Who I am
This Privacy Notice is for Sophie Burrows, owner of Sophie Burrows Counselling (the Business).
The website address is: https://sophieburrowscounselling.co.uk.
Purpose of this policy
This Privacy Policy describes how and when I collect, use, and share information when you contact me, attend an assessment, use my website, or engage in therapy.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that I do not own or control, including the BACP, of which I am a member. You can reference the BACP Privacy Policy to learn more about its privacy practices.
What personal data I collect and why I collect it
Website comments
My website does not currently allow comments. In the event that comments were activated and visitors leave comments on the site, I would collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
If you were to leave a comment, an anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture may be visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Contact forms
When you contact me using my online contact form, I collect your name, email address, phone number, message and your consent to the processing of your personal data subject to the limitations set out in this policy.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Personal data
In the general course of contacting me and engaging with my services, you may provide me with certain information, such as your name, email address, postal address, and telephone number.
Due to the nature of the services I offer I also collect other personal information, including details of your history, medical information, a risk assessment and details of why you have decided to engage in therapy.
Some of this data is classed as sensitive personal data and is subject to stricter data processing restrictions.
Analytics
Like most website owners, I use Google Analytics to monitor the performance of my website. I am using Google Analytics 4 which anonymises your IP address by default. Your IP address is no longer deemed personal information once it is anonymised. Google Analytics also stores user IDs, hashed/encrypted data and transaction IDs.
From time to time, I will also be running tests on my website to improve its performance.
Why I Need Your Information and How I Use It
As needed to provide my services, improve my website, contact you, and publish your comments.
To provide me with some of the background and therefore a context to the issues you wish to address in therapy.
Who I share your data with
The Business may share this information with its consultants and professional advisers. They will agree to the terms of the Business’s Data Protection and Data Security Policy or the Business will make sure that they have appropriate policy in place as well as appropriate measures to keep your information safe and secure.
What rights you have over your data
If you reside in certain territories, including the EU, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal information. While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply only in certain limited cases. I describe these rights below:
Access
You may have the right to access and receive a copy of the personal information I hold about you by contacting me using the contact information below.
Change, restrict, delete
You may also have rights to change, restrict my use of, or delete your personal information. Except in circumstances where I am legally obliged to keep this data I will generally delete your personal information upon request.
Complain
If you reside in the EU and wish to raise a concern about my use of your information (and without prejudice to any other rights you may have), you have the right to do so with your local data protection authority.
How to Contact Me
For purposes of EU data protection law, I, Sophie Burrows, am the data controller of your personal information as provided to Sophie Burrows Counselling. If you have any questions or concerns, you may contact me at sophie@sbcounselling.co.uk.
Where I send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
How long I store your data and how I protect it
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
The Business is required by law to keep your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is using it. The period for which the Business keeps your personal information will be determined by a number of criteria, including the purposes for which it is using the information, the amount and sensitivity of the information, the potential risk from any unauthorised use or disclosure of the information, and its legal and regulatory obligations.
The Business will then dispose your information by physically destroying any carrier of personal information such as paper or any physical storage device. Paper documents should be shredded and CDs or similar must be rendered permanently unreadable.
Any files will be destroyed beyond recovery.
My copy of your contract, the form we fill out at your assessment, any work we have done in sessions and any of my notes regarding our sessions are scanned and kept on secure cloud storage for seven years in accordance with guidance from the BACP.
Any notes regarding our sessions are anonymous and do not contain any person identifiable information and are not kept in the same folder as your contracts. I do not store any client files on my computer.
Your telephone number is stored on my mobile phone, along with a code which I can use to identify you. Your name is not stored in my phone, and only I know which code relates to which client.
If I have your email address, it is held within a password-protected account that only I and trusted third parties have access to: likewise, if you contact me through Facebook I am the only person with access to that information.
What data breach procedures I have in place
The Business also has procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. The Business will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where it is legally required to do so.
What third parties I receive data from
I receive data from Counselling Directory and Psychology Today if you chose to contact me through these third parties. Please refer to these third parties’ privacy policies for information on how they handle your personal data.
What automated decision making and/or profiling I do with user data
I am not relying on any automated decision-making system at the moment.
Industry regulatory disclosure requirements
I may be required by law to break confidentiality with you in the event of a disclosure related to harm, drug dealing, terrorism and child protection. I am also required to engage in supervision, where I will discuss your case. This supervisor is also bound by a duty of confidentiality.
Cookies
This Cookie Policy explains how I use cookies and similar technologies to recognise you when you visit my website at https://sophieburrowscounselling.co.uk. It explains what these technologies are and why I use them, as well as your rights to control my use of them.
You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on my website. Should you decide to change your preferences later through your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookie Policy” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again enabling you to change your preferences or withdraw your consent entirely. The cookie remembering your consent lasts for one year.
In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. To find out more about how to manage and delete cookies, visit wikipedia.org, www.allaboutcookies.org.
I do not currently allow comments on my website, therefore there is no cookie associated with them. However, if comments were to activated and you were to leave a comment on my site, you may be able to opt-in to saving your name, email address and IP address in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. If activated, these cookies would last for one year.
In some cases, we may use cookies to collect personal information, or that becomes personal information if I combine it with other information.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by website owners in order to make their websites work, or to make them work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.
Cookies set by the website owner (in this case, Sophie Burrows) are called “first party cookies”. Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called “third party cookies”. Third party cookies enable third party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website (e.g, advertising, interactive content, and analytics). The parties that set these third party cookies can recognise your computer both when it visits the website in question and also when it visits certain other websites.
Why do I use cookies?
I use first and third party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for my website to operate, and I refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. Other cookies also enable me to track and target the interests of my users to enhance the experience on my Online Properties. Third parties serve cookies through my website for advertising, analytics, and other purposes. This is described in more detail below.
The specific types of first and third party served through my website and the purposes they perform are described below (please note that the specific cookies served may vary depending on the specific Online Properties you visit).
How can I control cookies?
You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie rights by setting your preferences in the Cookie Consent Manager. The Cookie Consent Manager allows you to select which categories of cookies you accept or reject. Essential cookies cannot be rejected as they are strictly necessary to provide you with services.
Cookies on this website
Essential: Some cookies are essential for you to be able to experience the full functionality of my site. They allow me to maintain user sessions and prevent any security threats. They do not collect or store any personal information. For example, these cookies would allow you to log-in to your account, add products to your basket, and checkout securely on an e-commerce website.
Statistics: These cookies store information like the number of visitors to the website, the number of unique visitors, which pages of the website have been visited, the source of the visit, etc. This data helps me understand and analyse how well the website performs and where it needs improvement.
Marketing: My website could display advertisements. Marketing cookies are used to personalize the advertisements that I would show to you so that they are meaningful to you. These cookies would also help me keep track of the efficiency of these ad campaigns.
The information stored in these cookies may also be used by the third-party ad providers to show you ads on other websites on the browser as well.
Functional: These are the cookies that help certain non-essential functionalities on my website. These functionalities include embedding content like videos or sharing content of the website on social media platforms.
Preferences: These cookies help me store your settings and browsing preferences like language preferences so that you have a better and efficient experience on future visits to the website.
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