Privacy Statement
The duties and responsibilities set out in the General Data Protection Regulation, effective from May 2018, gives people more rights and control over how their data is managed. The following privacy note sets out what information I collect about you in order to provide you with a professional counselling service and the legal basis for doing this. It also sets out what rights you have to access your data.
Lawful Basis
I am required to set out the lawful basis for gathering data. To work together, I ask for your consent for me to hold information. This is augmented by my legitimate interest as a professional to hold information on record for the duration of our work together and a run-off period afterwards, In case I am required by my professional body to account for my work or asked by a court of law to provide information, for example in disputes, family court action etc. If you withdraw your consent, I will remove the electronic data I hold about you but will maintain the written record for the duration of the run-off period (currently five). In addition, as information about your health is Special Category Data, additional conditions have to be met under Article 9(2) of the GDPR. In this case, the processing is necessary for the purposes of the provision of health or social care or treatment (section h).
Information Held
I need to ask for a certain amount of information in order to communicate with you and understand a little about why you are seeking counselling. I ask for your name and contact details, and basic information about why you are seeking help. I also gather some sensitive information about your history and psychological well-being; this will be relevant to the work we have agreed to do together. Information I hold electronically is your name, email address and phone number, as well as emails and documents we exchange. These are stored on password-protected devices used only by me for my work. I will not share these details with anyone else. Any paper notes I store will be kept in a locked filing cabinet. I do share information for the purposes of my professional supervision in accordance with ethical guidelines, but I do not disclose identifying details.
Your Rights
Under the terms of the legislation, you have various rights:
1. The right to be informed (how your information is stored and used)
2. The right of access (to information held about you)
3. The right to rectification (for inaccuracies to be corrected)
4. The right to erasure (to have your data deleted)
5. The right to restrict processing (permission to store but not to process)
6. The right to data portability (allowing you to move, copy or transfer personal data easily)
7. The right to object (e.g. processing based on legitimate interests) 8. Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling (the right NOT to be subject to a decision made solely by automated systems)
A full explanation of these rights can be found at: https://ico.org.uk