Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

At You Beyond Therapy, we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, protect and share your personal information when you visit our website, contact us, enquire about therapy or use our services. We recognise that therapy can involve sharing deeply personal and sensitive information. We take our responsibility to handle this information with care, respect and confidentiality. We process personal information in accordance with applicable UK data protection legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended. Please read this policy carefully to understand how we handle your information and the rights available to you.

2. Who We Are

You Beyond Therapy is responsible for deciding how and why your personal information is processed.

Business name: You Beyond Therapy UK
Website: https://www.youbeyondtherapy.com/
Email: megan@youbeyondtherapy.com
Business address: [Insert business address, where applicable]

For questions about this Privacy Policy or the way your personal information is handled, please contact us using the details above.

3. The Personal Information We Collect

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with our website and services.

Information you provide to us

When you contact us through our website, email or other communication channels, we may collect:

• Your name.

• Your email address.

• Your telephone number, if provided.

• The contents of your enquiry or message.

• Your preferences and information about the services you are interested in.

• Any other information you choose to provide.

We ask that you do not include detailed medical histories or highly sensitive personal information in our general website contact form unless it is necessary for your enquiry.

Therapy-related information

If you become a client or share information with us in connection with therapy, we may process personal information relevant to providing and managing our services. Depending on your circumstances, this may include:

• Information about your mental or physical health.

• Information about your personal circumstances and wellbeing.

• Information relevant to your therapy needs and goals.

• Session notes, assessments and relevant correspondence.

• Appointment and service records.

• Information necessary to meet applicable legal, professional or safeguarding obligations.

Health information is classed as special category personal data under the UK GDPR and receives additional protection. We only process health information where we have an appropriate lawful basis and satisfy an applicable additional condition for processing special category data.

Website and technical information

When you visit our website, technical information may be collected automatically by Squarespace or other services connected to the website. Depending on the tools enabled, this may include:

• Your IP address.

• Browser and device information.

• Operating system.

• Pages visited and interactions with the website.

• Date and time of your visit.

• Referring websites and traffic sources.

• Website usage and performance information.

We use this information, where applicable, to operate, maintain and secure our website and understand how visitors use it.

4. How We Use Your Personal Information

We may use your personal information to:

• Respond to enquiries and requests.

• Provide information about our therapy services.

• Arrange and manage appointments.

• Deliver and administer therapy services.

• Maintain appropriate client and administrative records.

• Communicate with you about appointments or services.

• Manage our relationship with you.

• Maintain website security and functionality.

• Understand and improve website performance, where appropriate.

• Comply with applicable legal, regulatory, safeguarding and professional obligations.

• Establish, exercise or defend legal claims where necessary.

We collect and use only the personal information reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose. We will not use your information for unrelated purposes without an appropriate lawful basis.

5. Our Lawful Basis for Processing

Under the UK GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for processing personal information. Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on the following lawful bases:

Consent: Where you have freely agreed to a specific use of your personal information, such as receiving certain marketing communications or allowing non-essential cookies where consent is required.

Contract: Where processing is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into an agreement or to fulfil an agreement for services.

Legitimate interests: Where processing is necessary for legitimate purposes, such as responding to general enquiries, managing our business or protecting website security, provided your rights and interests do not override those interests.

Legal obligation: Where we need to process information to comply with a legal requirement.

Where we process health information or other special category personal data, we must also satisfy an additional condition under Article 9 of the UK GDPR and, where applicable, the Data Protection Act 2018. The appropriate lawful basis and additional condition depend on the circumstances and purpose of the processing.

6. Confidentiality and Therapy Information

We understand the importance of privacy and confidentiality in therapy.

Information shared with us in the course of therapy will be handled confidentially and in accordance with applicable data protection requirements, relevant professional standards and any applicable client agreement.

Confidentiality is not absolute. In certain circumstances, information may need to be disclosed where required or permitted by law, where necessary to address a serious risk of harm, or where applicable safeguarding, legal or professional obligations require disclosure.

Where appropriate and lawful, we will discuss relevant disclosures with you.

We take care to limit access to personal information to those who need it for legitimate purposes.

This website Privacy Policy should be read alongside any separate client privacy notice, therapy agreement or professional confidentiality information provided to you.

7. How We Use Squarespace

Our website is hosted on Squarespace, which provides the website platform and associated technical services. Squarespace may process personal information and technical data to host, maintain, secure and support the website. Depending on the features enabled, this may include information about website visits, device information, cookies and interactions with website content. If you submit a message through our website contact form, the information you provide may be processed through Squarespace and the email or communication services we use to receive and respond to enquiries. For further information about Squarespace's data handling practices, please read its Privacy Policy:

https://www.squarespace.com/privacy

8. Contact Forms and Communication

If you contact us through the contact form on our website, we use the information you provide to respond to your enquiry and manage any follow-up communication. Your information may be processed by Squarespace and relevant email or communication providers. Please be mindful of the information you include in your message. Our general contact form is intended for enquiries and is not necessarily a secure channel for detailed clinical information. If you are seeking therapy, we will explain any appropriate arrangements for sharing information needed to assess your enquiry or provide services. We retain enquiry information only for as long as necessary, taking account of the nature of the enquiry and any applicable legal or professional obligations.

9. Appointment Booking Services

We may use a third-party booking service to arrange and manage appointments.

Where you use this service, the booking provider may collect information such as your name, contact details, appointment preferences and booking history. The information collected will depend on the provider and the features used. We use booking information to arrange appointments, communicate with you and administer our services. The booking provider may process information on our behalf or act as a separate controller for certain purposes. Its own privacy policy may therefore also apply.

Booking provider: We recommend reviewing the provider's privacy information before submitting personal information through its booking system.

10. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our website may use cookies and similar technologies to support website functionality, remember preferences, measure website performance or provide other features. Depending on the configuration of our website, these may include:

Strictly necessary cookies: Used for essential website functions, security and features required to provide a service you request.

Analytics cookies: Used to understand how visitors interact with the website and measure its performance, where analytics tools are enabled.

Functional cookies: Used to remember preferences or support additional website features, where applicable.

Marketing cookies or tracking technologies: Used to measure advertising effectiveness or support advertising features, if such tools are installed.

We have not yet confirmed every analytics or tracking technology configured on our website. The tools in use should be verified through our Squarespace settings and any connected services. Where applicable law requires consent for non-essential cookies or similar technologies, we will obtain consent before using them. You should be able to change or withdraw your preferences through the website's cookie settings where available. You can also manage cookies through your browser settings, although disabling certain cookies may affect website functionality. For more information about how Squarespace uses cookies, please see:

https://www.squarespace.com/cookie-policy

11. Sharing Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share personal information where necessary and appropriate with:

• Squarespace, our website hosting provider.

• Email and communication service providers.

• Our appointment booking provider.

• Website analytics providers, if enabled.

• IT support and website maintenance providers.

• Professional advisers or insurers, where appropriate.

• Regulatory bodies, public authorities or other parties where disclosure is required or permitted by law.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information shared with service providers is appropriately protected. Where a provider processes information on our behalf, we seek to ensure that suitable contractual and data protection arrangements are in place. We do not share therapy-related information unnecessarily. Any disclosure will be considered in light of confidentiality, applicable law and the purpose for which the information is being shared.

12. How We Protect Your Information

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or disclosure.

Depending on the information and systems involved, these measures may include access controls, password protection, secure systems and restrictions on access to confidential records.

We aim to ensure that personal information is accessed only by individuals who need it for legitimate purposes.

However, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we take reasonable steps to protect the information entrusted to us.

13. How Long We Keep Your Information

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, taking account of legal requirements, professional obligations and the nature of the information. Different categories of information may be retained for different periods.

For example:

• General enquiries are retained for as long as reasonably necessary to respond and manage the enquiry.

• Appointment and administrative records are retained for as long as needed to manage our services and meet applicable requirements.

• Therapy records are retained in accordance with our applicable record-retention arrangements and relevant legal, professional and insurance obligations.

• Website analytics data is retained according to the settings and retention periods of the relevant provider.

When information is no longer required, we will take appropriate steps to delete it securely or anonymise it. Our specific retention periods depend on the type of record and the circumstances. They should be documented in our internal retention arrangements and made available where required.

14. International Transfers

Some of the service providers used to operate our website, communicate with you or manage appointments may process personal information outside the United Kingdom. Where personal data is transferred internationally, we will take the steps required by applicable data protection law to ensure that the transfer is lawful and that appropriate safeguards are in place where necessary. If you require further information about relevant international transfers, please contact us using the details in Section 2.

15. Your Data Protection Rights

Under applicable data protection law, you may have the right to:

Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

Rectification: Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.

Erasure: Request deletion of your information in certain circumstances.

Restriction: Ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.

Objection: Object to certain types of processing, including processing based on legitimate interests.

Data portability: Request certain personal information in a portable format where the legal requirements apply.

Withdraw consent: Withdraw consent where we rely on consent for processing. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn. These rights are subject to applicable conditions and exemptions. For example, we may need to retain certain information to comply with legal obligations or establish, exercise or defend legal claims. To exercise your rights, please contact us using the details in Section 2. We may need to verify your identity before responding. We will respond within the timeframe required by applicable data protection law.

16. Privacy of Young People

We provide therapy services for adults and young people. We recognise that personal information relating to children and young people requires particular care. Where we process personal information relating to someone under the age of 18, we will take account of their age, understanding, circumstances and applicable legal and professional requirements. We aim to collect only the information necessary to respond to enquiries and provide appropriate services. We will handle information about young people sensitively and apply appropriate safeguards to its use, storage and disclosure. Depending on the young person's age and circumstances, the provision of services and the handling of their information may involve additional considerations concerning consent, confidentiality, parental or guardian involvement and safeguarding. We will consider these matters in accordance with applicable law and relevant professional obligations. Our website contact form is intended for general enquiries. Please do not use it to submit detailed clinical information about a young person.

17. Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites or services, including booking platforms and other external resources. We do not control the privacy practices or security of websites that we do not operate. If you follow a third-party link, we recommend reading that provider's privacy policy before sharing personal information.

18. Marketing Communications

We may provide information about our services where permitted by law. Where consent is required for electronic marketing, we will obtain it before sending marketing communications. You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions provided or contacting us directly. We will not use sensitive therapy or health information for marketing purposes without an appropriate lawful basis and satisfying any additional legal requirements that apply.

19. Complaints and the Information Commissioner's Office

If you have concerns about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so that we can try to resolve your concerns. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data protection regulator.

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

Further information about your data protection rights is available at:

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/

20. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our services, website, service providers or legal obligations. Any updates will be published on this page, together with a revised “Last updated” date. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

21. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, the personal information we hold about you or your data protection rights, please contact:

You Beyond Therapy

Website: https://www.youbeyondtherapy.com/
Email: megan@youbeyondtherapy.com / meganmcn.therapy@gmail.com
Business address: Scotland, United Kingdom

We will handle your enquiry in accordance with applicable data protection law.