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
• Your data protection rights.
I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy, and you can contact me via Jamiesabatcounselling@gmail.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 ZB647669.
My phone number is: 07359724384
My email address is: Jamiesabatcounselling@gmail.com
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:
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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.
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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.
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 consent initially. I will then retain any counselling records in case of the need to reference them in the future (the official legal basis is to defend against potential legal claims)
How I use your information
Initial contact.
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name and contact details, such as email and telephone number. 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 one month. 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 if I felt the was an immediate severe risk to yourself or any members of the public. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. I may also have to disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, if a court of law orders me to. I have a legal obligation to report any information that relates to terrorism, money laundering and radicalisation.
After counselling has ended.
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 5 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.
I will keep brief handwritten notes of each session, these are kept within a secure lockable filing cabinet.
For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 1 week. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will hand write these verbatim into your clinical file. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 3 months if it is not important. If necessary I will transfer the email correspondence to your clinical file by means of printing, then delete the email from my computer.
Third party recipients of personal data
I use Wix, to support my website. They use cookies to analyse my website performance.
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 it, 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: Jamiesabatcounselling@gmail.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 looking after your information very seriously. All of your information is stored within a secure lockable cabinet in line with GDPR guidelines and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. Your information I hold such as initial contact document, client notes and the signed contractual agreement will be destroyed by means of secure shredding after the 5-year period from when our work ends. Email correspondences will be securely destroyed 3 months after received. Correspondence through email are held on a virus and password protected computer. Text messages are held for 1 week on a password and facial recognition protected smart phone. After this time, they will be transferred verbatim into your hand written clinical file then destroyed securely from the smart phone device.
Additional information for website owners and employers
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, WIX 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, and do not allow WIX to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. 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.