Data Protection
Anxiety Counselling
Your Privacy Matters
This privacy policy contains information about how and why I collect personal information. How it is used, the circumstances in which I may disclose it to others. How I keep your information secure. Some of this information is specific to WordPress and how it operates, which is the platform for this website. However, this policy also covers other social media I utilise and information I collect from clients and potential clients.
This policy may be reviewed and updated from time to time. However, I will advise if any amendments are made to this policy. Should you have any queries regarding this policy, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me by email.
Who I Am
My name is David S Pender. I am a d BACP counsellor, and this is my website at https://anxietycounsellingservices.co.uk/ I reside and practice in the United Kingdom. As such, this policy and the work I carry out is subject to England and Wales’s laws and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) under European Union law.
Information Collected and How it is Used
Personal information, including but not limited to your name, contact details and notes of the work we do together, is collected for communication and the counselling work that we do together. If you do not wish to provide certain information, this may impact our ability to work together. I only request details that are necessary to provide you with excellent and safe service.
Email addresses and phone numbers may be stored on my mobile phone and personal computer from the initial contact point until we cease working together. I endeavour at all times to keep information secure. Upon cessation of our work together, any digital communication and information will be deleted.
Paper records of our work together are kept in a locked file for five years, which will then be destroyed.
Sharing Information
I do not share your information with third parties save for certain circumstances, namely where you express intentions to harm yourself or others; there is a risk of harm to a child in your care, you disclose involvement in criminal activities such as but not limited to money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorism. I am required to by court order. In such circumstances, I will notify you of my intention to share your information with other parties unless it is not possible or safe. I also do not receive any information about clients or potential clients from third parties.
Under professional practice and the ethical codes, I undertake regular supervision as required with a clinical supervisor to ensure I maintain high standards of professional practice. This means I will need to discuss work I undertake with clients with my clinical supervisor from time to time; however, all cases are kept anonymous, and no identifying or personal information is provided. My clinical supervisor is an accredited member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and follows the same professional and ethical protocols.
What rights do you have over your data?
Under the terms of GDPR, you have the following rights:-
A the right to access
B the right to rectification
C the right to be forgotten
D the right to restrict processing
E the right to object to processing
F the right to data portability
G the right to complain to a supervisory authority
H the right to withdraw consent
These rights are subject to limitations and exceptions. You can learn more about your rights under GDPR by visiting https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/.
If you wish to exercise any of your rights regarding your personal data/information under the GDPR, don’t hesitate to contact me directly by email in the first instance to advise.
WordPress Information
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site, we collect the data shown in the comments form and the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site, you may save your name, email address, and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
We will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices when you log in. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. When you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
When you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after one day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How long do I retain your data?
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so I can automatically recognise and approve any follow-up comments instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profiles. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
If you have an account on this site or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any information you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Contact forms
Information shared via this site’s contact form may be stored on my personal computer and mobile phone. All efforts are made to ensure that all information transmitted digitally is kept confidential and secure. If your enquiry by contact form does not lead to instructing me as your counsellor, any communication between us will be deleted.
General Internet Data
Cookies
This website uses cookies. Cookies are small text files saved on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites. cookies enable websites to remember when you have visited and make marketing more efficient. Cookies do not collect any personally identifiable or sensitive information (unless you permit them to do so), nor do cookies pass on any personal information about you to third parties.
If the settings on your browser enable you to accept cookies, this, and your continued use of the website, is taken as consent to the use of cookies on this website. If you do not wish to accept cookies or wish to remove cookies, please check your browser’s help section for information on how to do this. You may find, however, that some functions of this website do not work as expected.
Third-Party Cookies and Function
This site includes functionality provided by third parties, for example, if a video from YouTube is embedded into a post.
Cookies and Data From Social Networks
The privacy policies of social networks will vary from platform to platform and depend upon the privacy settings you utilise on these networks. I use Instagram and LinkedIn networks. Would you please check their privacy policies for how they work and protect your information on these platforms?
LinkedIn Privacy Policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
LinkedIn Cookie Policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/cookie-policy