Exactly what "verified" means on this platform.

Source from provincial regulatory registries

We collect dentist records from the public registers of all 13 Canadian provincial and territorial dental regulatory bodies. These registers are maintained by law and list every dentist who holds an active licence to practise in that jurisdiction. We do not rely on user-submitted data, review sites, or social media profiles as primary sources.

Filter for active licences only

At the time of import, we apply a filter that retains only registrations with an active or practising status. Expired, suspended, revoked, or resigned licences are excluded. A dentist who has retired or let their licence lapse will not appear on Your Local Dental.

Normalise and deduplicate

Registry data across 13 jurisdictions arrives in 13 different formats. We normalise names, addresses, postal codes, and phone numbers into a consistent schema. We then run deduplication to identify and merge records where the same dentist appears under multiple formats or practice addresses.

Cross-reference province against postal code

Every record is cross-referenced against the first letter of its Canadian postal code to confirm the province assignment is consistent. Records where the postal code and the claimed province do not match are flagged, investigated, and corrected or removed before publishing.

Remove non-dentist records

Practice data sources occasionally include dental labs, denture clinics, denturists, dental associations, and supply companies. These are identified by name pattern matching and removed. Only records representing a licensed dentist or dental practice are published.

Ongoing correction and monitoring

Registry data is re-checked against source registries on a rolling monthly basis. Users and dentists can report errors using the contact form on any listing. Reported errors are investigated and corrected within 48 hours. Dentists who claim their profile can update their own information at any time.