Frequently asked questions

Insurance Cover - Locums

The majority of practices in New Zealand have VPIS insurance cover, and all practice veterinarians, employees, locum and contractor veterinarians working for an insured practice are automatically covered.

Social Media

NZVA / VCNZ Social Media Guide for Veterinarians

Blackmail

Blackmail is certainly becoming more common, as are negative social media reviews, and the damage from this can be very financially and emotionally harmful.

You may be entitled to report the alleged blackmail under the Harmful Digital Communications Act: http://www.theorb.org.nz/

Information on breaches of this act are here: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/hdc-act/

Digital Communication : The 10 communication principles

The 10 principles say that a digital communication should not:

1. disclose sensitive personal facts about a person;
2. be threatening, intimidating, or menacing;
3. be grossly offensive;
4. be indecent or obscene;
5. be used to harass a person;
6. make a false allegation;
7. breach confidences;
8. incite or encourage anyone to send a deliberately harmful message;
9. incite or encourage a person to commit suicide; and
10. denigrate a person’s colour, race, ethnic or national origins, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

If you’re being blackmailed:

1. do not respond or pay the ransom
2. if you have connected to the blackmailers on social media, unfriend them, block them and deactivate your account
3. block any messages sent over Skype or other chat apps
4. report the accounts being used to the platform that it’s on (eg. report to Facebook)
5. report at your local police station or report it to Netsafe https://www.netsafe.org.nz
6. if the content is posted online, report it immediately to the platform that it’s on and to Netsafe
7. seek support from friends, family or our experienced Netsafe team.