Privacy Policy
Effective Date: 11 May 2026
VetDD ("we", "us", or "our") is committed to protecting your personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) of South Africa. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how it is used, and your rights as a user of the VetDD application ("the App").
By using the App, you consent to the collection and use of your information as described in this policy.
1. Data Controller Contact Information
The responsible party for your personal information is:
Jastej Singh Luther
Developer & Sole Owner, VetDD
For any privacy-related queries, requests, or complaints, please contact us at the email address above.
2. What Information We Collect
We collect the following personal and usage information when you use the App:
Account & Onboarding Information (collected at sign-up):
- Name
- Email address
- Date of account creation
- Discovery method (how you heard about VetDD)
- Role (e.g., Student, Veterinarian, Other)
- Year of study (only if "Student" is selected as your role)
- Country
Note: The role and year of study fields are collected solely for informational and demographic purposes. They do not affect your access to or experience within the App in any way.
Usage Data (collected during use of the App):
- Buttons and features interacted with
- Disease names searched
- Filters applied
- Referrer and Referee correlation
3. How We Collect Your Information
Your personal information is collected directly from you at the time of account creation and during use of the App. Usage data is collected passively as you interact with the App.
All data is stored in a private Supabase database, which serves as our primary data storage and authentication platform. By using the App, you also become subject to Supabase's Privacy Policy.
4. Why We Collect Your Information
Your information is collected and processed for the following purposes:
- Understanding our user base: To allow the developer to understand who is using VetDD, what roles they occupy, and the demographics of the user base.
- Service improvement: Usage data (searches, filters, button interactions) is analysed to identify which features are most used and where improvements may be needed.
- Communications: Your email address may be used to send you significant updates about VetDD. You will always have the option to opt out of such communications via a opt-out instructions included in any emails sent where the option to opt-out may be provided.
- Anonymised disclosures: Anonymised and aggregated data (e.g., number of users, roles, sign-up trends) may be used publicly or in private disclosures for marketing, investment, or progress-tracking purposes. Individual identifying information (names and email addresses) will never be made public.
5. Third Parties We Share Data With
We do not sell your personal information. We may share or transfer data with the following third-party platforms solely as part of the App's technical infrastructure:
| Platform | Purpose | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Primary database hosting, authentication, and secure data storage | Privacy Policy |
| GitHub | Hosts private scripts used to export and process anonymised data | Privacy Statement |
| Notion | Private workspace used for internal data processing and organisation | Privacy Policy |
| Mailerlite | Batch email sending used for sending major updates | Privacy Policy |
| Paystack | Payment processing provider for donations (if applicable) | Privacy Policy |
VetDD does not directly handle or store any payment information. All payment data is processed exclusively by Paystack and governed by their privacy and security policies. Paystack is ISO 27001 certified and PCI-DSS compliant.
As a user of VetDD, you may have a proxy relationship to the attached privacy policies of our infrastructure partners.
6. Data Retention
Your personal information will be retained indefinitely from the date of account creation unless you request deletion.
To request the deletion of your data, please contact us at contact@vetdd.org. Please be sure to include the email address linked to the account you wish to delete and the name of the person of this account. To verify this, we will send the account a reset password link. After following the reset password process, we ask the user to log out and log back into their app; this will share with us an updated “Last login date” which, if done within 24 hours of the forget password link having been sent, will be considered a “verified deletion request”. Upon receiving a verified deletion request, we will remove your personal information from our systems within 48 hours.
7. Your Rights Under POPIA
As a data subject under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the following rights:
- Right to be notified – To be informed when your personal information is being collected.
- Right of access – To request access to the personal information we hold about you.
- Right to rectification – To request that inaccurate, outdated, or incomplete information be corrected.
- Right to deletion – To request the destruction or deletion of your personal information.
- Right to object – To object to the processing of your personal information on reasonable grounds.
- Right to object to direct marketing – To opt out of receiving direct marketing communications at any time.
- Right to lodge a complaint – To submit a complaint to the Information Regulator of South Africa if you believe your rights have been violated.
- Right to institute civil proceedings – To take legal action regarding alleged interference with your personal information.
If you believe we have violated any of these rights, contact us at contact@vetdd.org.
8. Data Security
We take reasonable and appropriate technical measures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, disclosure, or misuse. These measures include, but are not limited to:
- Row-Level Security (RLS) policies implemented on our Supabase database, restricting data access on a per-user and per-role basis
- Private repository access controls on GitHub, limiting script and data access to authorised personnel only
- Restricted access to internal Notion workspaces used for data processing
While we strive to protect your data, no system is entirely immune to security risks. In the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with our obligations under POPIA.
9. International Data Transfers
At this time, we do not intentionally transfer your personal data outside of South Africa. Our third-party service providers (Supabase, GitHub, Notion, Paystack) may operate servers in various international locations. Where this occurs, data transfers are governed by the respective platform's international data transfer policies and security frameworks, links to which are provided in Section 5 above.
10. Children's Privacy
VetDD is not directed at children under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors. If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a minor, please contact us at contact@vetdd.org.
11. Changes to This Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal obligations. The current version of this Privacy Policy is made available to users within the App at /privacy-policy. Continued use of the App after any update is published at that path constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.
Last updated: 23 August 2026