Policy on Confidentiality, Privacy, and Complaints
Therapy Law is the trading tool of Barbara Mitchels.
All client information, including personal details of enquiries from visitors to the website and the issues about which advice and assistance is sought, is treated as confidential, subject to the requirements of the UK law, and of national policies on safeguarding.
Please Note:
Barbara is retired from practice as a solicitor and so her professional consultancy and the use of this website does not create any form of solicitor-client relationship, therefore any information or practice assistance provided in the consultancy does not carry legal privilege or constitute formal legal advice. The consultancy service is subject to professional rules of confidentiality and ethics and to UK data protection law.
Use of the Contact Form on this Web Site
You may use the contact form on this website. I will respond to you and obtain the necessary details from you to assess whether or not the issue is one with which I can help. If we agree to work together, we will then agree a fee and the terms of our work together.
If I cannot help you, or if you need additional support or specific legal advice, I may be able to assist you to locate advice and help from appropriate professional experts.
The website contents, its format and any materials and free guidance published on it all belong to Dr. B Mitchels, who reserves all rights as author of the material. You may print out or use copies of the materials on this website for your own use or for non-commercial purposes. Any other use requires express written permission.
Dr Mitchels is registered with the ICO's Data Protection Public Register. The privacy and confidentiality of client data is protected under this legislation when you visit the website or submit requests. All client data is held, collected and used in compliance with the current data protection legislation. More information on the legislation about privacy can be found at www.ico.org.uk.
Watershed Counselling Service and Therapy Law
work within the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions
published by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, available at www.bacp.co.uk.
We comply with the requirements of the law, and of current national safeguarding policies and guidance for adults and children.
Website Users UK-GDPR Privacy Notice
Introduction
This Privacy Policy outlines the Watershed and Therapy Law ("we", "our" ) practices with respect to information collected from users who access our website at www.therapylaw.co.uk ("Site") and /or who otherwise share personal information with us (collectively: "Site Users").
The responsible authority within the meaning of data protection laws, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Watershed's Data Controller is Dr. B. Mitchels. The responsible Authority is the ICO at www.ico.org.uk.
Website User Rights
You may request to:
- Receive confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning you is being processed and access your stored personal information, together with supplementary information.
- Receive a copy of personal information you directly volunteer to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.
- Request rectification of your personal information that is in our control.
- Request erasure of your personal information.
- Object to the processing of personal information by us.
- Request to restrict processing of your personal information by us.
- Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
However, please note that these rights are not absolute and may be subject to our own and other legitimate interests and regulatory requirements, including national safeguarding policies and procedures.
If you wish to exercise any of the above rights or receive more information, please contact our Data Protection Officer (“DPO”) using the details provided in the contacts page of this website.
Retention
We will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to respond to you and then, if your enquiry does not result in you becoming a client or otherwise using our services, your data will be deleted within 7 days from notification of cessation of correspondence with you, unless you have requested us to inform you of future CPD events, or services.
If you request us to provide you with our Therapy-Law services, we will retain your information for as long as necessary to provide the service for you, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our policies. Following this, the information will be deleted.
We may rectify, replenish or remove incomplete or inaccurate information, at any time and at our own discretion.
Grounds for data collection
Processing of your personal information (i.e. any information which may potentially allow your identification through reasonable means; hereinafter "Personal Information") is necessary for the performance of our contractual obligations towards you and providing you with our services, to protect our legitimate interests and for compliance with legal and financial regulatory obligations to which we are subject.
When you use the Site, you consent to the collection, storage, use, disclosure and other uses of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.
What information do we collect?
We collect two types of data and information from Site Users.
The first type of information is unidentified and non-identifiable information pertaining to a Site User(s), which may be made available or gathered via your use of the Site (“Non-personal Information”). We are not aware of the identity of a User from which the Non-personal Information was collected. Non-personal Information which is being collected may include your aggregated usage information and technical information transmitted by your device, including certain software and hardware information (e.g. the type of browser and operating system your device uses, language preference, access time, etc.) in order to enhance the functionality of our Site. We may also collect information on your activity on the Site (e.g. pages viewed, online browsing, clicks, actions, etc.).
The second type of information Personal Information , which is individually identifiable information, namely information that identifies an individual or may with reasonable effort identify an individual. Such information includes:
Device Information: Personal Information from your device may be collected when you access this Site. Such information includes geolocation data, IP address, unique identifiers (e.g. MAC address and UUID) and other information which relates to your activity through the Site.
Registration information: When you register with our Site by completing the contact form, you will be asked to provide us with certain details such as: your name; email, (phone number and/or your address if you wish, these are optional) , and other information you wish to provide such as brief details of your enquiry.
We receive your Personal Information when:
- You voluntarily provide us with your personal details in order to register on our Site and complete the contact form;
- When you use or access our Site in connection with your use of our services;
- From third-party providers, services and public registers (for example, traffic analytics vendors).
How do we safeguard your information?
For those completing the Contact Form, we take great care in implementing and maintaining the security of the Site and your information. Although we take reasonable steps to safeguard information, we cannot be responsible for the acts of those who gain unauthorised access or abuse our Site, and we can make no warranty, express, implied or otherwise, that we will prevent such access.
How is the information used? With whom do we share the information?
We respect your confidence and we will not rent, sell or share Site Users’ information with third parties, except as described in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed between us.
We may use the information for the following:
- Communicating with you – sending you replies regarding our services, providing you with information and appropriate assistance as may be agreed, and responding to any customer service issue you may have;
- To communicate with you and to keep you informed about our latest updates and services if you request us to do so;
- For statistical and analytical purposes, intended to improve the Site.
In addition to the purposes listed in this Privacy Policy, the Personal Information you have provided on the contact form may be shared with our trusted third-party providers, who may be located in different jurisdictions across the world, for any of the following purposes:
- Hosting and operating our Site;
- Storing and processing such information on our behalf,
- Providing you with our services,
- Providing you with details of our future events or workshops;
- Performing technical diagnostics or analytics;
We may also disclose information if we have good reason to believe that disclosure of such information is helpful or reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (ii) enforce our policies (including our Agreement), including investigations of potential violations thereof; (iii) investigate, detect, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities or other wrongdoing, suspected fraud or security issues; (iv) to establish or exercise our rights to defend against legal claims; (v) prevent harm to the rights, property or safety of us, our users, yourself or any third party; or (vi) for the purpose of collaborating with law enforcement agencies and/or in case we find it necessary in order to enforce intellectual property or other legal rights.
Cookies
We and our trusted partners use cookies and other technologies in our related services, including when you visit our Site or access our services.
A "cookie" is a small piece of information that a website assigns to your device while you are viewing a website. Cookies are very helpful and can be used for various different purposes. These purposes include allowing you to navigate between pages efficiently, enabling automatic activation of certain features, remembering your preferences and making the interaction between you and our Services quicker and easier. Cookies are also used to help make sure that the advertisements you see are relevant to you and your interests and to compile statistical data on your use of our Services.
The Site uses the following types of cookies:
a. 'session cookies' , which are stored only temporarily during a browsing session in order to allow normal use of the system and are deleted from your device when the browser is closed;
b. 'persistent cookies', which are read only by the Site, saved on your computer for a fixed period and are not deleted when the browser is closed. Such cookies are used where we need to know who you are for repeat visits, for example to allow us to store your preferences for the next sign-in;
c. 'third-party cookies' , which are set by other online services who run content on the page you are viewing, for example by third-party analytics companies who monitor and analyse our web access.
Cookies do not contain any information that personally identifies you, but Personal Information that we store about you may be linked, by us, to the information stored in and obtained from cookies. You may remove the cookies by following the instructions of your device preferences; however, if you choose to disable cookies, some features of our Site may not operate properly and your online experience may be limited.
The Site operator uses a tool which is based on the Snowplow Analytics technology to collect information about your use of the Site. The tool collects information such as how often users access the Site, which pages they visit when they do so, etc. The tool does not collect any Personal Information and is only used by our Site hosting and operating service provider to improve the Site and services.
Use of script libraries (Google Web Fonts)
In order to present our contents correctly and make them graphically appealing across all browsers, we use script libraries and font libraries such as Google Web Fonts (https://www.google.com/webfonts) on this website. Google Web Fonts are transferred to your browser's cache to avoid multiple loading. If your browser does not support Google Web Fonts or does not allow access, content will be displayed in a default font.
Calling script libraries or font libraries automatically triggers a connection to the library operator. In theory, it is possible – but currently also unclear whether and, if so, for what purposes – that operators of corresponding libraries collect data.
The privacy policy of the library operator Google can be found here: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.
Third-party collection of information
Our policy only addresses the use and disclosure of information that we collect from you.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, nor to individuals whom we do not employ or manage.
Minors under the age of 18 years
We understand the importance of protecting children’s privacy, especially in an online environment. If children and young people under the age of 18 wish to use the services of Watershed Counselling Service, an individual assessment and privacy agreement will be negotiated with the client and where appropriate, also with those with parental responsibility for them.
The Therapylaw consultancy services are not designed or intended for the use of children and young people under the age of 18.
Updates or amendments to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to periodically amend or revise the Privacy Policy; material changes will be effective immediately upon the display of the revised Privacy policy. The last revision will be reflected in the "Last modified" section. Your continued use of the Platform, following the notification of such amendments on our website, constitutes your acknowledgment and consent of such amendments to the Privacy Policy and your agreement to be bound by the terms of such amendments.
How to contact us
If you have any general questions about the Site or the information we collect about you on this Site and how we use it, please get in touch with us using the contact form on this Site.
Last Modified May 2024