GDPR & PRIVACY POLICY

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I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), reference ZA798183.

 

As a sole employee of Caterpillar:Butterfly and as a child and young persons' psychotherapeutic counsellor I am absolutely committed to respecting your right to privacy and protecting your personal information. This is a summary of what I do with your information in order to provide this counselling service; including what information I collect and hold, why I collect this data, how long it is kept for and what rights you have over your personal data.

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Your Rights

Under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulations (UKGDPR), which are Articles maintained in UK law, you have a number of legal rights to control what I do with your information. These are:

• The right to be informed (to know why I collect data, what I use it for and who I'll share it with).

• The right of access (to access personal data electronically or by hard copy via a Subject Access Request).

• The right to rectification (to have inaccurate data corrected).

• The right to erasure (to request verbally or in writing that personal information be erased - although some data is maintained by law).

• The right to restrict processing (to restrict what I use your data for and to stop its use for certain processes).

• The right to data portability (to obtain and reuse your personal data, and be able to easily move, copy or transfer it).

• The right to object (to be able to easily object to the processing of personal data, i.e. consent for photos).

• Rights related to automated decision making and profiling (in the case of solely automated decision making and profiling).

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Information About You and How I Use It

I collect and process various types of personal information about you, provided by you for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes. This information includes Personal Data including your name, date of birth, gender, email addresses, telephone numbers and your session availability. I may also hold Sensitive Data about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, health data, sex life and sexual orientation. I ensure this information is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in order to contact you and to provide you with an appropriate counselling service, suitable for your needs. I recognise that information you provide can be sensitive and I will respect your confidentiality. 

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Security

All data held, on paper or electronically, will be stored securely and I control who has access to it. Paperwork is kept under a double lock and electronic data is password protected or stored on an encrypted device. I will never repurpose any of your data or share it with any external person, IT system, company or organisation without your knowledge and consent unless there is a legal requirement to do so, if there is a child or adult safeguarding issue or a perceived risk of harm to you, to me or someone else. My Clinical Supervisor, bound by the same GDPR principles, has restricted access to your basic contact details in case of my incapacitation. When you finish counselling all email and texts will be deleted. In line with current insurance guidelines clinical notes regarding your counselling will be stored securely for a maximum of seven years (or seven years from your 18th birthday if you were under 18 when you started counselling) and then destroyed.

I will take all reasonable precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of information that you give me. I may send emails and texts to you in connection with this service which will not be sent in encrypted form, so please note that these are not fully secure forms of communication. Whilst I will endeavour to keep my systems and communications protected against viruses and other harmful effects, I cannot guarantee that all communications will be virus free.

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 Summary

You can ask me to tell you what information I have about you and get a copy of it; correct, update or erase information that is wrong and request that I stop note-taking in certain circumstances. Please understand that in some cases asking me to do this may mean I am no longer able to provide you with my services.

If you would like to see the information I hold about you, or would like to correct, update or delete any records, please email me at nicola.caterpillarbutterfly@gmail.com. If you have any concerns about my use of your data please contact me and I will do my best to resolve any concerns you have. If these are not resolved to your satisfaction you may choose to contact the ICO (https://ico.org.uk/).                                                   January 2023 

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