PRIVACY POLICY

I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): www.ico.org.uk

Secure Storage

Your data is stored securely and confidentially and used in a safe and ethical manner, in line with EU General Data Protection Regulations May 2018. It is not shared with other people without your consent.
I have a record of your mobile number and email address on my mobile for reference. This is deleted at the end of our work together.

Right to Access

You have the right to ask for a copy of your personal information, free of charge. You also have the right to ask me to amend or change any incorrect information about you. Any data requested from me should be supplied within one month from the date of the request.

Right to be Forgotten

You have the right to ask me to erase any information that I hold about you. This includes your personal information that is no longer relevant to original purposes, or if you wish to withdraw consent. In all cases and when considering such requests, these rights are obligatory unless it is information that I have a legal obligation to retain. I am required to keep your file for a period of 7 years after the end of our work together at which time it is destroyed securely.

By completing this consent form you understand and agree to this holding of your information. You can contact me to withdraw consent at any time.

I have a duty to inform you, and ICO, of any breach of information which may result in a risk to the rights and freedom of individuals.

The Information I keep

All information I keep is stored safely in a locked cabinet. The information I will ask for at the start of therapy includes, your name, address, doctor’s practice, emergency contact, age and occupation. I also keep signed copies of the Confidentiality Contract, Counsellor/Client Agreement and Privacy Notice. This information is kept only as a resource for our work together. This information will not be passed to a third party.

I also store contact details including your email address and phone number within my email account. Although this account is password protected, there are risks attached on online accounts that I cannot control for. Please see my policy on contact via email below.
If you have any questions regarding this, please feel free to discuss within our sessions.

Social Media & Contact Policy

This document outlines my policies in relation to the use of Social Media and modes of communication between sessions.

If you have any questions about anything within this document, please bring them up when we meet. If at any time, I need to update this policy and we are still engaged in a therapeutic working relationship, I will notify you in writing of any policy changes and make sure you have a copy of the updated policy.

Networking Sites

To protect your privacy and confidentiality, I do not accept friend requests from current or former clients on any social networking site. If you have questions about this, please bring them up when we meet and we can talk more about it.

Contact

Please do not use messaging on Social Networking sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn to contact me. These sites are not secure and I cannot guarantee your confidentiality in these cases.

The Best Way to Contact Me

If you need to contact me between sessions, the best way to do so is by phone, direct email or texting – for quick, administrative issues such as changing appointment times.

E-mail

Please be aware, if you choose to e-mail me anything relating to you and our therapy sessions, that email (in general) is not completely secure or confidential. If you choose to communicate with me by email, be aware that all emails are retained in the logs of your and my Internet service providers. While it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by the system administrator(s) of the Internet service provider.