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 the 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
• 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 at laura@talkwithlaura.co,uk.

‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/ organisation that collects stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me (Talk With Laura).

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. Different lawful bases depend 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 ensures that I look after any sensitive personal information 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 consent initially. I will then retain any counselling records in case of the need to reference them in the future (the official legal basis is to defend against potential legal claims).

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 name, contact information, and a brief summary of things you would like to explore in counselling. If applicable a GP or another health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when enquiring on your behalf.

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

While you are accessing counselling

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if:

• Where a client discloses the possibility of serious harm to themselves or someone else
• Where a client discloses something relating to an act of terrorism (The Terrorism Act 2000)
• Drug trafficking (The Drug Trafficking Act 1994)
• Money laundering (The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 or the Money Laundering Regulations 2007)
• If the police require information about the driver of a vehicle at the time of an offence (The Road Traffic Act 1991)
• In the context of children and young people something relating to child abuse, neglect, and endangerment (The Children Act 1989)

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 a business-specific laptop that can only be accessed by me. I do not share personal details with any third party.

I will keep typed notes of each session, these are kept on my business-specific laptop and are password-protected and can only be accessed by me.

For security reasons, I do not retain text messages for more than one month. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will take a copy and insert it into the client notes, which are kept on my business-specific laptop and are password-protected and can only be accessed by me.

Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one month if it is not important. If necessary, I will take a copy and insert it into the client notes, which are kept on my business-specific laptop which is password-protected and can only be accessed by me.

After counselling has ended.

Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for five years 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.

Third-party recipients of personal data.

If it was necessary to share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks. In such cases, I would carefully select which partners I work with. I would take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I would ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted.

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 request any personal information, I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to laura@talkwithlaura.co,uk

If you have any complaints about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by emailing 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 http://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. I do not hold any paper records; I only have electronic records stored on a business-specific laptop that is password-protected and can only be accessed by me. Each client has a unique folder with is password protected. I have a cloud storage device which is also password-protected.

Additional information for website owners and employers

Visitors to my website

When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, Looka.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 Looka.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.

I use Looka.com as the analytic management system so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Looka's privacy notice here https://looka.com/privacy/

I use Looka as the content management system for our website - find out about Looka and data protection at https://looka.com/privacy/

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Looka.com may use cookies and they are small text files that are saved on your computer, tablet or mobile phone. Looka.com uses cookies to store information about how you use our website and to remember any preferences you set. Cookies are used to collect general usage and volume statistical information that does not include Personal Information. No user-specific data is collected by Looka.com or any third party. If you fill in a form on Talk With Laura website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.

Links to Other Web Sites

Talk With Laura's site may include links to other Web sites whose privacy practices may differ from those of Talk With Laura. If you submit Personal Information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. I encourage you to carefully read the privacy policies of any Web site you visit.