Privacy Statement
Your privacy and confidentiality of your information is very important to me. 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 Data Protection Act (2018) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications 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.
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 use your information:
When you contact, we with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include name, contact number, and email address, current home address, GP details and the details of an emergency contact if you have one. If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within a month, if you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.
If you do decide to partake in counselling with me then the confidentiality agreement I stated above will be strictly adhered to. I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling run smoothly. These details are kept securely in locked cabinets and password protected devices and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept in a locked cabinet. Any electronic conversation held over text or email will be kept for 1 year post our work ending. If you would like this deleted sooner just let me know.
After counselling had ended your personal information, and a short summary of our work together will be kept for 7 years. This is in line with current data protection guidelines.
Your Rights
I try and 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 make 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 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 francesca@francescarotheratherapy.co,uk
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.
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.
Any physical copies of your data are kept in a locked filing cabinet inside my home. I am the only one with access to this filing cabinet.
I try and only store data in the physical sense, however there are occasions where data is electronic, for example if contracts are sent over email, and conversations over text and email. All my electronic devices used for my counselling practice are password protected and not connected to any sort of digital ‘cloud’.