Last reviewed: March 2025

The following policy sets out how personal information will be used and stored by Alexandra Baker Counselling in accordance with current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (2016) (the GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The individual responsible for handling and processing personal information is Alexandra Baker (Alexandra Baker Counselling), who can be contacted by email: alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com

Alexandra Baker (Alexandra Baker Counselling) is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (Registration Reference: ZB871672)

The ‘counsellor’ is Alexandra Baker and the ‘client’ is anyone who engages with Alexandra Baker Counselling.

Personal Information Collected, Stored & Used

Personal information about clients is only collected from the clients through points of contact such as email enquiries, counselling assessments and counselling sessions. Information about clients is not sought from anyone, or anywhere, else. The amount of personal information collected is kept to a minimum where possible.

Personal information is not collected or used for marketing. Clients will not be contacted by Alexandra Baker Counselling for any reason other than to arrange counselling sessions.

Personal information about clients is collected for three main purposes:

• Administration – to contact a client to arrange counselling sessions and payments.

• Counselling Assessment – to ensure a client’s therapeutic needs can be met competently by the counsellor.

• Safeguarding – to protect the safety and wellbeing of clients and/or other individuals.

The following information will be collected and stored for administration purposes:

• Name

• Address

• Email address

• Telephone number

• Email / telephone correspondence (outside of a counselling session)

• Payment details

• Records of consent (signed counselling agreement)

During a counselling assessment, which takes place before one-to-one counselling sessions can begin, the client will be invited to share what has brought them to counselling and what they are hoping counselling will support them with. In order to work ethically and safely, a counselling assessment is completed to ensure that the client’s therapeutic needs can be competently supported by the counsellor’s training and experience. During the assessment, the counsellor will ask questions that may lead to the client disclosing information about the following, which will be collected and stored for counselling assessment purposes and safeguarding purposes:

• Health information (including medical conditions, medical requirements and medical history)

• Information about care needs (including disabilities and general care provisions)

• Relevant information from previous medical investigations

• Relevant information from previous test results (including psychological evaluations)

• Relevant information from meetings with, and decisions made by, medical professionals

• Information about professionals and/or services that currently support the client’s wellbeing

In addition to the personal information collected above, the following information will also be collected and stored for safeguarding purposes:

• Emergency contact name

• Emergency contact telephone number

• GP Name (or practice name)

• GP Address

• GP telephone number

• Details shared by the client to the counsellor that indicate a safeguarding risk to the client and/or others

• Information shared with external contacts for the purposes of safeguarding

Please see Safeguarding Policy and Confidentiality Policy for details of how and why this information may be used for the purpose of safeguarding.

Documents and email correspondence that contain personal information about clients are stored on a password-protected computer and are only stored digitally on the counsellor’s Microsoft Outlook email account and Squarespace account (for messages sent via the webform on the Alexandra Baker Counselling website). Enquiries made to the webform on the Alexandra Baker BACP directory listing will be stored and shared with the counsellor by the BACP. Documents and email correspondence with personal information about clients are not stored on any additional cloud-based digital platforms, or third-party websites, other than those already mentioned. For further information about how privacy is maintained by Microsoft, Squarespace and the BACP, please see below:

• Microsoft Privacy Notice – https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/privacy/privacystatement

• Squarespace Privacy Notice - https://www.squarespace.com/privacy

• BACP Privacy Notice - https://www.bacp.co.uk/privacy-notice/

Lawful Bases

Under UK data protection law, there must be a lawful basis for collecting and using personal information. The following lawful bases apply to information collected and stored by Alexandra Baker Counselling:

• Consent – a client giving permission for their information to be collected and stored. Implied consent will be taken to collect and store your name, email address and telephone number if you make an enquiry to the alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com email address directly, or complete the contact form on the Alexandra Baker Counselling website or BACP directory listing. Consent will be then be actively sought before collecting further information through an initial call, counselling assessment or counselling agreement. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

• Contract – before starting counselling sessions, a counselling agreement, also known as a counselling contract, needs to be read, agreed and signed by both the counsellor and the client. The counselling agreement is an ethical requirement for counselling as it confirms the logistical arrangements and confidentiality limits of the counselling sessions. In order to complete a counselling agreement, personal information will need to be collected and stored.

• Legal obligation – in order to comply with legal obligations to break confidentiality and disclose information externally, information will need to be collected and used. For details about the specific circumstances in which this applies, please see Confidentiality Policy.

• Vital interests – a client’s information will need to be collected and used when the physical or mental wellbeing of the client and/or others is at urgent or serious risk. Please see Safeguarding Policy and Confidentiality Policy for details about the specific circumstances in which this applies.

Data Protection Rights

When sharing personal information with Alexandra Baker Counselling, the following rights apply to the client and their information:

• Right of access – you have the right to see and ask for copies of your personal data and supplementary information. This is known as a Subject Access Request (SAR).

• Right to rectification – you have the right to ask for your information to be corrected or deleted if it is inaccurate or incomplete.

• Right to erasure – you have the right to ask for you personal information to be deleted.

• Right to the restriction of processing – you have the right to request your personal data to be limited in how it is used.

• Right to object to processing – you have the right to object to the processing of your personal information.

• Right to withdraw consent – as consent is used as a lawful basis for collecting data, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time.

To make a data protection rights request, please email: alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com

Requests will be responded to as soon as possible, and within one month.

The lawful bases used by Alexandra Baker Counselling for collecting and using information may affect a client’s data protection rights, such as the right to object. For more information about this, please visit the ICO website: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/

Data Retention

Information about clients is not kept indefinitely and is only kept for as long as is necessary. Data retention periods apply to all data collected, used and stored by Alexandra Baker Counselling. After the data retention period has passed, all personal information will be destroyed or anonymised.

The data retention period varies depending on the nature of engagement with Alexandra Baker Counselling, please see further details below:

Initial Enquiry
(not progressing to initial phone call)

Direct enquiry to Alexandra Baker Counselling email address
BACP directory listing webform enquiry
Alexandra Baker Counselling website webform enquiry

Retention Period - 18 months

Initial Phone Call
(not progressing to counselling assessment)

Notes made during a call from Alexandra Baker.

Retention Period - 18 months

Counselling Assessment
(not progressing to counselling sessions)

Notes made during a phone call or video call (Zoom) when counselling assessment form completed.

Retention Period - 7 years

Counselling Sessions
(including initial call and counselling assessment)

Clinical notes made after each phone call or video call (Zoom) counselling session, including any communication made to third parties for the purpose of safeguarding.

Retention Period - 7 years

Abuse of Service
(though initial enquiry or initial phone call)

Direct enquiry to Alexandra Baker Counselling email address
BACP directory listing webform enquiry
Alexandra Baker Counselling website webform enquiry
Notes made during a call from Alexandra Baker.

Destroyed immediately

OR

Stored for the purpose of reporting the incident to the police / BACP and destroyed when no longer needed

Commercial / Spam Communications

Direct enquiry to Alexandra Baker Counselling email address
BACP directory listing webform enquiry
Alexandra Baker Counselling website webform enquiry

Destroyed immediately

Confidentiality & Information Sharing

Personal information about clients will not be shared with any third parties, apart from in specific circumstances, as outlined in the Confidentiality Policy, where there is either a legal obligation, or ethical responsibility, to pass information on to the relevant authorities to protect the safety of the client and/or others.

There is a legal obligation to break confidentiality and pass on personal information about the client in the following instances:

• Terrorism – in accordance with the Terrorism Act (2000), the anti-terrorism hotline and/or police would be contacted.

• Money Laundering – in accordance with the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) and the Money Laundering Regulations (2007), the police would be contacted.

• Drug Trafficking – in accordance with the Drug Trafficking Act (1994), the police would be contacted.

• Court Order – in accordance with an order by a court, requested details / documents would be shared.

• Police Request – in accordance with the Serious Crime Act (2007), requested details would be shared.

There may be an ethical responsibility to break confidentiality share personal information about the client in the following instances:

• Harm to self

• Harm to other adults (individuals aged 18 and above)

• Harm to children / minors (individuals aged 17 and under)

In the above, the term ‘harm’ includes, but is not limited to, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, suicidal intent, suicidal ideation, self-harm and exploitation. As a result, the disclosure of information will be made to the services that are most relevant to protecting the safety of those involved, such as the emergency services, police, social services or wellbeing teams.

In addition, in the case of an abuse of service, personal information may be passed on to the police and/or the BACP. Please see Abuse of Service Policy for further details.  

Consent will be sought from the client before passing on personal information. However, there may also be some very specific circumstances in which personal information will be passed on even if consent has not been sought, or has been denied. Please see Confidentiality Policy for further details.

Website Visitors & Cookies

The Alexandra Baker Counselling website (www.alexandrabaker-counselling.co.uk) is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when an individual visits the website, including:

• Information about your browser, network and device

• Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

• Web pages you view while on this website, including clicks, internal links and scrolling

• Your IP address

Squarespace uses this data to run the Alexandra Baker Counselling website and to improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyses the data in a de-personalised form. Data analytics are captured by Squarespace and used by Alexandra Baker Counselling for the purpose of reviewing website traffic and activity. No additional third-party data analytics providers are used.

The Alexandra Baker Counselling 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. Necessary and required cookies are always used, which allows Squarespace to securely host the website. Non-essential cookies are restricted. For information about cookies, please visit https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001264507-The-cookies-Squarespace-uses  

When a client submits information via the Alexandra Baker Counselling webform on the ‘Contact’ page, the data requested in the webform is collected in order to track and respond to the submission. This information is shared with Squarespace, so that Squarespace can send the content of webform to the alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com email address.

Queries or Concerns

If you have any queries or concerns about the use of personal information, please contact: alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com

The ICO can also be contacted directly:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

References

ICO - UK GDPR Guidance and Resources - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/