Protecting your personal information

Last updated in November 2020

 

We at Gwynedd Therapy, whose place of business is Unit 3, Port Dinorwic Marina, Y Felinheli, Gwynedd, LL56 4JN, United Kingdom, know that you care how information about you is used and shared; and we appreciate your trust in us to do that carefully and sensibly.

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This is our Privacy Policy, relating to our website, use of emails and texts for the purposes of contacting you about our service, and any other ways we collect information. It covers how we process any personal information you provide to us, as well as how we’re committed to keeping it safe and managing it in line with data protection laws. We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller under registration number ZA308750 (Heather Harden).

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Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. We know it’s long, but it contains important information about how we protect, use and process any personal information you give to us. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything with the data you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

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Information we collect

The main pieces of information we collect are:

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• Name

• Mobile phone number

• Email address

• Postal address

• Surgery name and postal address

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When we collect information

There are a few occasions when we might collect information from you. These include when:

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• You first call or email us to make an enquiry about our service; or to make an appointment to meet us

• You contact us through the website via the contact form or chat function

• You give us this information face-to-face if we meet on any occasion

• You attend your first session and sign our Working Agreement

 

We will not collect this information from you at any other time.

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How we collect information

We collect information in the following ways:

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• When you give us your information directly

• When you submit your information through the website

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When you complete a webform on the website, as part of the process, Wix.com collects the personal information given such as your name, phone number and email address. Your personal information will be used for the specific reasons stated above only. We access your data through Wix.com, which is password protected and only accessed by Gwynedd Therapy practitioners.

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How we protect information

We are experienced counsellors / psychotherapists, fully trained in the importance of maintaining confidentiality. We go to great lengths to keep all your information safe. We invest in the appropriate resources to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We make sure we manage it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws.

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However, no internet-based platform, including email, is 100% secure, so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control. When we communicate via email, there is always the possibility that email platforms can be hacked; or email transmission may not be encrypted when corresponding back and forth. We remain mindful of this and ensure that we do everything in our capability to protect your personal information.

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How we use and process information

After we have received your information, there are a few ways in which we might use it to ensure we give you the best possible service. They include:

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• To help us to identify you when you contact us

• To contact you to make, confirm, cancel or reschedule appointments

• To respond to any queries or complaints that you raise

• If we have a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you for instance, where we are ordered by a court or regulatory authority

• For any other purpose to which you agree

 

We will not disclose your information to any third party except in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

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Information safety and access

We want you to know that we will never sell or pass on your personal information to third parties for their own purposes.

As all therapists are required to keep appropriate records of their client work, your therapist may keep some brief notes of your sessions. The notes are fully anonymised and do not contain any of the information we collect from you, as detailed above. Anonymised notes are kept in a locked cabinet or on a password protected secure computer in accordance with data protection laws.

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Each therapist keeps their own notes and they are never shared with anyone, even other therapists within the practice.

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The website is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Your data may be stored through Wix.com’s data storage, databases and the general Wix.com applications. They store your data on secure servers behind a firewall. For full details of Wix.com’s privacy policy visit https://www.wix.com/about/privacy

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Information retention

Our professional insurance requires that all our records are kept for 7 years after which time they will be destroyed.

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How we communicate

We will only ever communicate with you via email or text message, outside of our face to face sessions.

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Visiting third party websites

This website contains links to other websites that we believe may be of interest to you. This Privacy Policy only applies to our website, so if you link to another website, we recommend you read the privacy policy of that website before sharing any personal or financial data.

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Cookies

Like most websites, we use ‘cookies’ to help us improve how we create, and how you use, our site. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and can obtain an overall view of visitor habits and volumes to our website. They can make interacting with a website faster and easier.

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Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by websites that you visit. They are used by most websites in order to make them work efficiently, to make controls respond properly and to provide information to owners of web sites, or third parties. The cookies stored by our site cannot be used to identify you personally.

If you want to know how to disable the use of cookies on your device, visit aboutcookies.org. Please note that if you turn off the use of cookies on the website, you are likely to find your browsing experience significantly degraded.

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When visiting this website, Wix.com uses third party services (Google Analytics) to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This is done to track business needs, such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. Wix.com automatically collects certain information about your device, including information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device.

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Your rights

We want to make sure you’re in control of how we use and keep your information.

You have the right to:

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• be told how your personal information will be used;

• request a copy of the information we hold about you;

• update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong;

• change your communication preferences at any time;

• ask us to remove your personal information from our records (see ‘How We Retain Your Information’ above);

• request an electronic copy of your personal information be sent to you, or another organisation;

• raise a concern or complaint about the way in which your information is being used.

 

If you wish to find out more about these rights, have any questions about this Privacy Policy, have anything you’d like to correct or you’d like to request of copy of the information we hold about you, please contact:

 

Heather Harden

Unit 3

Port Dinorwic Marina

Y Felinheli

Gwynedd

LL56 4JN

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Email: gwyneddtherapy@gmail.com

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Or you can find out more on the Information Commissioner’s Office website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/

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