Chantal Francis Therapy: Ensuring Privacy and Confidentiality

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, including:

• Why I am able to process your information and what purposeI 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 personalinformation

• Whether I intend to transfer it to another country,

• Whether I do automated decision-making or profiling, and

• 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 queries@chantalfrancistherapy.com

‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me.

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. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent 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 within one month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

While you are accessing therapy

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. I am an Accredited Member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and I abide by their professional code of ethics.

Confidentiality will only be broken if there are legal or ethical obligations to disclose, for example, if you disclose abuse/neglect of a child or vulnerable adult, or state something that implies serious harm to yourself or others, or if a court of law requires me to disclose information. 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 on password protected devices and are not shared with any third party.

I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept locked in filing cabinet which only I have access to. The notes do not include any personal details that could be used to identify you. The purpose of the notes are to help me track and support our sessions and are for my use only.

After counselling has ended

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. This is the standard industry retention period.

Third party recipients of personal data

I sometimes share limited personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks or legal obligations in respect of tax and accounting purposes such as invoicing. In such cases I have carefully selected which partners I work with. I take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted.

Your rights

I try to 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 its, tell you how long I will storeyour data and how I made 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 at any time 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 queries@chantalfrancistherapy.com .

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. These include ( but not limited to) encrypted devices, locked filing cabinet etc.

Visitors to my website

When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Google Analytics to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website.

I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.

I use Google analytics so that I can continually improve my service to you, You can read Google's privacy notice here .

Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently. Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you access most websites on the internet. Chantal Francis Therapy uses cookies to ensure that our website functions properly, provides a good experience for visitors, and to collect anonymous data that helps us improve our site.

Types of cookies we use:

1. Essential Cookies: These are necessary for our website to function. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas.

2. Analytical/Performance Cookies: These allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and see how visitors move around our site. This assists us in improving the way our website works.

3. Functionality Cookies: These are used to recognize you when you return to our website and enable us to personalize our content for you.

4. Targeting Cookies: These cookies record your visit to our website, pages you have visited, and the links you have followed. We use this information to make our website more relevant to your interests.

Managing and Deleting Cookies: Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. If you prefer, you can set your browser to decline cookies or to notify you when a website sets or accesses cookies. However, if you choose to decline cookies, some parts of our website may not function properly.

No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.

Contact information

If you would like to contact me to understand more about this Policy or wish to contact me concerning any matter relating to individual rights and your Personal Information, you may send an email to queries@chantalfrancistherapy.com.