Richmond Psychotherapy understands that your privacy is important to you and that you have the right to know about how your personal data is used. We respect and value the privacy of our clients and prospective clients, and everyone who visits our website, http://www.richmondpsychotherapy.org (“Our Site”). We will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a way that is consistent with our obligations and your rights under the law.

Information about us

Richmond Psychotherapy is the data controller, registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Our address 15, Worple Way, Richmond, TW10 6DG.

To contact us with a data protection query regarding the processing of your personal data, please use the contact us or email stuartlee@richmondpsychotherapy.org

What Is Personal Data?

Personal data is defined by the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, “the Data Protection Legislation”) as ‘any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified in particular by reference to an identifier’.

Personal data is, in simpler terms, any information about you that enables you to be identified. Personal data covers obvious information such as your name and contact details, but it also covers less obvious information such as identification numbers, electronic location data, and other online identifiers.

Details of our processing

We believe that all these purposes are justified on the basis of our legitimate interests in running and promoting the business, our contractual requirements to deliver the agreed products and services to you, and our legal obligations, the exception is for and collecting non-essential cookies which we rely on the basis of consent. If you would like to know more, please read below:

  • Clients
  • Prospective Clients
  • Website Visitors

Clients

As a client, we will hold the following information about you:

  • Contact data: name, email address, address, telephone number(s)
  • Personal data: age
  • Profile information: a record of session attendance and payment history

We use this Data to meet our contractual requirements to support us in providing our psychotherapy services to you. We also use your Personal Data as required by law, such as for tax purposes. We also use your information to invoice you, and to keep track of payments that you make.

Prospective Clients

As a prospective client, we will hold the following information about you:

  • Your name and contact information.
  • Emails relating to the service we are providing, including communications with you.

If you make an enquiry to us via email or phone we will use this information to follow-up on this enquiry to see if we can help you.

How long will you keep my personal data?

We will not keep your personal data for any longer than is necessary in light of the reason(s) for which it was first collected. Your personal data will therefore be kept for the following periods:

  • Prospective clients: we will retain information about you for the duration of the enquiry.
  • Clients: We will retain information about you for the duration of our relationship with you, then 7 years. This is a requirement of our insurers.

How and where do you store or transfer my personal data?

We do store some of your personal data in countries outside of the UK. These are known as “third countries”. We will take additional steps in order to ensure that your personal data is treated just as safely and securely as it would be within the UK and under the Data Protection Legislation as follows:

  1. We will only store or transfer personal data in or to countries that are deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data. For further information about adequacy decisions and adequacy regulations, please refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
  2. We will use specific approved contracts which ensure the same levels of personal data protection that apply under the Data Protection Legislation. For further information, please refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The security of your personal data is essential to us, and to protect your data, we take a number of important measures, including the following:

  1. limiting access to your personal data to those employees and clinical executors with a legitimate need to know and ensuring that they are subject to duties of confidentiality;
  2. procedures for dealing with data breaches (the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, your personal data) including notifying you and/or the Information Commissioner’s Office where we are legally required to do so.

Do you share my personal data?

Your name and contact details are only shared one exceptional circumstance:

  1. We are required by the registering bodies United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy to engage clinical supervisors. These are senior psychotherapists who, in the eventuality of the serious illness or death of your psychotherapist would contact you. They will not access your information or contact you under any other circumstances.

How do you use cookies?

Our Site may place and access certain first-party Cookies on your computer or device. First-party Cookies are those placed directly by us and are used only by us. We use Cookies to facilitate and improve your experience of Our Site and to provide and improve our products and services. We have carefully chosen these Cookies and have taken steps to ensure that your privacy and personal data is protected and always respected.

All Cookies used by and on Our Site are used in accordance with current Cookie Law.

Before Cookies are placed on your computer or device, you will be shown a pop-up requesting your consent to set those Cookies. By giving your consent to the placing of Cookies you are enabling us to provide the best possible experience and service to you. You may, if you wish, deny consent to the placing of Cookies; however certain features of Our Site may not function fully or as intended. Our Site uses analytics services provided by Google. Website analytics refers to a set of tools used to collect and analyse anonymous usage information, enabling us to better understand how Our Site is used. This, in turn, enables us to improve Our Site and the products and services offered through it.

The analytics service(s) used by Our Site use(s) Cookies to gather the required information. You do not have to allow us to use these Cookies, however whilst our use of them does not pose any risk to your privacy or your safe use of Our Site, it does enable us to continually improve Our Site, making it a better and more useful experience for you.

In addition to the controls that we provide, you can choose to enable or disable Cookies in your internet browser. Most internet browsers also enable you to choose whether you wish to disable all Cookies or only third-party Cookies. By default, most internet browsers accept Cookies, but this can be changed. For further details, please consult the help menu in your internet browser or the documentation that came with your device.

You can choose to delete Cookies on your computer or device at any time, however you may lose any information that enables you to access Our Site more quickly and efficiently including, but not limited to, login and personalisation settings.

It is recommended that you keep your internet browser and operating system up-to-date and that you consult the help and guidance provided by the developer of your internet browser and manufacturer of your computer or device if you are unsure about adjusting your privacy settings.

Your Rights

  1. As an individual whose personal data is processed by Richmond Psychotherapy you have these rights.
  2. The right to be informed, which is what this privacy policy is for.
  3. The right to access what data we hold about you.
  4. The right to object to direct marketing – Richmond Psychotherapy does not use direct marketing.
  5. The right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests.
  6. The right to erasure (in some circumstances).
  7. The right to data portability.
  8. The right to have your data rectified if it is inaccurate.
  9. The right to have your data restricted or blocked from processing.

If, at any time, you want to verify, update or amend your personal data please email stuartlee@richmondpsychotherapy.org

You also have the right to lodge a complaint about our processing with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 09/1/2023.