Privacy & Cookie Policy – Protecting your personal information. Last updated: 25th May 2018.
This is the Southcott Psychotherapy Privacy Policy, relating to this website, use of emails and texts for the purposes of contacting you about our service, and any other ways we collect information. It covers how we process any personal information you provide to us, as well as how we’re committed to keeping it safe and managing it in line with data protection laws. I am registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, it contains important information about how I protect, use and process any personal information you give to us. I aim to be clear when I collect your data and not do anything with the data you wouldn’t reasonably expect.
WHAT INFORMATION I COLLECT
The main pieces of information we collect are:
- Name
- Mobile phone number
- Email address
- Postal address
WHEN I COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION
There are a few occasions when I might collect information from you. These include when:
- You first call or email us to make an enquiry about our service; or to make an appointment to meet us
- You give us this information face-to-face if we meet on any occasion
- You attend your first session and sign our Therapy Agreement
We will not collect this information from you at any other time.
HOW I COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION
We collect information in the following ways:
- When you give it to us DIRECTLY
We do not collect your data in any other way. We will only ever get it from you.
HOW I PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION
I am fully trained in the importance of maintaining confidentiality. I will keep all your information safe. We invest in the appropriate resources to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. I will make sure we manage it in accordance with my legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws. However, no internet-based site, including email, is 100% secure, so I cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond my control.
HOW I USE AND PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION
After I have received your information, there are a few ways in which I might use it to ensure we give you the best possible service. They include:
- To help identify you when you contact us
- To contact you to make, confirm, cancel or reschedule appointments
- To respond to any queries or complaints that you raise
- If I have a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you for instance, where we are ordered by a court or regulatory authority
- For any other purpose to which you agree
I will not disclose your information to any third party except in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
HOW I KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE AND WHO HAS ACCESS TO IT
I will never sell or pass on your personal information to third parties for their own purposes.
As all therapists are required to keep appropriate records of their client work, I will keep some brief notes of your sessions. The notes are fully anonymised and do not contain any of the information we collect from you, as detailed above, other than your first name. Anonymised notes are kept in a locked cabinet or on a password protected secure computer in accordance with data protection laws.
HOW I RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION
My professional insurance requires that all our records are kept for 5 years after which time they will be destroyed.
HOW I WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOU
I will only ever communicate with you via email or phone outside of our face to face sessions.
VISITING THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
This website may contain links to other websites that we believe may be of interest to you. This Privacy Policy only applies to our website, so if you link to another website, we recommend you read the privacy policy of that website before sharing any personal or financial data.
COOKIES
Like most websites, we use ‘cookies’ to help us improve how we create, and how you use, our site. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and can obtain an overall view of visitor habits and volumes to our website. They can make interacting with a website faster and easier.
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by websites that you visit. They are used by most websites in order to make them work efficiently, to make controls respond properly and to provide information to owners of web sites, or third parties. The cookies stored by our site cannot be used to identify you personally.
If you want to know how to disable the use of cookies on your device, visit aboutcookies.org. Please note that if you turn off the use of cookies on the website, you are likely to find your browsing experience significantly degraded.
WHAT YOUR RIGHTS ARE
We want to make sure you’re in control of how we use and keep your information.
You have the right to:
- be told how your personal information will be used;
- request a copy of the information we hold about you;
- update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong;
- change your communication preferences at any time;
- ask us to remove your personal information from our records;
- request an electronic copy of your personal information be sent to you, or another organisation;
- raise a concern or complaint about the way in which your information is being used.
If you wish to find out more about these rights, have any questions about this Privacy Policy, have anything you’d like to correct or you’d like to request of copy of the information we hold about you, please contact:
Zoe Southcott
Email.zoe@southcottpsychotherapy.co.uk
Or you can find out more on the Information Commissioner’s Office website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/