GDPR Privacy Notice

How I use your information: during counselling

Once we start counselling, I will need to record personal information about you. This information includes your name, address and contact details, and GP practice. This information will be retained in password-protected Word documents, separately from the assessment notes. Your contact details will be used to contact you. Other personal data such as your name, address and/or date of birth will be used to verify your identity if there is a need to contact your GP or a request for access to personal data from yourself or your representative or legitimate legal instrument such as a court order.

Your contact details alone will be shared in exceptional circumstances with my supervisor or other Clinical Trustee in the event that I am incapacitated so that they can contact you to explain the situation. The details of this arrangement are set out in my professional will.

I take brief factual notes of sessions under an identifying code in a password-protected document, stored separately from your personal information and details. Contents of these notes may be shared anonymously with my supervisor, counselling professional body or similar for purposes of maintaining professional standards and aiding my professional development.

Confidentiality can only be broken in the following cases:

• If I have reason to believe that you or someone else is at risk of serious harm (including any child or vulnerable adult currently at risk of abuse).

• If you let me know about any knowledge of terrorist activity, money laundering or drug trafficking.

• If I receive a court order to appear and give evidence.

I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.

How I use your information: after counselling

In accordance with the policies of my insurance provider, personal information will be held for a period of 7 years after the end of our counselling relationship, except if there is a mutually agreed decision to keep it for longer or if I believe that it is in my best professional interest to do so.

I will hold your name and telephone number on my password-protected mobile phone until our counselling relationship ends and then I will delete it from my contact list. However, the phone will retain summary records of calls made to or from your number (date and duration) and any recorded messages for 7 years.

If we agree to communicate by text or by email, these records may be kept for the same duration as your counselling notes. My mobile phone is a smart phone and could therefore also have your texts, and email and email address available on it. The phone is password-protected.

Your Rights

You have the 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 here.

You can ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you.

If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data, or to make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put it in writing via e-mail to info@zsofiatoth-counselling.com.

To make a formal complaint, you can find more information on the procedure here.

Visitors to my website

When someone visits my website (zsofiatoth-counselling.com), I use a third-party service, Google 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.

I use Google Sites as the content management system for our website - find out about Google’s and data protection here. Like most websites my one uses cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about use of cookies here.

No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you choose to contact me via the email at info@zsofiatoth-counselling.com, your data will be handled as described in the "How I use your personal information" section of this policy.