Privacy Notice

Trust is crucial for a positive working relationship in counselling. As such, your privacy is very important to me, 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 to me. I 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 I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including:

  • Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for

  • Whether you have to provide it to me

  • How long I store it for

  • Whether there are other recipients of your personal information

  • Your data protection rights

  • Information about data protection and my website

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy. You can contact me via bethanlaceycounselling@gmail.com

‘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 me.

I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. My reference is: ZC019414 

My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information

The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below:

If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I 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 me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me 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 me and you).

How I use your information

Initial contact

When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services, I will collect information to help me respond effectively to your enquiry. This will include your name, home address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, GP details and emergency contact name and telephone number, as well as your reasons for seeking counselling. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf.

If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within two months. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know.

While you are accessing counselling

Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. I am required to undertake regular clinical supervision, to check that I am adhering to all ethical and GDPR standards and to develop myself professionally. During supervisions, I will talk through client work, however this will always be done without disclosing any identifiable information about you. My supervisor is also bound to maintain confidentiality. That confidentiality will only be broken if you share information that puts you or someone else in serious danger, or in the case of disclosure of money laundering, acts of terrorism, human and drug trafficking, or a court order. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services that I provide to run smoothly. These details are kept securely in a password protected digital folder on a secure laptop and are not shared with any third party. I will write up brief, factual written notes after each session and these are saved as a password protected document until they can be printed and stored in a locked cabinet. After they have been locked away, I permanently delete the electronic version of the notes within one week.

For security reasons I do not retain text messages or voicemails for more than six months. If there is relevant information contained in a text message or voicemail, I will add these to the password protected notes relating to your sessions. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after six months, if it is not important. If necessary I will record any additional information in a password protected folder.

 

After counselling has ended

Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for seven years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.

Third party recipients of personal data

I sometimes need to share your data with third parties, for example in the process of using Gmail to email you or Monzo online banking to send you a payment link. I take great care to ensure that your personal data is only shared with trusted sources for essential business purposes. I ensure that third parties do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been approached.

Your data protection rights

You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I 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.

Requests for access to your data should normally be discussed with me in the first instance. Following this, a formal request outlining which records you wish to access should be put in writing to  bethanlaceycounselling@gmail.com If any of the information held about you has been provided by or is about an identifiable third party, I will undertake to seek the consent for disclosure from the third party. If this is not forthcoming, this information will be removed from the records before access is granted to the client.

If I do hold information about you I will:

  • give you a description of it and where it came from

  • tell you why I am holding its, tell you how long I will store your data and how I made this decision

  • tell you who it could be disclosed to

  • let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you.

If you have any complaints about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I always welcome suggestions for improving my data protection procedures.

If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information 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.

Data security

I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. As described above, I used an encrypted laptop and further encrypt all relevant documents with password protection. Any paperwork we create during counselling will be stored in a locked cabinet only accessible by me. At the end of counselling I will offer for you to take any creative pieces away with you. If you do not take them immediately, you will then have two weeks to decide and collect the work. After this point I will dispose of it safely.

Additional information for website owners and employers

Visitors to my website

I use Squarespace as the content management system for our website. When someone visits my website, I use Squarespace as a third-party service to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow Squarespace to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. To find out more about Squarespace and GDPR visit Squarespace and GDPR

I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.

My website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses

No user-specific data is collected by me 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 me.

Changes to privacy notice
This privacy notice may be updated from time to time, so please check occasionally for any updates.

Last updated: January 2026