Privacy policy

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 and you can contact me via email at darrendavidcounselling@outlook.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, registration number: ZB306527. My postal address is: 62 Mill Street, Brightlingsea, Colchester, CO7 0SZ. My phone number is: 07517 440015. My email address is: darrendavidcounselling@outlook.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.

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 counselling agreement/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 an agreement/contract with a health professional (in this case, an agreement/contract between me and you).

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, email address 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 six months of your enquiry. 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 as outlined in my standard Counselling Agreement. 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 paper in a locked cabinet at my home and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept securely online. For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than six months. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will store this securely with your personal details before deleting the text. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after six months if it is not important. If the email contains important information, I will keep that email and its contents securely online.

After counselling has ended

Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for seven 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.

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 take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted.

I use Microsoft Office OneDrive to store our session notes and my clinical supervisor is provided with your first name and telephone number solely for the purpose of contacting you in the unlikely event I am too unwell, incapacitated or deceased, and so not able to contact you to cancel a session.

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 darrendavidcounselling@outlook.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. Your personal details are kept on paper in a locked cabinet at my home. Your session notes are held securely online via Microsoft Office OneDrive. Your telephone number and a pseudonym of your name is held on my separate work mobile phone which is always locked.

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. I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.

I also use Wix’s web form feature to collect the name, email address and telephone number to collect enquiries about counselling with me. This form is solely used for this purpose. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me. Personal details I hold are outlined above. For more information , see Wix’s privacy policy.

I use meeting scheduling website Calendy in order to provide enquirers with the ability to select a convenient date and time to schedule a consultation call with me. Personal details given in this form are solely held for the purpose of scheduling a consultation. They are stored temporarily by Calendy before being sent to me. For more information see Calendy’s privacy policy.

I use Google Analytics so that I can continually improve my service to you, you can read more in Google Analytic’s privacy notice.

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