Privacy Policy

 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,

  • 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.
‘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 email address is: Balandina.anastasia.1@gmail.com.

 

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 the 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 answer your questions. This will include your name so that I can book your appointment into my diary, email address or telegram handle, depending on how you decided to reach out to me, and any reasons for contacting me. This information is requested so that you could be informed if I was unable to attend an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances. If you do not want to be contacted under any circumstances, you do not need to provide a contact method.

If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 1 month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.  

While you are accessing counselling.

Your email address, phone number or telegram handle will be used to provide you with written confirmation of your appointment times if you have given consent for this. Your email address, telephone number or telegram handle will only be used to contact you regarding appointment times, unless we have agreed that I will also use your email address to email you information that is relevant to your therapy sessions.
At the beginning of your first appointment, I will ask you questions to complete a personal details form containing your name, date of birth, and contact information. The form is stored in a filing cabinet that can only be accessed by me.

Rest assured that what is said in our sessions will be kept confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there are legal or ethical obligations to disclose, for example, if you disclose abuse/neglect of a child or vulnerable adult, or say something else that implies serious harm to yourself or others, or if a court of law requires me to disclose information.
In the event that confidentiality must be broken, I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.
Counsellors are required to have regular supervision support, so I may discuss our work with my supervisor. This would be done without identifying you.
I keep brief notes of our therapy sessions for the purpose of assisting our work together. The notes help me to keep track of the issues that we are working on, and they are for my use only. The notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you and they are stored securely in a filing cabinet that only I have access to. Your therapy notes are stored separately to your personal details form.

After counselling has ended.

There are reasons why counsellors are required to keep records after therapy has ended. For example, in the case of financial transactions personal information must be retained for as long as legally required in respect of tax or accounting purposes. Retaining your therapy notes ensures that I can continue to offer you an efficient service if you make contact after therapy has ended. Your therapy notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you and continue to be stored securely in a filing cabinet that only I have access to for seven years after therapy has ended. This time frame adheres with current industry guidelines. Seven years after therapy has ended, your therapy notes will be confidentially destroyed.
Your personal details form is confidentially destroyed upon the end of your therapy sessions. Please note that I need to keep a record of your name, date of birth and your client reference number for seven years after therapy ends. Your client reference number corresponds with a client reference number on your therapy notes and therefore enables me to identify your therapy notes if necessary.

 

Third-party recipients of personal data

I share a limited amount of personal data with third parties in order to provide therapy services to you and to fulfil legal obligations in respect of tax and accounting purposes. For example, if you contact me to book an appointment in person, I will give your name to reception at the location where your appointment is due to take place in order to book your appointment at that specific location. Where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out tasks, I have carefully selected which organisations I work with. I state that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. I will never pass on your contact details to any third-party organisations for sales, marketing or research purposes.

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 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.

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 Balandina.anastasia.1@gmail.com. If you have any complaints about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing me at 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. My email account is password-protected and mobile phones and laptops used to respond to your emails are password-protected. Any email correspondence will be deleted within one month if it is not necessary to keep it. If it is necessary to retain the information, I will print the email and store it securely in a filing cabinet that only I have access to.

Additional information for website owners and employers

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 Google Analytics so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Google Analytics’ privacy notice here.

I use Squarespace as the content management system for my website - find out about Squarespace and data protection 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.

Changes to privacy notice

This privacy notice may be updated from time to time, so please check occasionally for any updates.