Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: https://kayscounselling.co.uk.

Kay’s Counselling LTD provides counselling and psychotherapy face to face at our Birmingham practice, online and by telephone. We take your privacy and confidentiality very seriously. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with and the rights you have under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

Kay’s Counselling LTD is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

What personal data we collect

Depending on how you use our website and services, we may collect:

• Contact details: your name, email address, phone number and postal address.
• Details you give us when you make an enquiry, fill in one of our forms or book an appointment.
• Information about your reasons for seeking counselling, your mental and physical health, your relationships and your personal history.
• Session records: appointment dates, attendance and brief notes made by your therapist.
• Emergency contact and GP details, where you give them to us.
• Payment and invoicing information (we do not store full card details).
• Technical information about your visit to our website, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages you view.

Information about your health, and some other details you may share in counselling (such as your sexuality, religion or ethnicity), is “special category data”. We give it extra protection and only use it to provide your counselling.

If your child has counselling with us, we collect their details from you as their parent or guardian.

Why we use your data and our lawful basis

• To provide counselling: to respond to your enquiry, match you with a therapist, arrange and deliver sessions and keep appropriate records. Our lawful basis is that this is necessary to provide the service you ask for (contract). For health and other special category data, we rely on the provision of health or social care by a professional under a duty of confidentiality.
• To manage payments and run our business: invoicing, accounts and meeting our legal and tax obligations (contract and legal obligation).
• To keep people safe: where we believe there is a serious risk of harm to you or someone else (vital interests and safeguarding).
• To improve our website and advertising: using analytics and advertising cookies, only where you have agreed to them (consent).

Confidentiality

What you share in counselling is confidential. Our therapists may discuss their work in clinical supervision, which is a professional requirement; this is done without using your name or other identifying details. We will only share information about you without your consent where we believe there is a serious risk of harm to you or others, where we have a safeguarding concern about a child or vulnerable adult, or where we are required to by law or a court order. Where it is safe and appropriate, we will talk to you first.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized 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 is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

We also use analytics and advertising cookies, including Google Analytics, Google Ads and Facebook Pixel, to understand how visitors use our website and to measure our advertising. For full details of the cookies we use and how to manage them, see our Cookie 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.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

We never sell your personal data. We only share it where we need to, to provide our services or where the law requires it:

• Your therapist: our counsellors and psychotherapists, some of whom are self-employed and work with us under a written agreement that requires them to keep your data confidential and secure.
• Service providers: companies that help us run our practice, such as our website hosting provider, our online booking system (Trafft), our email and IT providers and our payment and accounting providers. They only process your data on our instructions.
• Analytics and advertising providers: Google and Meta (Facebook), through the cookies described above, where you have agreed to them.
• Others, when necessary: emergency services, your GP or safeguarding authorities if there is a serious risk of harm, and the police, courts or regulators where we are legally required to share information.

How long we retain your data

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.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Client records: we keep client records, including session notes, for 7 years after your last session, after which they are securely destroyed.

Enquiries: if you contact us but do not go on to have counselling, we delete your details once they are no longer needed.

Financial records: we keep invoices and payment records for as long as the law requires for tax and accounting purposes.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• Be informed about how we use your personal data.
• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Ask us to delete your data, unless we need to keep it (for example, our 7-year record-keeping obligation).
• Ask us to restrict how we use your data.
• Object to how we use your data.
• Ask for your data to be transferred to you or another organisation.
• Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example, cookies).

To make a request, email enquiries@kayscounselling.co.uk or write to us at the address above. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Your data is stored securely by us and our service providers. Some of our providers, such as Google, Meta and our booking system, may process data outside the UK. Where this happens, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as UK adequacy regulations or approved data transfer agreements.

Keeping your data secure

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data, including password-protected and access-controlled systems, secure storage of paper records, and confidentiality agreements with everyone who works with us. Online sessions are held on secure video platforms.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this page.