Privacy Policy

who we are,
how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information,
your rights in relation to your personal information, and
how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event that you have a complaint.

Who we are
David Monks (‘we’ or ‘us’) collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data protection Regulations which apply across the European Union (including the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

The personal information we collect and use
a) Sensitive personal information
Sensitive personal information includes any information which relates to the following:

your physical or mental health or condition

We may request that you provide sensitive information, but if we do, we will in every instance explain why we are requesting it and how we intent to use it. We will only collect your sensitive personal information with your explicit consent.
Some examples of when we may request sensitive personal information include:
As I counsellor and psychotherapist I require brief summaries of the reasons therapy is requested.
b) Personal information you provide about third parties
If you give us information about another person, you confirm that the other person has appointed you to act on their behalf and agreed that you:
shall consent on their behalf to the processing of their personal data;
shall receive any data protection notices on their behalf;
shall consent on their behalf to the transfer of their personal data abroad; and
shall consent on their behalf to the processing of their sensitive personal data.

How we use your personal information
We collect information about our users for the following purposes:

Who your information may be shared with
We may share your information with:
Law enforcement agencies in connection with any investigation to help prevent unlawful activity
We will not share you personal information with any other 3rd parties.

Whether personal information has to be provided by you, and if so why
No personal information has to be provided by you to us at any time.

How long your personal information will be kept
We will hold your personal information for the following periods:
Session notes for clients are kept for the duration of therapy and for some years after as required.
These periods are no longer than necessary in each case.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information
We rely on the following as the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal information:
The basis on which we process your sensitive information (i.e. special category as in the GDPR) is that:
As a counsellor psychotherapist I hold data and information for all my clients. It is used solely for the well being of the client.

Consequence of our use of your personal information
The consequence to you of our use of your personal information is:
The processing of data is solely for the health and well-being of my clients.

Keeping your information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We will also use technological and organisation measures to keep your information secure. These measures may include the following examples:
All clients data is held on a secure double encrypted professional web site endorsed by BACP
We are certified to ISO 27001. This family of standards helps us manage your information and keep it safe and secure.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Indeed, while we will use all reasonable efforts to secure your personal data, in using the site you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred from you or to you via the internet. If you have any particular concerns about your information, please contact us using the details below.

Transfers of your information out of the EEA
We will not transfer your personal information outside of the EEA at any time.

What rights do you have?
Under the General Data Protection Regulation you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:
fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information
access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address
require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you
object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
claim compensation for damages caused by our breach of any data protection laws
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individual’s rights under the General Data Protection Regulations (http://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/)
If you would like to exercise any of these rights please:
email, call or write to us
let us have enough information to identify you
let us have proof of your identity (a copy of your driving license, passport or a recent credit card/utility bill)
let us know the information to which your request relates
From time to time we may also have other methods to unsubscribe (opt-out) from any direct marketing including for example, unsubscribe buttons or web links. If such are offered, please note that there may be some period after selecting to unsubscribe in which marketing may still be received while your request is being processed.

How to complain
We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.
The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113.

Changes to the privacy policy
This privacy policy was published on 10/03/2020 and last updated on 10/03/2020.
We may change this privacy policy from time to time. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access this website. We will also attempt to notify users of any changes by:
Personally in a session with the client

Contacting us
If you have any questions about this policy or the information we hold about you please contact me directly.