Privacy Policy
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 isobel@maypsychotherapy.uk.
‘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.
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 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 a contract with a health professional (in this case, a 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 and email address and/or phone 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 inquiry on your behalf.
If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 6 months. 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 in the specific circumstances listed below:
I have regular supervision with my supervisor to make sure that I am practicing competently and ethically as your therapist. This means that I may share content from our sessions with my supervisor. They are also bound by the duty of confidentiality.
If I have reason to believe that you or someone else is at serious risk of harm, then I have an ethical obligation to share this with necessary third parties in an aim to prevent or reduce that harm. Wherever possible I would inform you and seek your consent before taking this course of action, however, in some rare circumstances this may not be possible.
If you disclose that a serious crime has or will be committed I may disclose this without seeking consent if I consider it to be in the balance of public interest to do so.
In some circumstances I would be legally obligated to disclose information. This includes information about acts of terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering or if I am compelled to disclose information or documents by a court of law.
I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on Google Drive, a cloud storage service provided by Google LLC. I am the only person with access to this information and my account is secured with Multi-Factor Authentication.
I will keep a secure Google Drive file for you where session notes and other necessary notes can be stored. This folder and any notes contained within will not contain your name or any personal information and could only be linked to your personal information through your client code.
For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 6 months. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will remove any personal information and save the content of the message in your file in Google Drive. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 6 months if it is not important. If necessary I will copy the relevant information, minus any personal information, into a document which would be kept in your Google Drive folder.
After counselling has ended.
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 7 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.
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 isobel@maypsychotherapy.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 keep all client personal information separate from any notes I make regarding clients or our sessions. These can only be linked through a unique client code.
I keep all records digitally and do not make paper copies. All digital records are held securely in Google Drive and can only be accessed by my professional account. This account is protected by muti-factor authentication.
Use of Cloud Platforms (Google Drive)
I utilize Google Drive (a cloud-based storage platform) to securely store my professional records, such as session notes, contact information, and therapeutic contracts.
I have selected Google Drive because it provides robust security, including encryption at rest and in transit, ensuring that your information remains confidential and is protected from unauthorized access. I have a Data Processing Addendum in place with Google to ensure they act strictly as a service provider and do not use your data for any other purpose.
You can read more about the technology and processes that Google Drive uses to protect your data here.
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Squarespace 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 Squarespace 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 Squarespace so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Squarespace’s privacy notice here.
Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently - you can read more about the use of cookies here.
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.