Privacy Policy

ww.whats-happened.com Privacy (GDPR) Policy – Reviewed July 2022

Your privacy is very important, and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given. What’s Happened will 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 will happen with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including:
 

• Why What’s Happened can process your information and the process it is processed for. 
• Whether you must provide it.
• How long it is stored.
• Whether there are other recipients of your personal information.
• Whether there is any intention to transfer it to another country. 
• Whether there will be automated decision-making or profiling, and 
• Your data protection rights. 

All of this can be discussed via email using the ‘Contact me’, rick@whats-happened.com or 07783 118254. ‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/ organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is Rick Hall. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, ZB352198

Lawful basis for holding and using your personal information.

The GDPR states that there must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which your data is processed such as:
 

• If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, legitimate interest will be the lawful basis for holding and using your personal information. 
• If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, your personal data will be processed where it is necessary for the performance of our contract. 
• The GDPR also makes sure that any sensitive personal information that you may disclose is managed appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for 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 (ie a counselling contract). 

How your information will be used

Initial contact

• When you make contact with an enquiry about our counselling services information will be collected to help satisfy your enquiry (eg your name, email address and phone number, GP details and similar). It may also include brief notes about the reasons you give for enquiring about counselling. 
• It might be that your GP or other health professional sends your details when making a referral. 
• Alternatively, a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf.
• Irrespective, if you decide not to proceed all your personal data will be deleted within 48 hours – sooner if you express a preference.

While you are accessing counselling 

• Your information will be kept as described above for my personal records and in case you inform me during or outside a session that you are intending to end your life, or your life is in danger. 
• Your mobile number or email address to confirm appointments, change appointments and to communicate where necessary between sessions. 
• Please note that data transmitted via the internet (e.g. via email communication) may be subject to security breaches. Complete protection of your data from third-party access is not possible. 
• The information disclosed during counselling is confidential. However, there are legal exceptions. For example, if you reveal a threat of harm, or there is a threat of harm to self or to others, a legal obligation arises, or if a court order is received. 
• The ICO will be notified if data security is breached and if it is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of clients. If, for example, it could result in discrimination, damage to reputation, financial loss, loss of confidentiality or any other significant economic or social disadvantage. Where a breach is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, you will also have to notify those concerned directly in most cases. We will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.
• Your personal details will help counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on my password-protected computer and are not shared with any third party. I will keep notes of each session in a password-protected file. For security reasons text messages will not be retained for more than 1 week. If there is relevant information contained in a text message it will be copied into the session notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 1 week if it is not important to our work together. If necessary, a copy of the email will be saved in your session notes. 

After counselling has ended

• Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for 6 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. 

Sharing your data.

Under normal circumstances your address or GP details will not be shared with anyone else. Exceptions include if:

• It is believed that your life is in danger. In this situation, your name, GP details and possibly address would be shared with a GP, safeguarding officer or the police as appropriate. 
• There is reason to believe that you are a sexual, physical or emotional danger to a child or vulnerable adult or if you inform me of someone else who may be a danger to a child or vulnerable adult. 
• There was a court order to share your information or acknowledge our therapeutic relationship.
• Additionally, you should be aware of the following exceptions:

1. All counsellors have regular clinical supervision sessions that only include anonymised aspects of the nature of your work and the therapeutic relationship. 
2. Personal data will sometimes be shared with third parties, for example, with a contracted clinical supervisor or a colleague to execute my Professional Will in the event of my death or incapacitation. In such cases partners are carefully selected and great care is taken to ensure that the contract with the third party clearly states what they are allowed to do with the data shared with them. Such relationships are long-term and carefully vetted to ensure they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted.

Your rights 

• We will try to be as open as possible about giving third parties access to their personal information. 
• You have a right to ask for your personal information to be deleted to limit its use, or to stop processing your personal information. 
• You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information held about you and to object to its use in some circumstances. 

You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters. For any information held about you we will: 

• Give you a description of it and where it came from.
• Tell you why it is being held, how long it will be stored for, who it could be disclosed to and how these decisions were made.
• Let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form. 
• You can ask for corrections in any mistakes there may be in the personal information held about you. To make a request for any personal information held about you, please make a request in writing. If this includes wanting a copy of your session notes, we will need 1 (one) calendar month to comply.

We welcome complaints about how personal data is handled and suggestions for improving data protection procedures and ask that you do so using the contact details on www.whats-happened.com. If you want to make a formal complaint about the way your personal information is handled, you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. 

Right to be Forgotten

You have the right to ask for any information held about you to be erased. This includes your personal information that is no longer relevant to original purposes, or if you wish to withdraw consent. In all cases and when considering such requests, these rights are obligatory unless its information that I have a legal obligation to retain.

Data Portability

As the client, you have the right to receive your personal information which you previously provided, and also have the right to transfer that information to another party. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018, the data “controller” is Rick Hall.

Data security 

The security of the data held about you is taken very seriously. Every effort is made to ensure it is kept secure. Notes and personal information about you are stored in a password protected file on a secure computer which is only accessible by What’s Happened.

Visitors to our website 

• Some data is collected when you provide it. This could, for example, be data you enter on a contact form. However, other data are collected automatically by IT systems when you visit the website. 
• These data are primarily technical data such as the browser and operating system you are using or when you accessed the page. These data are collected automatically as soon as you enter the website.
• When someone visits my website, a third party service (GoDaddy) collects standard internet log information (eg details of visitor behaviour patterns to help understand the number of visitors to the various parts of the site). This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone and neither What’s Happened nor GoDaddy make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. Legitimate interests form the lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit our website. 
• When visiting our website, statistical analyses may be made of your surfing behaviour. This happens primarily using cookies and analytics. The analysis of your surfing behaviour is usually anonymous, i.e. we will not be able to identify you from this data. You can object to this analysis or prevent it by not using certain tools. 
• Should you send questions via the contact form, we will collect the data entered on the form, including the contact details you provide, to answer your question and any follow-up questions. This information is not shared without your permission. We will only process data you enter onto the contact form only with your consent. You may revoke your consent at any time. An informal email making this request is sufficient. The data processed before receipt of your request may still be legally processed.
• We will retain the data you provide on the contact form until you request its deletion, revoke your consent for its storage, or the purpose for its storage no longer pertains (e.g. after fulfilling your request). Any mandatory statutory provisions, especially those regarding mandatory data retention periods, remain unaffected by this provision.

Google Analytics

• This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service. It is operated by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.
• Google Analytics uses so-called “cookies”. These are text files that are stored on your computer and that allow an analysis of the use of the website by you. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there.
• Google Analytics cookies are stored based on Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. The website operator has a legitimate interest in analysing user behaviour to optimise both its website and its advertising.

Cookies

• Like most websites we use cookies to help the site work more efficiently. No user-specific data is collected by What’s Happened or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to us. You can prevent these cookies being stored by selecting the appropriate settings in your browser. However, in that doing so, you will not be able to enjoy the full functionality of this website. 
• You can also prevent the data generated by cookies about your use of the website (including your IP address) from being passed to Google, and the processing of these data by Google, by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

Objecting to the collection of data

• You can prevent the collection of your data by Google Analytics by clicking on the following link. An opt-out cookie will be set to prevent your data from being collected on future visits to this site: Disable Google Analytics.
• For more information about how Google Analytics handles user data, see Google’s privacy policy: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en.

Outsourced data processing

• We have entered into an agreement with Google for the outsourcing of my data processing and fully implement the strict requirements of the UK data protection authorities when using Google Analytics.