Cookies and Privacy

This policy explains how your personal data is processed under the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 ("KVKK") when you use the veterinary clinic directory, online booking and clinic panel services ("Services") offered on veterinex.com (the "Site"), and which cookies the Site uses.

1. Data controller

The data controller is Murat Ertürk ("Veterinex"), who operates the veterinex.com website. For data protection questions: kvkk@veterinex.com.

2. What personal data do we process?

• Visitors: IP address, browser and device information, time of visit (server logs); the province, district and service you search for; your cookie preferences.
• Members (pet owners): full name, mobile phone number, email address (optional), password (stored only in irreversible, hashed form), pet details (name, type, breed, date of birth), appointment records and any note you add to a booking, your commercial message preference and consent dates.
• Clinic accounts: the account holder's name, phone and email; clinic details (name, address, location, opening hours, services, logo); documents uploaded with an ownership claim.
• Contact form and "Something wrong?" reports: your name, email or phone and your message.

Please only write information about your pet in the booking note. Do not share special categories of personal data such as your own health information.

3. Why do we process it and on what legal basis?

• Opening and managing your account, sending your booking request to the clinic you choose and updating you on its status: performance of a contract (KVKK art. 5/2-c).
• Publishing clinic information and reviewing applications and ownership claims: performance of a contract (art. 5/2-c) and legitimate interest (art. 5/2-f).
• Keeping the Site secure, preventing abuse and fraud, fixing errors: legitimate interest (art. 5/2-f).
• Keeping server logs and responding to requests from authorities: explicitly provided by law and legal obligation (art. 5/2-a and 5/2-ç; Law No. 5651).
• Answering contact messages and reports: legitimate interest (art. 5/2-f).
• Sending campaigns and news, and optional cookies: only with your explicit consent (art. 5/1), which you can withdraw at any time.

4. Who do we share it with?

• The veterinary clinic you send a booking request to (so the appointment can take place).
• Site visitors (the clinic details published in the directory).
• Infrastructure, hosting, backup and cyber security providers; email and SMS delivery providers; map provider (Google Maps, for the embedded map on clinic pages); software development and technical support providers.
• İleti Yönetim Sistemi A.Ş. (İYS), for commercial message permissions.
• Lawyers, accountants and other advisers; competent public authorities, courts and enforcement offices.

These recipients may be in Türkiye or abroad. Transfers abroad are made in line with Article 9 of the KVKK, based on an adequacy decision, appropriate safeguards such as the Board's standard contract, or one of the exceptional cases listed in the Law. Which data is shared with each recipient group, why and on what legal basis is set out in a table in the "Privacy Notice". Your personal data is never sold or rented to third parties for advertising.

5. How long do we keep it?

Personal data is kept for as long as needed for the purpose and for the periods required by law, and is then deleted, destroyed or anonymised. Account data is kept while your account is open, appointment records and contact messages for the applicable statutory limitation periods, and server (traffic) logs for no less than one and no more than two years as required by Law No. 5651 and its regulation. Cookie lifetimes are listed in the table below.

6. Cookies

Cookies are small text files that a website stores in your browser. Veterinex only uses the cookies below. We do not use analytics or advertising cookies; if we ever do, we will update this table and ask for your permission first.

• Essential cookies: needed for the Site to work (your session, language and cookie choices). No permission is required and they cannot be turned off.
• Functional cookies: make things easier for you (remembering the place you last searched). Used only with your permission.
• Clinic statistics (no cookies): views of clinic pages and clicks on the phone, WhatsApp, directions and website links are shown to the clinic as statistics. No cookie is used and no personal data is stored; only daily totals are kept. To avoid counting the same visit twice, an irreversible hash of the IP address and browser information is held in temporary memory for at most 30 minutes and then deleted automatically.
• Third-party cookies: the map on clinic pages is provided by Google. It is loaded directly from Google when shown on the page, and Google may set its own cookies; these are subject to Google's privacy policy and are not managed by Veterinex. You can block third-party cookies in your browser settings.

7. Managing your cookie preferences

You can change your permission for optional cookies at any time from the "Cookie preferences" link at the bottom of every page or with the button below. When you withdraw permission, the related cookies are deleted. You can also delete or block cookies in your browser settings (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge); if you block essential cookies, some features such as logging in will not work.

Each time you give or change your cookie choice, a record is kept on our server as proof: the anonymous browser ID (vx_consent_ref), the categories you allowed, the type of choice, the policy version, date and time, language, browser information and an irreversibly hashed form of your IP address. If you are logged in, the record is linked to your account. These records are kept for three years.

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8. Your rights

Under Article 11 of the KVKK you may apply to Veterinex to:

• find out whether your personal data is processed and, if so, request information about it,
• learn the purpose of processing and whether it is used accordingly,
• know the third parties in Türkiye or abroad to whom it is transferred,
• ask for incomplete or inaccurate data to be corrected,
• ask for it to be deleted or destroyed under the conditions of Article 7 of the KVKK,
• ask for corrections, deletions or destructions to be notified to the third parties it was transferred to,
• object to a result against you arising solely from automated analysis,
• claim compensation if you suffer damage due to unlawful processing.

You can also update your profile and your commercial message preference yourself on the "My account" page.

9. How to apply

Send your request with information that verifies your identity (full name, Turkish ID number or passport number for foreign nationals, contact details and your request) to kvkk@veterinex.com from the email address registered on the Site, or (including members without a registered email) through the contact form by choosing the "Data protection / my personal data" topic. Requests are answered free of charge within 30 days at the latest under the Communiqué on the Procedures and Principles of Application to the Data Controller; if the action involves an additional cost, the fee set by the Personal Data Protection Board may apply. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Board.

10. Changes

This policy may be updated when necessary. The current version is always published on this page; after significant changes you will be asked for your cookie preferences again.