Privacy notice

Introduction

Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.

This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including:

Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for
Whether you have to provide it to me
How long I store it for
Whether there are other recipients of your personal information
Whether I intend to transfer it to another country
Whether I do automated decision-making or profiling, and
Your data protection rights.

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy. You can contact me by emailing staceysewellcounselling@protonmail.com

‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information

The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below:

If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information.

If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.

If you are attending a workshop I am offering, or are in contact with me to consider attending a workshop, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you).

How I use your information

Counselling

Initial contact

When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This may include:

your name
email address
mobile/phone number
your country/location
reasons you may be looking for counselling

Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf.

If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 21 days. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

While you are accessing counselling

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken:

Where there is a serious danger of you harming yourself or someone else.
If you inform me of a serious crime (your own or someone else’s) that has not previously been disclosed.
In cases of emotional, physical or sexual abuse to children where I am legally obliged to inform the statutory authorities.
When ordered to do so by a court of law, or when questioned by a police officer as part of a criminal investigation.
If any matter is reported to the police and proceeds to prosecution the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) may require, through the police, to see any counselling notes. The CPS has a legal duty to see if anything may have been documented or recorded that could assist the defence case. You will be informed if there is any material that it is considered should be disclosed.

I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on password protected electronic devices or in a locked filing cabinet and are not shared with any third party.

I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept in a locked filing cabinet.

For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 21 days. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will store a copy on an encrypted device. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 21 days if it is not important. If necessary I will store a copy on an encrypted device.

After counselling has ended

Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 7 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.

Workshops

Initial contact

When you contact me with an enquiry about workshops I offer I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This may include:

your name
email address
mobile/phone number

If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 21 days. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

While you are accessing the workshop

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the workshops run smoothly. These details are kept securely on password protected electronic devices or in a locked filing cabinet.

After the workshop has ended

Third party recipients of personal data

I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks. In such cases I have carefully selected which partners I work with.

I use the following companies and services. Please contact me if you’d like further details about what I use them for or what data might be shared:

Proton Mail
Microsoft (Office 365)
Zoom Video Communications, Inc (Zoom)
Automattic, Inc/Wordpress.com (website and blog)
Psychology Today (directory listing)
Counselling Directory (directory listing)

I may sometimes share information with other healthcare professionals as agreed in our counselling agreement or be required to share data with regulators such as BACP, HMRC or the ICO.

It’s important to me to receive professional supervision of my work, which requires that I share some client information. Please ask if you’d like details of my current supervisor or further information about the types of information that is shared.

People attending counselling in person at Plympton Therapy Rooms should be aware that the waiting area is covered by CCTV, operated and controlled by Plympton Therapy Rooms.

Your rights

I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.

If I do hold information about you I will:

give you a description of it and where it came from
tell you why I am holding its, tell you how long I will store your data and how I made this decision
tell you who it could be disclosed to
let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you.

To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to staceysewellcounselling@protonmail.com.

If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures.

If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

Data security

I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. I use encrypted devices to store any electronic data and a locked filing cabinet for any paper documents.

Visitors to my website

When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, WordPress, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.

I use WordPress as the content management system for my website – find out about more about their privacy statement here: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/about/privacy/ and data protection. Like most websites, my website uses cookies to help the site work more efficiently – find out about use of cookies here: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/about/privacy/cookies/ . No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.

You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This privacy notice was last updated on 12/04/2024.