ALISON WATERS PSYCHOTHERAPY

The legal obligations for how I process your personal information are set out in the following legislation: UK Data Use and Access Act 2026 UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU/2016/679) UK Data Protection Act 2018. ​ Your privacy is very important to me, and you can be confident that your personal information is kept securely and is only used for the purpose it was given to me. ​ This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information, from the initial point of contact, through to after therapy ends, 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 any other recipients of your personal information Whether I intend to transfer it to another country Whether I do automated decision making or profiling Your data protection rights. ​ ​ Data Controller ​ I, Alison Waters, am the data controller. This means that I am the person who is responsible, within my business, of managing how I collect, store and use your personal information. ​ I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – Registration number ZB330020. ​ My postal address is: Alison Waters, Office at the rear, 8 Regent Place, Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX6 2HG. My email address is: alisonwaterspsychotherapy@protonmail.com My telephone number is: 07825 153680. ​ 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. ​ 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. 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. ​ 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 psychotherapy) 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 psychotherapy service, I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name, telephone number, and potentially your email address. It will also include brief details of the reasons why you are seeking psychotherapy. If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 2 years. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know. ​ While you are accessing psychotherapy:​ ​ Please be assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken in the following circumstances: ​ Where you give me consent for confidentiality to be broken Where I am legally bound by a court of law Where there is potential harm to you, someone else or to a child. This includes acts of terrorism, benefit fraud and money laundering. Where any absence or ‘clinical will’ comes into force and the person authorised to carry out my clinical will (my ‘clinical executor’ who is another psychotherapist who I have authorised) is instructed to contact you. A clinical will is a mechanism put in place to ensure that, should I be incapacitated or die, my clinical executor will contact you, terminate therapy ethically, and dispose of my confidential records securely. I will always try to speak to you about any break in confidentiality first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. ​ I will keep a record of your personal details to help my psychotherapy service run smoothly. These details are kept securely in a locked filing cabinet, and are not shared with any third party. I use a unique client reference number for each client. The registration document that we complete during the first session is the only document which links your name and contact details with your client reference number. Your registration document is kept in a separate part of the locked filing cabinet than your ongoing session notes. ​ I keep handwritten notes of each session. These are kept in an envelope which contains only your notes, identified with your client reference number. ​ For security reasons I do not retain text messages for more than one year. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will include this in the client session notes. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after one year if it is not important. If clinically relevant, I will keep important emails for the same period as I keep your session notes. ​ After psychotherapy has ended ​ Once psychotherapy has ended, your records will be kept for seven years from the end of our contact with each other (similar to medical records) 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 ​ Where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out a specific service, I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, my accountant will see my bank statements which include your name against your payments. In such cases I have carefully selected who I work with. I take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. ​ Your rights ​ I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. 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 ​ 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 it 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. ​ To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to alisonwaterspsychotherapy@protonmail.com . You may also make a request verbally for your data, or by letter (at the address in the Data Controller section of this privacy notice). ​ Transferring data to other countries ​ I do not transfer any of your personal information to other countries. ​ Automated decision making and profiling ​ I do not do any automated decision making or profiling with your personal data ​ Visitors to my website ​ When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, ‘Wix’ 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 Wix to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website. You can read Wix’s privacy notice here About Privacy | WIX . ​ I use Wix as the content management system for my website. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me. ​ Questions ​ If you have any questions about how I collect, use, or store your personal information, I am happy to talk them through with you, and aim to be as clear as possible. ​ Privacy Notice Review ​ This privacy notice is subject to review every three years, unless required sooner, for example if the laws around data protection change. ​ Privacy notice created: July 2026. Privacy notice next due for routine review: July 2029.