Privacy Policy
How your data is handled and how it is kept safe and secure:
Your privacy is important to me and your information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to us. We 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.
This privacy notice tells you what we will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including:
• Why we are able to process your information and the purpose we are processing it for
• Whether you have to provide it to us
• How long it is stored for
• Whether there are other recipients of your personal information
• Whether we intend to transfer it to another country
• Whether we do automated decision-making or profiling, and your data protection rights.
If you have any questions about the data protection policy and you can contact us by emailing: VeritasRoad@protonmail.com
"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 Liam Carney. we am registered with the Information Commissioner's Office: Registration reference: ZB869112
Our lawful basis for holding and using your personal information:
The GDPR states that we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which we are processing your data.
If you have had therapy through us and it has now ended, we 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 us to consider therapy, we will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.
The GDPR also requires that we keep sensitive personal information that you may disclose to us, safe and secure. This type of information is called special category personal information. The lawful basis for us 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 you and a therapist working with/for Veritas Road).
How your information will be used:
Initial contact:
When you contact us with an enquiry about counselling services, we will collect information to help us process your enquiry. This will include your name, contact details, and the reason you are considering counselling at this time.
Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send us your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may provide us with your details, when making an enquiry on your behalf.
If you decide not to proceed, we will ensure all of your personal data is deleted within 24 hours of your request. If you would like us to delete this information sooner, please let us know.
While you are accessing counselling:
Everything you discuss with your counsellor is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there is a reasonable doubt regarding your safety or the safety of another person. We will always attempt to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.
We will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives and are not shared with any third party.
Electronic notes of each session will be kept on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives. These notes are brief and only contain elements of the things discussed with your therapist during the session, as well as anything your therapist may need to remember for your next session (e.g. the name of a book).
For security reasons, text messages are not retained for more than 24 hours. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, it will be retained within electronic form within your therapists notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one week if it does not contain any important or necessary information. Any important or necessary information with be stored securely with your therapists electronic notes on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives.
After counselling has ended:
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 7 years from the end of contact with your therapist and are then securely destroyed; this is in accordance with standard policies for keeping therapy records.
The notes made after your sessions will be kept securely after your last session; your notes will not contain your name nor any other identifying details on or in them. Your contact details will be kept separately and any other details about you, will be held on file during this time. Your details will be kept securely on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives.
Third party recipients of personal data:
We will not routinely share your data with any third party. We do not share client data with anyone else, unless you ask us to pass on your details (e.g. you would like us to refer you to another professional) or we are required to by law.
Your rights:
We aim to be as open as possible in giving people access to their personal information. You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information, to limit how we use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have the right to ask for a copy of any and all information that we 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 we hold information about you, you can request us to:
• give you a description of it and where it came from;
• tell you why we are holding it, tell you how long we will store your data and how we made this decision;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to;
• provide you with a copy of the information in an intelligible form.
You can also request, at any time, to correct any errors there may be in the personal information we hold about you.
To make a request for any personal information that we may hold about you, a request in writing can be made by contacting us at "VeritasRoad@protonmail.com".
If you have a complaint about how we handle or have handled your personal data, please contact us by emailing us at "VeritasRoad@protonmail.com".
If you want to make a formal complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can con tact the ICO, which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law, within the UK.
More information can be found at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
Data security:
The security of the data we hold about you, is treated seriously and as such, we take every effort to make sure it is kept secure.
• Personal details and contact details are stored on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives.
• Any and all notes of sessions are brief, factual and do not have names on them but are identifiable by initials.
• All notes are kept electronically on local, encrypted and password protected hard drives.
• Only, Liam Carney, has access to the data and the places where that data is kept.
Visitors to the website:
When someone visits the Veritas Road website, we use a third party service, Ionos, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitors and their behaviour patterns. This is done to identify different information, such as the number of visitors the site.
This information is processed in a way that does not identify anyone. We do not and do not allow Ionos, to make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting Veritas Road website. No user-specific data is collected by us or any third party.
If you complete a form on the Veritas Road website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to the team at Veritas Road.