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.

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This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information, from the initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including:

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• 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

• Where it will be stored, and

• Your data protection rights.

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I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy, and you can contact me via mail@katharinecollins.co.uk.

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‘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 me. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office; my registration number is ZA736202. My postal address is: 3 Royal Crescent, Cheltemham, GL503DA. My phone number is: 07912422974. My email address is: mail@katharinecollins.co.uk.

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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.

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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.

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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 the provision of health treatment (in this case couselling/psycotherapy) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between you and me).

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How I use your information

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Initial contact

When you contact me with an enquiry about my services, I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name, contact details, and potenitally a brief statement about why you are seeking therapy . 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 enquiring on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 1 year. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

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While you are accessing therapy.

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if in my opinion, there is a threat to your own safety or to the safety of others, or if I am obliged to do so by law. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there is a valid reason that prevents this. You can read my safeguarding policy at

I will keep a record of your personal details. These details are kept securely within my Gmail, and are not shared with any third party. I am required by the BACP and my insurer to keep written notes of each session, and I use Joy. day to fulfil this requirement. Joy is a Swedish company and is fully compliant with UK data protection and processing laws. I use 2-factor authentication to access your notes, and your data is encrypted and stored safely in Europe. Details of our sessions are only accessible to me, or Joy employees if given permission to enter my records for the purpose of resolving an issue for me.

Joy has a AI (artificial intelligence) function which I use to create a summary version of my notes for quick reference. This helps to refresh my memory of our last session and current priorities before our next session. If you are not comfortable with me using this function, let me know and I am able to turn it off. I do not currently use AI in any other way in our work together, and if I should wish to in future, I will seek your permission first.

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For security reasons, I do not retain text messages for more than one year. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will include it in my session notes. I am now required to keep all email correspondence for a period of 7 years along with my session notes, after which time they will be deleted.

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I am required to hold a clinical will, which makes provisions in the unlikely event that I am seriously injured or die without warning. Your name and contact details are stored securely within ClinicalWill.app and can be accessed by my appointed trustee if necessary to inform you of the situation. My appointed trustee is a trusted friend who is also a psychotherapist.

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After therapy has ended

Once therapy has ended, your records will be kept for seven years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely deleted.

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Third party recipients of personal data

I work with a number of trusted third parties who will also have access to your data. I take 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. These third parties are:

• Google Workspace, including Gmail, Calendar, and Gdrive

• Joy which I use to record and store my notes

• Esignatures.com which I use to send my contracts. Esignatures is GDPR compliant, your data is stored in the UK and is never sold, shared, or used for document content for advertising, data brokerage, or AI training.

• ClinicalWill.app who hold your name and contact details so my trustee can contact you if I am unable to do so due to a serious accident or death

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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. There are limitations to this, and it may or may not be possible depending on the individual circumstance. If you do not want me to hold any information about you, we will not be able to work together. 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;

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• 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.

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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 mail@katharinecollins.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 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.

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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. I use secure passwords for my Google Workspace, and case notes can only be accessed using two-factor authentication. Your case notes are stored under a code rather than your name, although your first name will feature in the notes themselves. I try to avoid identifying information in my notes, such as the name of your employer. My laptop, computer and phone are password protected and kept in secure locations or on my person.

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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. Like most websites, I use cookies to help the site work more efficiently. When entering my site you will be asked to consent to my use of cookies, and you can change your consent at any time with effect for the future. 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.