Diverse Therapy Privacy Notice
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 (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the DUAA 2025. 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 on gemma.silander@protonmail.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. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office ZB966690.
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
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, phone number and email address if provided. 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 30 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. That confidentiality will only be broken if you, or another person are at significant risk of harm, for the safeguarding of a child or vulnerable adult, or if the law states I must report it. 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 a password protected device and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session; these are kept securely on a password protected device. For security reasons I do not retain text messages or social media messages for more than 30 days. If there is relevant information contained in a text or social media message, I will save this to my password protected device. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 30 days if it is not important. If necessary, I will save this to your record on a password protected device.
After counselling has ended.
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for five years from the end of our contact with each other (or five years after the child turns eighteen in the case of children) and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.
Third party recipients of personal data
I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks, such as the provider I use for online sessions, Doxy.me. You can find the privacy notice for Doxy.me here Privacy Policy | How doxy.me Protects Your Data.
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.
Information relating to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, Webador, 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 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 Webador 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 this way when you visit my website.
I use Webador so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Webador’s privacy notice here Privacy statement | Webador.
I also use Webador as my content management system.
Like most websites we use cookies. These are strictly technical cookies that are necessary for the website to function.
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.
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 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 gemma.silander@protonmail.com.
If you have a complaint about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by emailing gemma.silander@protonmail.com . Please describe your concern as clearly as you can and include any relevant dates or details. I will acknowledge receipt within 30 days. I will then look into your concern and respond without due delay. 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. The details for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office are ico.org.uk, or by calling 0303 123 1113.
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 password protected devices and locked filing cabinets for any paper storage.
By signing a counselling agreement with me, you are giving consent for your data to be used in this way.