in the first instance.

If we can’t resolve your concerns, you can also make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner by:

  • writing to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, PO Box 10-094, The Terrace, Wellington 6143

We may at our discretion update or revise this Confidentiality Statement at any time. Any changes will take effect immediately once they are posted on our website(s). Your continued use of our services after any changes have been posted on our websites indicates your acceptance to those changes.