Calm Mind Counselling 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 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. I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy, and you can contact me via my contact form on this webpage or my email address: kswatson46@yahoo.com

‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person 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 ref: ZB939778

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.

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. 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)

I will ensure all your personal data is deleted 6 years after our last session. 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 I have reason to believe you or another person is at risk of harm, a criminal act has taken place or I am legally required to provide information for an legal proceedings. 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 and locked in a non-portable filing cabinet and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session which are anonymised, these are kept locked in a non-portable filing cabinet

For security reasons I do not retain text messages or emails after the end of our therapeutic relationship. Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 6 years after our last therapy session. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.