AMJ Counselling privacy statement
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. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (reference number: ZB265947). My email address is: benjones@amjcounselling.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 will use your data
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 any name you provide or any contact details you provide.
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 enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 30 days.
If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.
While you are accessing counselling
Everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if I reasonably believe you to be at risk of harm yourself or risk harming others.
I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.
I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on an encrypted computer, which all files password protected. Neither the device nor the password are shared with any third party.
I will keep brief written notes relating to your sessions (e.g. the dates of sessions), these are kept in password protected files on my computer.
I also keep limited process notes to help my discussions with my supervisor - these do not contain any personal information, including names. These are destroyed when I finish working with each client.
I do not retain text messages for more than a week. If there is relevant information contained in a text message I will copy this into your password-protected client notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 30 days if it is not important. If necessary I will copy this content into your password-protected client note.
After counselling has ended
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 30 days 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.
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 [insert email]. 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.
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. All data is held on encrypted devices in password-protected documents.
My website
When someone visits my website (which is a Squarespace website), I use their analytics to view 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 AMJ Counselling Ltd 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.
Cookies
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If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
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Comments
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.