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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.
The 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 policyand you can contact me via the details on this website.
'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 (Ref ZA355376)
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 thereapy 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.
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/therapy) and necessaary for a contract with a health professional (in this case a contract between you and me).
HOW I USE YOUR INFORMATION
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling/therapy services, I will collect personal information to help me satisfy your enquiry. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted with 5 years. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.
While you are accessing counselling/therapy please rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if I perceive that you represent a danger to yourself/others and I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there is a safeguarding issue that prevents this.
I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling/therapy service to run smoothly. These details are kept securely in a locked filing cabinet and are not shared with any third party.
I will keep brief written notes of each session, these are kept in a locked filing system.
For security reasons I do not retain text messages for than 1 year. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 1 year if it is not important.
After the counselling/therapy has ended your records are kept for 5 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. Again if you want me to delete your information sooner, please let me know.
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 a 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 them which 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.
YOUR RIGHTS
I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information.ico 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
To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to michelletiedman@gmail.com
If you have a complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by 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 kep secure in a locked filing cabinet.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR WEBSITE OWNERS AND EMPLOYERS
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Wix.com 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.com 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. Like most websites, I use cookies to help the site work more efficiently.
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.
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