Privacy Policy
To enable me to provide the best service to you, I need to hold personal contact details and short records of your therapy session. 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, the human Rights Act 1998 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, 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 hello@sonyatherapy.com or 0735 6085809. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, Reg. no.: ZB908505, Sonya McIlmoyle Therapy Services.
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. 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
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 name, telephone number and an email address if appropriate. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted as soon as not needed. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.
During your counselling
Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if there is cause for concern regarding your safety, someone else’s safety, a serious crime which hasn’t yet been reported or safeguarding concerns. 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 in a passcode locked laptop and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these notes are anonymous and are kept in a locked cabinet. For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 1 year. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, if applicable I will transfer it to your personal information file. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one year, if it is not important. If necessary, I will keep it with the personal information, then securely destroy after seven years.
After your counselling
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for seven 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.