SERVICE PRIVACY POLICY
Information about you
In order for London Friend to be able to fulfil its responsibilities to deliver counselling, drug & alcohol support, sexual health support and social groups, we will need to record personal information about you. This information includes your name, address and contact details, and GP practice. Depending on the support accessed we will also takes notes of relevant medical mental and physical health information and aspects of your personal social and family history that you choose to share with London Friend. This information will be retained in password protected files, on a password protected PC which has virus protection software installed and an encrypted, password protected database.
Your contact details will be used to contact you. Other personal data such as your name, address and/or date of birth will be used to verify your identity and if there is a need to contact your GP or other agencies or a request for access to personal data from yourself or your representative or legitimate legal instrument such as a court order.
This personal information will be held for a as long as necessary to guarantee the duty of care after the cessation of our counselling or keyworking relationship, except where there is a mutually agreed decision to retain it for longer or where London Friend believes that it is in the best professional interests to do so.
Information about counselling and keyworking sessions
London Friend will also record notes of each counselling and keyworking session under an identifying code. These notes will be a brief factual record of the session. This set of notes will include any agreements made with regard to for example, cancelled sessions or changes to the way the therapy is conducted. The notes are held on a password-protected computer or server.
These notes may be shared under the identifying code with London Friend’s counselling supervisor, counselling professional body or similar for purposes of maintaining professional standards.
These notes will be held for as long as necessary after the cessation of counselling and keyworking except where London Friend agrees with you to retain them for longer or where we believe that it is in our best professional interests to do so.
We may make information from these notes available to legitimate third parties under the following conditions:
- Receipt of a request from you if the release of the notes is not judged by London Friend as likely to cause you significant harm or harm to another person
- Where there is a specific legal requirement for London Friend to do so
- Where there is an ethical duty for London Friend to do, for example to avoid serious harm to yourself or another
Your Rights
You have the right to ask to see any information held by London Friend about you. To do this please send an email to the office ( office@londonfriend.org.uk / counselling@londonfriend.org.uk / antidote@londonfriend.org.uk ) You also have the right to ask for information that you believe to be incorrect to be rectified. London Friend will endeavour to provide you with the information requested within four weeks.
If we become aware of a situation where your personal information may have accidently or maliciously been obtained by a third party, lost or destroyed, London Friend will notify you within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach.
If you are concerned about the way that your information is being held please discuss this with London friend. If you are still unhappy, you have the write to complain to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). London Friend is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office.
Website Privacy policy
We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors; this policy sets out how we will treat your personal information.
1. What information do we collect?
We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal data:
(a) Information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views.
(b) Information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering with us including your title, name, address and email details.
(c) Information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our website services, email notifications and/or newsletters (including your name and email).
(d) Any other personal information that you choose to send to us relating to our services.
2. Cookies
A cookie consists of information sent by a web server to a web browser, and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the web server to identify and track the web browser.
We use “session” cookies on the website. We use these cookies to keep track of you whilst you navigate the website. Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser.
Most browsers allow you to reject all cookies, whilst some browsers allow you to reject just third party cookies. For example, in Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector. Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites, including this one.
3. Using your personal data
Personal data submitted on this website will be used for the purposes specified in this privacy policy or in relevant parts of the website. We may use your personal information to:
(a) Administer the website;
(b) Improve your browsing experience by personalising the website;
(c) Send you email notifications which you have specifically requested;
(d) Send to you our newsletter and other marketing communications relating to our business which we think may be of interest to you by post or, where you have specifically agreed to this, by email or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require marketing communications)
(e) Deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to the website; and
(f) Where you submit personal information for publication on our website, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the license you grant to us.
We will not without your express consent provide your personal information to any third parties for the purpose of direct marketing.
4. Disclosures
We may disclose information about you to any of our employees, officers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes as set out in this privacy policy. In addition, we may disclose information about you:
(a) To the extent that we are required to do so by law;
(b) In connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings;
(c) In order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk); and
(d) Except as provided in this privacy policy, we will not provide your information to third parties.
5. Security of your personal data
We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure password- and firewall- protected servers. Of course, data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.
6. Policy amendments
We may update this privacy policy from time-to-time by posting a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes.
7. Your rights
You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you. You may instruct us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes by email at any time. (In practice, you will usually either expressly agree in advance to our use of your personal data for marketing purposes, or we will provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of the use of your personal data for marketing purposes).
8.Third party websites
The website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of third party websites.
9. Updating information
Please let us know if the personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.
10. Contact
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our treatment of your personal data, please write to us by email to office@londonfriend.org.uk or by post to: London Friend, 86 Caledonian Road, Islington, London, N1 9DN.