Privacy Policy
A legal disclaimer
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 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, 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 email.
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 your name, your contact number and/or your email address. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral.
If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 7 days. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.
While you are accessing counselling.
Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. In exceptional circumstances I might find myself in a position where I feel it is necessary to break our confidentiality agreement. In such circumstances I follow the Ethical Framework of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). These extreme circumstances concern any situation where either yourself or a close relative or friend might be in serious and immediate danger (this includes physical and sexual abuse of children and any serious criminal act). Under such circumstances, wherever possible, I will discuss my concerns with you and keep any breach of confidentiality to a minimum.
I will keep a record of your personal details to help my counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely, in digital format only, on a local hard drive (I do not use cloud based storage for any client details.) All files are password protected and encrypted and contain no personally identifying references. No personally identifiable information is shared with any third party. I do share anonymised information about our work together with my clinical supervisor. My supervisor/supervisors are experienced and qualified psychotherapists and supervisors. They are accredited members of the BACP/UKCP and also adhere to strict codes of ethics and confidentiality as set out by the BACP/UKCP.
I will keep brief summary notes of each session. These are also kept securely, in digital format only, on a local hard drive. All files are password protected and encrypted and contain no personally identifying references or information.
For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than 90 days. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will add the content to my summary notes before deleting the message. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 90 days if it is not important. If necessary, I will add the content to my summary notes before deleting the email.
After counselling has ended.
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 90 days from the end of our contact with each other, after which they will be securely deleted. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.
My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information
Third party recipients of personal data
I will not share your personal data with any third party without your written consent.
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 it, tell you how long I will store your 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 david@davidtylertherapy.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. All data is held in digital format only, stored on a local hard drive. All files are password protected and encrypted. File references contain no personally identifying information.
Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, Wix 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 Wix 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 this privacy notice here.
I use Wix as the content management system for my website - find out about this service and data protection, here.
Like most websites mine use’s cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about our use of cookies.
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. No personal data is retained by the web host.