SmartVet Africa ("SmartVet," "we," "us," or "our") provides an AI-powered poultry disease diagnosis, prescription, clinical recordkeeping, and farmer-support platform utilized by community animal health workers (paravets), licensed veterinary surgeons, poultry farmers, and agribusiness partners across Africa (the "Service"), accessible through our mobile application and our web platform (together, the "Platform").
Starting from East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda) and expanding across Sub-Saharan Africa, our mission is to safeguard animal welfare and rural poultry livelihoods while establishing exemplary data protection standards tailored to low-connectivity, smallholder farming ecosystems. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, why we collect it, how it is secured, and the choices and rights available to you.
Who we are
SmartVet Africa is an agricultural technology company pioneering veterinary artificial intelligence and digital extension tools for smallholder and commercial poultry producers across the continent.
Corporate Identity & Operational Presence
Brand Name: SmartVet Africa
Regional Operations Headquarters: Plot 75, Jomo Kenyatta Road, Gulu (Elephante Commons), Uganda
Regional Footprint: East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda) with expanding operational capabilities across Eastern and Southern Africa.
Primary Data Protection Contact: [email protected] | General: [email protected]
Where required by national data protection legislation across our operational jurisdictions, SmartVet maintains designated Data Protection Officers (DPOs) and local compliance representatives to liaise with national regulatory bodies.
Who this policy applies to
This policy applies to all stakeholders across Africa who interact with our ecosystem:
Paravets & Field Health Workers
Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs), agricultural extension agents, and field paravets who document farm visits, conduct AI poultry diagnoses, order verified medicines, and transact through the SmartVet Wallet.
Poultry Farmers
Smallholder, commercial, layer, and broiler farmers whose flocks are registered and monitored, and who receive diagnostic results, vaccination reminders, and biosecurity advisory via SMS, WhatsApp, voice, or app notifications.
Licensed Veterinary Doctors
Qualified veterinary professionals and epidemiologists who review cases asynchronously, validate AI-recommended prescriptions, and ensure antimicrobial stewardship.
Agrovet Suppliers & Partners
Verified veterinary pharmaceutical distributors, input stockists, and institutional research partners who fulfill orders or collaborate on disease surveillance.
When this policy mentions "you" or "your," it refers to any individual or organization in the roles described above.
Information we collect
3.1 Information you provide directly
- Account and registration data: Full name, verified mobile phone number, role (paravet, farmer, veterinary doctor, agrovet merchant), national identification or cooperative ID where mandated for credit/wallet features, district/county/region, and authentication credentials.
- Flock and farm management data: Flock size, bird age, breed (broiler, layer, kuroiler, indigenous/local), housing structure, water and feeding regimen, biosecurity status, and historical mortality logs.
- Diagnostic and clinical inputs: Reported clinical signs, observed flock abnormalities, disease onset dates, post-mortem observations, and photographs of birds, droppings, or lesions captured for AI model inference.
- Prescription and treatment logs: Dispensed medications, dosages, administration routes, withdrawal periods, and post-treatment recovery records.
- Marketplace and SmartVet Wallet records: Input procurement orders, closed-loop wallet balances, credit advances, repayment history, and mobile-money transaction references (e.g. MTN MoMo, Airtel Money, M-Pesa).
- Communications: Records of customer support interactions, call recordings where permitted for quality assurance, SMS/WhatsApp advisory responses, and webinar participation.
Strict Closed-Loop SmartVet Wallet Architecture
The SmartVet Wallet is built strictly as a closed-loop system: wallet balances can only be applied to purchase authorized veterinary supplies and services within the SmartVet Platform. Funds are never commingled or pooled across accounts, and the wallet cannot be used for unrestricted cash withdrawals. SmartVet never requests, intercepts, or stores your private mobile money PINs.
3.2 Information collected automatically
- Device & diagnostic telemetry: Mobile device hardware model, operating system version, application build number, battery status, network connectivity state, and crash diagnostics to ensure app stability in rural environments.
- Geographic and location coordinates: GPS location captured at the time of a farm visit (with explicit user permission) to route nearest paravets, verify farm visit authenticity, and power regional disease heatmaps. Because our diagnostic engine is offline-first, coordinates recorded offline are queued securely on the device and synchronized upon reconnecting.
3.3 Information from verified third parties
We receive transaction verification data from licensed telecommunications and mobile-money operators, fulfillment confirmations from verified agrovet distributors, and advisory inputs from national livestock research institutes.
How we use your information
We process collected data strictly for lawful operational and veterinary purposes, including:
AI Disease Diagnosis & Clinical Safety
Delivering real-time diagnostic probabilities, enforcing automated safety overrides (such as blocking contra-indicated antibiotics for egg-laying flocks), and facilitating asynchronous review by qualified veterinarians.
Paravet Dispatch & Farm Service
Connecting poultry farmers with verified field paravets, scheduling follow-ups, dispatching urgent care, and delivering automated SMS/WhatsApp vaccination schedules.
Marketplace & Closed-Loop Wallet Operations
Verifying mobile money top-ups, fulfilling authentic agrovet medication orders, tracking credit limits, and reconciling transactions with input manufacturers.
Pan-African Disease Surveillance
Aggregating and de-identifying flock health indicators to detect early warning patterns for devastating avian epidemics (e.g. Newcastle disease, Gumboro, Fowl Pox, Avian Influenza) without disclosing individual farm identities.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. Aggregated, non-identifiable epidemiological data may be shared with university research bodies or animal health agencies solely to advance African poultry biosafety and food security.
Legal basis for processing
In accordance with regional data protection statutes across our operating African jurisdictions — including the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019, the Uganda Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019, the Tanzania Personal Data Protection Act, 2022, the Rwanda Law Nº 058/2021, and the African Union Malabo Convention — we ground all processing in established legal bases:
1. Explicit Consent
Provided when registering an account, capturing farm GPS coordinates, uploading diagnostic bird images, or opting into SMS advisories.
2. Contractual Necessity
Required to operate the diagnostic engine, deliver prescriptions, manage wallet balances, and fulfill Marketplace product deliveries.
3. Legitimate Interests
Preventing fraudulent medicine distribution, improving diagnostic accuracy across local poultry breeds, and maintaining platform uptime.
4. Legal & Regulatory Duty
Maintaining prescription audit logs under national veterinary pharmacy acts, animal disease control laws, and anti-money laundering regulations.
How we share your information
We share personal and flock information strictly on a need-to-know basis:
- Assigned Paravets and Supervising Veterinarians: To conduct clinical assessments, deliver prescribed treatments, and verify flock health progress.
- Authorized Input Suppliers & Logistics Partners: Exclusively the delivery address and contact details required to fulfill confirmed Marketplace orders.
- Telecom & Cloud Infrastructure Providers: Regulated African SMS/voice communication partners (e.g. Africa's Talking), push notification infrastructure, and certified cloud hosting providers bound by strict data protection agreements.
- National Veterinary & Agricultural Regulators: When legally mandated under animal disease prevention laws, or in response to official requests during confirmed notifiable disease outbreaks (e.g. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza).
- Academic & Epidemiological Research Partners: Exclusively de-identified, aggregated flock trend data to evaluate vaccine efficacy and regional disease prevalence.
Data storage, security, and international transfer
We implement rigorous organizational, physical, and digital safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, loss, or alteration of farmer and flock data:
Encryption in Transit & At Rest
All data exchanged between client applications and our cloud infrastructure is encrypted using modern TLS 1.3 protocols, and database volumes are secured with AES-256 encryption.
Cloud Architecture & African Edge PoPs
Data is hosted in ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified cloud environments leveraging African regional edge Points of Presence (PoPs) to deliver ultra-low latency and localized redundancy across East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Offline-First Edge Privacy
Diagnostic AI models execute locally on mobile devices. When operating in remote zones without cellular network coverage, clinical records remain securely encrypted on the device until a connection is restored.
Cross-Border Data Transfer Safeguards
Where data is transferred across African borders or internationally for cloud hosting, SmartVet enforces Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), data processing addenda, and adequacy covenants compliant with African Union and regional standards.
Data retention schedule
We retain personal and farm information only for as long as necessary to fulfill operational, clinical, and statutory obligations:
| Category of Information | Retention Period | Statutory & Operational Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical, Diagnostic & Flock Records | 7 Years | Longitudinal flock health monitoring, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) audits, and compliance with national veterinary statutory bodies. |
| Wallet & Financial Transactions | 7 Years | National tax compliance, financial accounting audits, and anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory mandates. |
| Account Profile Data | Active Duration + 24 Mo | Maintained during active account use. Following 24 consecutive months of total account inactivity, users are notified before data is securely anonymized or erased. |
| Diagnostic Images & Telemetry | De-identified Indefinitely | After clinical validation, diagnostic images are permanently stripped of personal identifiers to train open veterinary AI models for African poultry breeds. |
Your data protection rights
Regardless of which African nation you reside in, SmartVet provides standardized, robust data protection rights:
Right of Access
Request a complete export of your personal data, registered farm history, and wallet records.
Right to Rectification
Correct outdated or inaccurate contact details, farm locations, or flock inventory figures.
Right to Erasure
Request deletion of your account and personal records, subject to mandatory veterinary prescription audit laws.
Right to Data Portability
Receive your farm diagnostic and flock treatment history in a structured, machine-readable format (CSV/JSON).
Right to Restrict Processing
Opt out of non-essential promotional SMS messages or restrict marketing communications at any time.
Lodge Regulatory Complaint
Lodge a complaint with your national Data Protection Authority (e.g. Uganda PDPO, Kenya ODPC, Tanzania PDPC, Rwanda DPPA).
How to Exercise Your Rights
To exercise any of these rights, email our Data Protection Office at [email protected] with the subject line "Data Subject Request" or reach us via telephone at +256 393 194736. We respond to all verified requests within seven (7) business days.
Children's privacy
The SmartVet Platform is designed exclusively for adult agricultural and veterinary professionals, including paravets, veterinary surgeons, and farm managers aged 18 and above. We do not knowingly solicit or collect personal information from minors. If you discover that a minor under 18 has submitted personal details through the Platform, notify us immediately at [email protected], and we will delete the account and purge corresponding records without delay.
Cookies and website analytics
Our web portal uses small data files ("cookies") and browser local storage strictly to ensure security, maintain active login sessions, and optimize website responsiveness:
We do not deploy third-party advertising cookies or cross-site tracking pixels. You can configure your browser to reject non-essential cookies at any time without forfeiting access to our public website.
Changes to this policy
As SmartVet expands across new African regions and rolls out advanced diagnostic capabilities, we may update this Privacy Policy to reflect updated legal requirements, veterinary guidelines, or product features.
When changes are made, we will update the "Effective & Last Updated" date at the top of this document. For substantial modifications that affect your data privacy rights, we will provide conspicuous advance notice through in-app alerts, direct SMS notifications, or email broadcasts prior to the effective date.
Contact & Data Protection Office
If you have questions, feedback, or regulatory inquiries regarding our data handling practices, our regional privacy team is available to assist you:
Regional Headquarters
Plot 75, Jomo Kenyatta Road, Gulu, Elephante Commons, Uganda
Serving East & Sub-Saharan Africa