DATA AND PRIVACY
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,
• Your data protection rights.
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Whether I do automated decision-making or profiling, and I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can contact me via email.‘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 ZB615307. My email address is farzana@thryvecounselling.co.uk
My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information
Initial contact
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect informationto help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name, email address and phone number. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 90 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 if:
• Risk of harm to self or others
• Child or vulnerable adult protection issue
• Disclosure of illegal activity
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 my laptop and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept 6 years. For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 12 months. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will add it to your written notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 12 months if it is not important.
After counselling has ended
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 6 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 do not share personal data with any third parties, unless, on very rare occasions, this is
agreed specifically within our therapeutic contract (such as if I was working alongside
another health professional).
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 farzana@thryvecounselling.co.uk.
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 as well as a locked cabinet to store any paperwork.
Additional information for website owners and employers
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Wix and Google 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 and Google 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 use Wix as the content management system for my website – details of their privacy and GDPR statements can be found here: https://support.wix.com/en/privacy-gdpr.
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.
