Privacy Policy

Introduction 

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 will inform you about what I will do with your personal information from our initial point of contact through to after our counselling sessions have 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 

– 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 hello@karentoms.com. 

Contact information

I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number: ZB650750. 

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can contact me by telephone on 07341162825 or via my email address hello@karentoms.com.

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

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 as follows:

If you are in contact with me to consider therapy or if you are currently having therapy with me, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract. 

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. 

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information you 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 initial consent. I will then retain any counselling records in case of the need to reference them in the future (the official legal basis is to defend against potential legal claims). 

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:

– Personal identifiers, contacts

– Demographic details

– Emergency contact details for safeguarding practice

– Assessment notes.

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, please let me know. 

While you are accessing counselling

Everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if you make me aware of an imminent risk to your life or another, or a crime in progress. I may share information with your emergency contact, other agency bodies or the police if a serious risk has been reported or is in progress in line with my safeguarding policy. 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 me provide you with my counselling service together with electronic written notes of each appointment. These details are kept securely in a password protected and encrypted format and are not shared with any third party. 

After counselling has ended

Once we have completed your counselling your records will be kept for five years from the end of our contact and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please let me know. 

Your rights

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 hello@karentoms.com and I will fulfil your request within one month. 

How to complain

If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by emailing hello@karentoms.com. I will endeavour to get back to you within 15 working days of your complaint.

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 you can visit ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or call their helpline on 0303 123 111. 

Data security

I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I make every effort to ensure it is kept secure in a password protected and encrypted format. 

Visitors to my website

Like most websites I use cookies to help the site work more efficiently – find out about our use of cookies at karentoms.com/cookie-policy/.

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. 

When someone visits my website, I use third party services, Fasthosts and 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 so I can continually improve my service to existing and potential clients. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow Fasthosts and Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. I use WordPress as the content management system for my website.

February 2024