Vivetra Privacy Policy
DRAFT — pending review by a licensed attorney before this page is used in production.
This is not a substitute for real legal review, especially given the multiple international privacy frameworks addressed here — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Nothing on this page should be relied on as final, binding, or launch-ready in any of those six countries until a qualified lawyer has reviewed and approved it.
Last updated: 24 July 2026 (draft). This policy explains how Vivetra handles personal data across every country where it is available. Vivetra is veterinary practice-management software operated by ArdinGate LLC. Throughout this policy, “Vivetra,” “we,” and “us” mean ArdinGate LLC as the operator of the Vivetra software and its managed hosting; “you” and “your practice” mean the veterinary practice, hospital, boarding facility, shelter, equine, or livestock business that subscribes to Vivetra.
The two relationships this policy covers
Almost every question about your privacy under Vivetra comes down to which of two different sets of data is in play. We keep them separate on purpose, because the law treats them differently and so do we.
1. Data about your practice — we are the controller
When your practice signs up and uses Vivetra, we collect a limited amount of information about the practice itself: your account and contact details (business name, the name and email of the person setting up the account, billing country), and usage data generated as your staff use the software (log-in events, feature usage, error logs, IP address, device/browser information). For this data, ArdinGate LLC is the party that decides why and how it is processed — the “controller,” or its equivalent under each framework below. We use it to provide, secure, support, and bill for the service, and for nothing else without telling you.
2. Records your staff enter — you are the controller, we only process
Everything your own staff type into Vivetra about your clients and their animals — owner names and contact details, patient records, appointment history, clinical notes, invoices you raise — belongs to your practice. For that data, your practice is the controller (or the equivalent role its home framework defines), and Vivetra is only the processor: we store and process it strictly on your documented instructions, to run the service for you. We do not sell it, we do not use it to train models or build our own products, and we do not make independent decisions about it. It is your data; we hold it for you.
What we collect, and why
From your practice (relationship 1), we collect and use:
- Account and contact information — business name, contact name, email, billing country, and the service(s) you subscribe to. Used to create and administer your account and to communicate with you about the service.
- Usage and technical data — log-in and feature-usage events, error and audit logs, IP address, and device/browser details. Used to operate, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the service, and to detect and prevent abuse.
- Billing data — your subscription tier and payment status. Card and bank details themselves are captured and held by Stripe on Stripe’s own hosted checkout, not by us (see “Payments” below).
From the records your staff enter (relationship 2), we process whatever your practice chooses to record about its clients and patients — solely to make that data available back to you through the software. We do not decide what you collect about your clients; you do.
Payments
Two separate things people sometimes confuse:
- Vivetra has no built-in payment processing inside the product. There is no feature for taking your clients’ money through Vivetra — no card capture for pet owners, farm clients, or shelter adopters. That is a deliberate, permanent gap, stated plainly rather than hidden.
- When your practice pays us for its own Vivetra subscription, that checkout is handled by Stripe (opens in new tab) on Stripe’s own hosted page. Stripe captures and stores your card or bank-account details as a separate data controller for that payment; this website never renders a card-number field, never touches raw card data, and never stores anything payment-related itself.
Where your data is hosted, and international transfers
All Vivetra data — for every one of the six launch countries — is hosted on infrastructure located in the United States. For customers in the United States and Canada this is domestic or near-region processing. For customers in Ireland/the EU, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, storing data in the US is an international transfer, and the framework sections below set out the specific legal mechanism we rely on for each. In particular, for Irish/EU and UK customers we rely on the European Commission’s 2021 Standard Contractual Clauses together with a Transfer Impact Assessment (and, for the UK, the ICO’s UK Addendum to those clauses).
How this policy applies in each country
Vivetra is available in six countries, each with its own privacy law. The sections below address each one specifically. The controller/processor split described above holds in every case — only the statute and the vocabulary change.
United States
The United States has no single comprehensive federal privacy law governing commercial personal data of the kind Vivetra handles. Instead, privacy obligations arise from a patchwork of sector-specific federal rules and a growing set of state laws (for example, comprehensive consumer-privacy statutes in California, Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut, and others), whose applicability depends on where your practice and its clients are located and on data-volume and revenue thresholds.
For your practice’s own account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC acts as the business that collects and determines the purposes of that data. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the party responsible for that data and for any applicable state-law obligations to the individuals it concerns; Vivetra acts as your service provider / processor, handling that data only to provide the service and under contract terms that prohibit us from using it for our own purposes. Veterinary and animal-health records are not covered by HIPAA, which regulates human protected health information; Vivetra is not a HIPAA-covered entity or business associate.
Canada
In Canada, our handling of personal data is governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (and any substantially similar provincial legislation that applies to your practice). Under PIPEDA, the entity that determines the purposes for collecting and using personal information is the responsible organization.
For your practice’s account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC is the organization responsible under PIPEDA and applies its fair-information principles — accountability, limiting collection to what is needed, safeguards, and access on request. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the responsible organization; Vivetra processes that information on your behalf as a third party under contract, and PIPEDA continues to hold your practice accountable for it even while we host it. Where your practice is subject to substantially-similar provincial law (for example Quebec’s Law 25), those obligations sit with your practice as controller; we support you as processor.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, our processing is governed by the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. This is a distinct legal instrument from the EU GDPR referenced in the Ireland section below: post-Brexit, the “UK GDPR” is retained EU law sitting under the Data Protection Act 2018, and it has begun to diverge further from the EU regime (including through the Data Protection and Digital Information Act 2024). Although the text is still largely similar to the EU GDPR today, they are not the same statute, and we name each separately on purpose.
For your practice’s account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC is the controller under UK GDPR. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the controller and Vivetra is the processor, acting only on your documented instructions under a data-processing agreement that meets the requirements of Article 28 UK GDPR. Because that data is hosted in the United States, the transfer is an international one; we rely on the same EU Standard Contractual Clauses described in the Ireland section, with the ICO’s “UK Addendum” attached, together with a Transfer Impact Assessment — a combined SCC + UK Addendum + TIA package, rather than a wholly separate legal instrument. UK data subjects have the rights set out in UK GDPR (access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection), and may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Ireland
In Ireland — the one EU member state in this launch set — our processing is governed by the EU GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), as given further effect by Irish data-protection legislation. The concepts mirror those in the UK section, but this is specifically the EU regime, supervised by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
For your practice’s account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC is the controller under the EU GDPR. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the controller and Vivetra is the processor under an Article 28 data-processing agreement, acting only on your documented instructions.
International transfer / data residency. Irish and EU customer data continues to be hosted on our existing United States infrastructure. For that transfer we rely on the EU Commission’s 2021 Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two: Controller to Processor) — the correct module, because your practice is the controller and ArdinGate LLC is the processor — together with a Transfer Impact Assessment addressing US government data-access law. These clauses are Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/914. Standard Contractual Clauses are a transfer mechanism that stands independently of any adequacy decision, so our reliance on them does not depend on the continued validity of any EU–US adequacy framework.
Australia
In Australia, our handling of personal information is governed by the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988. The Act regulates APP entities — the organisations that collect and hold personal information — and includes specific principles on open handling (APP 1), collection (APPs 3–5), use and disclosure (APP 6), security (APP 11), access and correction (APPs 12–13), and cross-border disclosure (APP 8).
For your practice’s account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC is the APP entity responsible for that information. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the responsible APP entity and Vivetra handles that information on your behalf as your processor. Because that data is stored on US infrastructure, APP 8 (cross-border disclosure) is engaged for your practice as the disclosing entity; we support your compliance by handling the data only on your instructions and under contractual protections. Individuals may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
New Zealand
In New Zealand, our handling of personal information is governed by the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles (IPPs). The Act regulates agencies — the organisations that hold personal information — and the IPPs cover collection, storage and security (IPP 5), access and correction (IPPs 6–7), use and disclosure (IPPs 10–11), and disclosure outside New Zealand (IPP 12).
For your practice’s account and usage data, ArdinGate LLC is the agency responsible for that information. For the client and patient records your staff enter, your practice is the responsible agency and Vivetra processes that information on your behalf. On cross-border data, IPP 12 carries a favourable agent/processor position: information held by an overseas agent on a New Zealand agency’s behalf is treated as still held by that agency, rather than as a cross-border disclosure — which is exactly the operator/processor posture Vivetra’s hosting model sits in. Individuals may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.
Data security and retention
We operate Vivetra as a managed service: you never touch a server, patch an operating system, or restore a backup yourself. We apply technical and organisational safeguards — access controls, encryption in transit, logging, and regular backups — proportionate to the data we hold. We retain your practice’s account and usage data for as long as your subscription is active and for a limited period afterwards as needed for legal, accounting, and security purposes. The client and patient records your staff enter are retained on your instructions for as long as your practice keeps its account, and are returned or deleted on termination in line with your data-processing agreement.
Your rights, and how to exercise them
Depending on your country, individuals have rights over their personal data — commonly the right to access it, to have it corrected, and, in several frameworks, to have it deleted, restricted, or ported. Because your practice is the controller of the client and patient records it enters, a request from one of your clients about their data should be directed to your practice; we will support you in responding to it as your processor. For data ArdinGate LLC holds about your practice directly, contact us using the details below.
Common questions
Is Vivetra the controller of my clients’ and patients’ records?
No. When your staff enter records about your clients and their animals, your practice is the data controller (or your framework’s equivalent — the “organization” under PIPEDA, the “APP entity” in Australia, the “agency” in New Zealand). Vivetra, operated by ArdinGate LLC, is only the processor: we hold and process that data on your documented instructions, never as an independent controller of it, and we do not sell it or use it to build our own products.
Where is my data hosted, and does it leave my country?
All Vivetra data is hosted on infrastructure located in the United States, regardless of which of the six launch countries you operate in. For customers in Ireland/the EU and the UK this is an international transfer, and we describe below the specific legal mechanisms we rely on for it — the EU Commission’s 2021 Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) with a Transfer Impact Assessment, and the ICO’s UK Addendum for UK customers.
Does Vivetra process my clients’ payment card details?
No. Vivetra has no built-in payment processing for taking money from your clients — that is a deliberate, permanent gap in the product, not an oversight. Separately, when you pay ArdinGate for your own Vivetra subscription, that checkout is handled by Stripe on Stripe’s own hosted page; Stripe captures and stores your card or bank details, and this website never sees, renders, or stores raw payment data itself.
Is my animals’ clinical data treated as sensitive “health data”?
In every framework we serve, the special/sensitive “health data” category concerns a human data subject — an animal’s clinical record is not a special category of personal data under UK GDPR, EU GDPR, the Australian APPs, New Zealand’s Privacy Act, or US law. The client-contact information inside those records is still personal data and is still protected here; this note is about legal classification, not about us caring less.
Who we are, and how to contact us
Vivetra is operated by ArdinGate LLC, the entity responsible for the personal data described in this policy as the operator of the software and its managed hosting. For any privacy question, or to exercise a right you hold over data we control, contact us at [email protected].