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 only used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to the current data protection legislation including the general Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive 2003).

This privacy Notice tells you what I will do with your information from initial point of contact  through to after 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

• whether there are other recipients of your information

• your data protection rights

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have and you can contact me at buttercrosscounselling@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 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 preferred contact details, like phone number or email address.

If you decide against proceeding with counselling I will hold your details on record for  12 months; if you would like it removed earlier please let me know.

While you are accessing counselling

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there is concern about your safety or the safety of someone else.  I will always endeavour to speak to you about this first unless there are safeguarding issues.

To ensure the smooth running of my service I will keep personal details securely under lock and key and are not shared with any third party. I keep any notes of our sessions for 7 years.

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 buttercrosscounselling@gmail.com
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.

Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, godaddy.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 godaddy.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.