Privacy Policy

Who we are

Clinicest (TURGUT VARLI, Büyükdere Cad. Levent Loft Residence No:201/6, Levent / İstanbul, Türkiye) operates https://clinicest.com, an independent marketplace that connects prospective patients with private dental clinics in Turkey. We are the "data controller" for the enquiry data described below.

What we collect

When you submit a free-quote request, use the chat assistant, or contact form, we collect:

• Your name, email address, and WhatsApp/phone number (if provided)
• The treatment you are interested in, your country, and any timeline or budget you share
• Any message, photos, or x-rays you choose to send us — this may include health-related information about your case, which you provide voluntarily
• Consent metadata: which version of this policy (and, where relevant, of the separate clinic-sharing consent described below) you agreed to, the date, your IP address, and browser user-agent — kept as proof of consent
• Marketing attribution (e.g. which link or campaign brought you to the site), if present in the URL you arrived from

Some of what you share — for example, details about a health condition or treatment history — can be "special category" or health data under applicable data protection law. Where the law requires it, we ask for your explicit, separate consent before that information (or any of your contact details) is shared with a clinic — see "Sharing with Matched Clinics" below.

If you accept analytics, we also collect which public pages you view and a few named actions (for example that a quote request was sent), together with technical information your browser provides. This never includes what you type into a form or the chat. See the Cookie Policy for the details.

Why we collect it

We use your data to: identify clinics that may be suitable for your treatment request, respond to your enquiry, and improve our matching quality. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for purposes beyond running the Clinicest matching service. Where you have separately agreed to clinic sharing (below), we also use it to let matched clinics review your case and offer you treatment options.

Sharing with Matched Clinics

Submitting a request is not, by itself, permission to share your details with a clinic. Where applicable law requires it, we only share your name, contact details, and the other information listed under "Data Shared with Clinics" below with a clinic after you have given a separate, explicit consent for clinic sharing — a distinct consent from agreeing to this Privacy Policy, given through its own checkbox or question, never pre-ticked and never assumed.

When that consent has been given, we may share your request with up to 3 suitable clinics we match you with — not an unlimited number, and not clinics outside that matching process. Each time we actually share your request with a clinic, we keep a separate record of which clinic received it and when, for accountability, security, and compliance purposes. Where practical, we aim to let you see which clinics your request has been shared with.

Data Shared with Clinics

Where clinic-sharing consent has been given, the categories of information a matched clinic may receive are:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone/WhatsApp number, if you provided one
• Your country
• The treatment you are interested in
• Your preferred timing
• Your budget information
• Any health-related information you voluntarily included in your request, to the extent our systems are set up to share it

We do not share more than a clinic needs for this purpose: your free-text notes, chat conversation, and any internal review notes or audit records are not shared with clinics.

Status of Matched Clinics

Clinicest is the "data controller" for the enquiry data described in this policy up to the point a clinic receives it. Once a clinic receives your information, it may act as an independent data controller for its own purposes — for example, assessing your case, contacting you, proposing a treatment plan, providing healthcare services, and keeping records as required by its own professional and legal obligations. We do not control how a clinic handles your data once it has received it for those purposes, and this policy does not, and cannot, describe every clinic's own practices.

If you accept analytics, Google, the provider of Google Analytics 4, receives the usage data described in the Cookie Policy and may process it in countries outside the one you live in. Nothing is sent to Google unless you accept.

Legal basis

We process your enquiry data on the basis of your consent, given when you submit the quote or contact form. Clinic sharing runs on a separate, explicit consent from that one — giving one does not give the other. You can withdraw either consent at any time (see "Your rights" and "Withdrawal of Clinic-Sharing Consent" below); withdrawing does not affect processing or sharing that already happened.

Analytics runs only on the basis of your consent, which you give by accepting analytics and can withdraw at any time through "Cookie settings" in the footer.

Withdrawal of Clinic-Sharing Consent

You can withdraw clinic-sharing consent at any time, either from the "Clinic Sharing Consent" section of the secure request page linked in the emails we send you about your request, or using the contact details below. Withdrawing it stops Clinicest from making any new disclosure of your request to a clinic. It does not undo, and does not automatically erase, information already lawfully shared with a clinic before you withdrew — that clinic may have its own independent legal basis or professional obligation to keep records of care it has already assessed or provided, and, where applicable, you may also be able to exercise your data protection rights directly against that clinic. We keep a timestamped record that consent was withdrawn.

International Data Transfers

Clinicest's own infrastructure (hosting and the e-mail systems we use to contact you) and the clinics we match you with are based in Turkey, so sharing your request with a matched clinic under the separate clinic-sharing consent described above is, on its own, a domestic disclosure, not an international transfer. Using our service can still involve an international transfer in other ways — for example, the AI chat assistant processes your messages outside Turkey (see 'AI chat assistant' below), and, if you accept analytics, Google may process usage data outside Turkey (see the Cookie Policy). Where applicable data protection law requires a specific safeguard for a transfer like this, we use the mechanism the law requires; this policy will be updated to name it once our legal review of these transfers is complete.

How long we keep it

We keep different kinds of data for different periods, unless a legal requirement or an active dispute means we must keep something longer: a request you started but never completed, and for which you gave no consent, for 90 days; an active or completed request for as long as needed to provide the service plus 2 years after it ends; a chat conversation that never leads to a request, for 90 days after your last message in it; and, once a conversation does become a request, its transcript follows that same request's own period above rather than a separate one. Records that consent (for enquiry processing or, separately, for clinic sharing) was given or withdrawn, and records of which clinic a request was actually shared with and when, are kept for 5 years after the consent is withdrawn or our relationship with you ends, whichever is later — while a request is still ongoing and no consent has been withdrawn, this period has not started yet. These are our target retention periods; we have not yet built automatic enforcement of them, so until we do, we keep the underlying data for no longer than we actually need it for these purposes.

Consent and Disclosure Records

For accountability, we keep a record of: when and how you gave a consent, which version of the relevant consent text and of this policy applied at the time, what it covered, when (if ever) you withdrew it, and — separately, for each actual disclosure to a clinic — which clinic received your request, when, and which categories of information (for example "contact details" or "timing") were shared. These records describe the fact and scope of what happened; they do not duplicate your medical details, photos, x-rays, or free-text messages.

AI chat assistant

If you use the AI chat widget on our site, your messages are processed by Groq, a US-based AI provider, to generate responses — this involves transferring your message data outside Turkey. We mask obvious personal identifiers (phone numbers, email addresses, ID numbers) from your messages before they are sent, and we apply an automated filter intended to withhold personal health details you type into the chat before your message reaches Groq — this filter is a risk-reduction measure, not a guarantee: it does not catch every possible way of describing a personal health matter. Groq's Zero Data Retention setting is enabled for this processing, which limits how long Groq keeps your message after generating a response — it does not change the fact that your message is processed outside Turkey to generate that response in the first place. Conversations are stored for support quality and audit purposes under the same retention approach as other enquiry data, and may be linked to a quote request if you choose to submit one through the chat.

Cookies

Clinicest uses necessary cookies to work: a session cookie, a security token for forms, and a cookie that remembers your cookie choice. With your permission only, we also use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used. We do not use advertising cookies. See our Cookie Policy for the full list and how to change your choice.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or export your data, and to object to or withdraw consent for its processing. See our GDPR page for how to exercise these rights.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Email hello@clinicest.com or use our Contact page.