Introduction
I want to assure you that your confidentiality is incredibly important to me. During or after our sessions, I may take some notes. These notes are kept anonymous and stored separately. Your name and email address will be kept for 7 years after your last session, as required by my professional insurance.
This policy also explains how I handle your personal information from our initial contact through to after your therapy ends. It covers:
I’m happy to chat about any questions you might have about my data protection policy. You can reach me at yourcanvascounselling@gmail.com. The 'Data Controller'—the person responsible for your data—is me.
GDPR Information
What Information Do I Collect? I collect the following information from you:
Why Do I Use This Information? I use this information to stay in touch with you during our counselling sessions and to work within the BACP Ethical Framework, which can be found online or given on request.
My Lawful Basis for Holding and Using Your Information
The GDPR requires a lawful basis for processing your personal data. Here’s a friendly rundown:
The GDPR also ensures any sensitive personal information you share is handled with care. This "special category personal information" is processed because it’s necessary for providing health treatment (counselling) and for our contract.
Initial Contact
When you inquire about my counselling services, I’ll collect information to help address your inquiry. This includes your email address and the other details mentioned above.
Sometimes, your GP, another health professional, or a trusted individual may provide your details. If you decide not to proceed, I will delete all your personal data within four weeks. If you want it deleted sooner, just let me know!
While You Are Accessing Counselling
Everything you discuss with me is confidential. I will only break confidentiality if I have serious concerns about the safety of you or others. I will always try to talk to you about this first, unless safeguarding issues prevent it.
Ending Counselling
I keep a record of your personal details to help my counselling services run smoothly. These details are securely stored in a locked filing cabinet and are not shared with any third party. I keep minimal written notes of each session, including the date and theme.
For security reasons, I do not retain text messages for more than a week. Relevant information from text messages is added to notes if needed. Email correspondence is deleted after one week unless it is important, in which case it is added to your client file, which is kept in a locked filing cabinet.
Once counselling has ended, your records will be kept for 7 years according to GDPR guidelines and then securely destroyed. If you want your information deleted sooner, please let me know.
How Do I Handle Your Personal Data?
Your data is used only for providing my counselling services. I do not use it for marketing or sell it to third parties. However, there are specific, limited reasons why I might need to share or process your data:
Legitimate Interest In certain situations, I may need to break confidentiality to ensure safety. This includes cases of serious harm to yourself or others, terrorism, drug trafficking, or money laundering. I will only share the minimum necessary information with health professionals or emergency services and will discuss this with you first whenever possible.
Legal Obligation
Consent
All information is stored securely in locked storage and is destroyed as confidential waste at the end of the data retention period.
Third-Party Recipients of Personal Data
Sometimes I share personal data with third parties, like when I contract a supplier to carry out specific tasks. I carefully select my partners and ensure we have a contract stating what they can do with your data. They only use your information for the task they’ve been contracted for.
Your Rights
I aim to be as open as possible about giving you access to your personal information. You have the right to ask me to delete, limit, or stop processing your personal information. You can also request a copy of any information I hold about you and object to its use in some circumstances. Learn more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.
If I hold information about you, I will:
You can also ask me to correct any mistakes in your personal information. To make a request, please email me at yourcanvascounselling@gmail.com. If you have any complaints about how I handle your data, please reach out. I welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures. For formal complaints, you can contact the ICO at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
Data Security
I take the security of your data very seriously and make every effort to keep it secure. Your information is stored in a locked filing cabinet and password protected.
Additional Information for Website Visitors
When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, GoDaddy, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This helps me understand things like the number of visitors to various parts of the site. This information is processed in a way that does not identify anyone. Neither I nor GoDaddy attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website.
I use legitimate interests as the lawful basis for holding and using your personal information when you visit my website. Learn more about GoDaddy and data protection on their site. Like most websites, we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently. No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill out a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.
Amendments
I may update this policy periodically by publishing a new version on the website.
Please check this page occasionally to stay informed about any changes and ensure you are comfortable with the updates.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!