Privacy notice

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 do automated decision-making or profiling, and  
• Your data protection rights.  

I am happy to talk through any questions you might have about my data protection policy. 

‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data, which in this instance is me. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (reference number: ZB388752).  

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, explained 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 therapy) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you). 

Initial contact: 

When you contact me with an enquiry about my therapy services I will collect information to help me respond to your enquiry, including your contact details. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral, or a 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 one year from the end of the year that you made contact with me. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, please let me know. 

While you are accessing therapy: 

Everything that you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken in the following cases: 

• Harm to yourself or others: I reserve the right to break confidentiality if I think that you have become a danger to yourself or other people. I would try to discuss this with you and my clinical supervisor first, but this may not always be possible. 

• For legal and ethical reasons: I am not bound by confidentiality if in good faith I feel that I can assist in the prevention or detection of a serious crime, including safeguarding issues regarding children or vulnerable adults, crimes regarding substantial financial gains and losses, or acts of terrorism. 

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the therapy run smoothly. These details are kept securely in password protected documents and devices, and may be hosted on the cloud (Microsoft Office 365) which is only accessible to me via a password. I may also keep written notes of each session, which are kept securely in the same way. For security reasons I do not retain text messages/emails for more than one year after the end of the year that the communication was made. If there is relevant information contained in a text message/email I will transfer this to my session notes. 

After therapy has ended: 

Once therapy has ended your records may be kept for up to seven years from the end of the year of our last our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please let me know. 

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 it; 
• tell you how long I will store your data for 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 raise this in session and subsequently put the request in writing by emailing me. If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please also raise this in session and subsequently, if necessary, write this in an email to me. 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. 

I take the security of the data I hold about you seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. 

When someone visits my website (www.charlieallentherapy.com), I use a third-party service (Go Daddy) 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 anyone else 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, Go Daddy uses cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about their use of cookies here: https://www.godaddy.com/en-uk/legal/agreements/cookie-policy.  

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.