Privacy and Cookie Notice
Last updated: 25 September 2026
1. About this notice
I provide individual counselling and couples counselling to adults aged 18 and over.
I am the data controller for the personal information I collect and use within my private practice.
You can contact me about this notice or how I handle your information at:
Email:counselling@stevecharalambous.com
This Privacy and Cookie Notice explains what personal information I collect, why I collect it, how it is used and protected, how long it is retained and the rights you have in relation to it.
My detailed arrangements for the therapeutic relationship, including confidentiality, individual meetings during couples counselling and private communications, are set out separately in my Counselling Agreement.
2. Information I may collect
The information I collect will depend on whether you are visiting my website, making an enquiry or beginning counselling.
When you make an enquiry
I may collect:
Your name
Your email address
Your telephone number
The name and contact details of your partner, where relevant
Your availability and preferred type of counselling
Information you choose to provide about why you are seeking counselling
Correspondence between us
Please avoid including more sensitive or detailed personal information than is necessary in your initial email.
Before an assessment and if counselling proceeds
Before your assessment appointment, I may ask you to complete a Client Details Form provided through Jotform and embedded on my website. I use the information to prepare for the assessment, communicate with you and consider your needs and safety.
If counselling proceeds
I may also collect information such as:
Your full name, date of birth and contact details
Your preferences about voicemail, text messages and email
Your home address
GP and emergency-contact details, where appropriate
Relevant personal, family and relationship history
Relevant physical and mental-health information
Medication information, where relevant
Previous counselling or other support
Information relating to risk or safeguarding
Brief assessment and session notes
Appointment, attendance and cancellation information
Payment and financial records
Information about other people where it is relevant to the counselling
Some of this information may be classed as special-category data under data-protection law. This can include information about physical or mental health, racial or ethnic background, religion, sexuality or sex life.
I only collect information that I reasonably need to provide counselling, manage the professional relationship and meet my legal, ethical and insurance responsibilities.
If you give me an emergency contact’s details, please let them know, where it is safe and appropriate, and direct them to this notice. I receive their name, contact details and relationship to you from you and use these where necessary to manage an emergency or serious risk, subject to the confidentiality arrangements below.
If you are uncomfortable providing particular information, or would prefer another way to provide your details, please contact me. I will explain what information is needed and whether its absence affects my ability to assess your needs or provide counselling safely.
3. Why I use your information
I may use personal information to:
Respond to enquiries
Discuss whether counselling may be suitable
Arrange appointments
Provide counselling
Maintain brief and appropriate professional records
Communicate about appointments or practical arrangements
Receive and record payments
Discuss my work anonymously in clinical supervision
Manage risk and safeguarding concerns
Respond to complaints, insurance matters or legal claims
Meet tax, accounting, professional and legal responsibilities
Maintain the security and operation of my website
I do not sell, rent or trade personal information.
I do not use counselling information for automated decision-making or profiling.
I will not normally use information obtained through a counselling enquiry for marketing. Any future marketing communication would require a separate and clear choice to opt in.
4. Lawful bases for using information
Depending on the reason for using the information, I may rely on the following lawful bases under the UK General Data Protection Regulation:
Contract: where processing is necessary to take steps at your request before counselling begins or to provide an agreed counselling service.
Legitimate interests: where it is reasonably necessary to operate my practice, maintain proportionate records, communicate with clients, protect my professional position or respond to a complaint or potential legal claim.
Legal obligation: where I must retain or disclose information to comply with the law, including tax and accounting requirements.
Vital interests: in a rare emergency where using or sharing information is necessary to protect someone’s life.
Consent: where your consent is the most appropriate basis, including for non-essential website cookies.
Counselling and assessment may involve special-category information. For health and medication information collected through the Client Details Form, I rely on your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) of the UK GDPR. I ask for this separately before collecting the information. I will normally also obtain your explicit consent to collect and use other special-category information for the purpose of providing counselling.
I may also process special-category information where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim, or to protect someone’s vital interests where the person whose information is used is physically or legally incapable of giving consent.
You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting me at counselling@stevecharalambous.com. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn. I may retain information only where another applicable lawful basis, and a valid special-category condition where needed, permits or requires this. I will explain any such reason to you.
5. Confidentiality and sharing information
Information shared in counselling is treated confidentially.
I discuss my clinical work in professional supervision. Clients are referred to anonymously or by a non-identifying reference, and identifying information is kept to the minimum necessary.
I will not normally disclose personal information to another person or organisation without your knowledge and agreement.
There may, however, be circumstances in which information needs to be shared without consent. These may include:
Where there is a serious concern about the risk of significant harm to you or another person
Safeguarding concerns involving a child or an adult at risk
A medical or other emergency
Where disclosure is required by law
A valid court order or other binding legal requirement
Responding to a professional complaint, insurance claim or legal action
Where it is safe and appropriate to do so, I would normally try to discuss a proposed disclosure with you first.
Information may be shared, where necessary, with:
My clinical supervisor
Emergency services, health professionals or safeguarding authorities
My professional indemnity insurer
A legal adviser or professional body
Organisations required by law
Technology providers that process information on my behalf
Jotform, which provides and hosts the Client Details Form and processes form responses on my behalf, using service providers where needed to operate the service
Any disclosure will be limited to information that is reasonably necessary in the circumstances.
6. Individual and couples counselling
For individual counselling, the clinical record relates to the individual client.
Where I work with a couple, joint sessions will normally have one joint clinical record. Routine appointment communications will normally include both partners.
If I meet with either partner individually as part of the couples work, a separate record may be kept for that individual meeting. Information disclosed during an individual meeting will be handled confidentially, subject to the exceptions described in this notice.
Neither partner automatically has the right to receive confidential personal information belonging to the other. If one partner requests access to information, I may need to consider the rights and information of both people and redact third-party information where appropriate.
My more detailed arrangements concerning individual sessions, private communications and information disclosed by one member of a couple are explained in my Counselling Agreement.
7. Communication, online sessions and payments
Email is my main method of professional communication.
My professional email account is provided through Apple iCloud. Email is not guaranteed to be completely secure, so clients are encouraged to avoid sending detailed or highly sensitive counselling information by email unless necessary.
Telephone messages
Clients may be given my work telephone number for brief practical messages, such as letting me know that they are running late.
Text messages should not normally be used for counselling content or emergencies.
Online counselling
Online counselling sessions take place using Zoom.
Zoom may process information such as a participant’s display name, email address, IP address, device information and meeting metadata.
Counselling sessions will not be recorded or automatically transcribed by me.
Payments
Payments will normally be made by bank transfer. Banks may process information including the payer’s name, payment reference, date and amount.
I do not receive or store clients’ online-banking passwords or full bank-account login details.
8. Storage and security
I take reasonable steps to protect information from unauthorised access, accidental loss, misuse or disclosure.
Brief counselling records are stored in password-encrypted electronic files within iCloud Drive. Access is restricted to me.
The Client Details Form uses Jotform’s form-encryption feature. Your answers are encrypted before submission and stored in encrypted form. I use a separate access code to read them. My Jotform account is set to store form submissions in its EU data centre.
Email notifications tell me when a form has been submitted without including your completed answers. Any copies I save outside Jotform are protected separately within my counselling records, as described above.
I use password-protected devices and appropriate account-security measures. Identifying information is kept to the minimum reasonably necessary, and coded client references may be used within clinical records.
Information may also be held within:
My professional Apple iCloud email account
Zoom, for online-session connection and meeting metadata
Squarespace, for website hosting and analytics
Jotform, for encrypted Client Details Form submissions and information needed to operate the form
My banking provider, for payment records
No system of electronic communication or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure. However, I take proportionate precautions appropriate to the sensitive nature of counselling information.
9. How long information is retained
I retain information only for as long as it is reasonably required.
My usual retention periods are:
Enquiries that do not lead to counselling: three months after our last communication.
Completed Client Details Forms that do not lead to an assessment or counselling: three months after our last communication.
Routine appointment emails and messages: up to three months after they are no longer needed.
Assessment information, including completed Client Details Forms, and counselling records: five years after counselling ends, or after the assessment if ongoing counselling does not begin.
Financial and payment records: for the period required by HM Revenue and Customs.
Website analytics information: according to the settings and retention periods applied by Squarespace and any relevant cookie choices.
Information may be retained for longer where reasonably necessary because of:
A safeguarding concern
A complaint
An insurance matter
A legal claim or potential legal claim
A court order
Another legal or regulatory requirement
At the end of the relevant retention period, information will be securely deleted, destroyed or anonymised.
10. Website information
This website is hosted by Squarespace.
When you visit the website, Squarespace may collect information including:
Information about your browser, network and device
Your IP address
Pages you visited before coming to the website
Pages you view on the website
Information about how you use the website
Squarespace requires some of this information to operate the website securely and provide its hosting services.
Website analytics
This website uses Squarespace Analytics to help me understand website traffic and activity.
Analytics information may include:
Pages visited
Clicks and internal links
Scrolling
Searches
Timestamps
Browser, network and device information
IP address
The website or page visited before this website
Analytics information is used to understand how the website is used and to improve its content and performance.
I do not currently use Google Analytics or Meta Pixel. If either is introduced in the future, this notice and the website’s cookie controls will be updated before they are used.
Client Details Form
When the embedded Jotform form loads or is used, Jotform may receive technical information such as your IP address, browser and device information, referring page and the time of access. This is separate from the encrypted answers you submit. Jotform explains its handling of technical and service information in its privacy policy: https://www.jotform.com/privacy/.
11. Cookies
Cookies are small files or pieces of text that are stored on a device when someone visits a website.
This website uses essential Squarespace cookies that are necessary to:
Operate and display the website
Maintain security
Enable basic website functions
These essential cookies cannot normally be disabled through the website.
Analytics and performance cookies are used only where you have given the appropriate choice through the cookie banner.
You can accept or reject non-essential cookies using the website’s cookie controls. You can also change or delete cookies through your browser settings.
Rejecting non-essential cookies should not prevent you from accessing the main information on the website.
The embedded Jotform form may also use cookies or similar technologies. Their use depends on the form’s settings and features; some support form functionality, while others may relate to analytics. Jotform lists the purposes and durations of its embedded-form cookies at https://www.jotform.com/cookie-list/forms/.
12. Embedded videos and social media
This website may contain embedded YouTube videos and links to professional social-media accounts.
When an embedded video or social-media feature loads, the relevant provider may receive information such as:
Your IP address
Browser and device information
The page you are viewing
Information about your interaction with the embedded content
These providers may use cookies or similar technologies according to their own privacy policies.
Ordinary social-media links will generally only take you to the relevant platform when you choose to click them. Embedded social-media feeds may allow the provider to receive information when the webpage loads.
Where possible, embedded content will be managed through the website’s cookie-consent controls.
13. International processing
Some technology providers used by my practice operate internationally, so personal information may be processed outside the UK.
Client Details Form submissions are stored in Jotform’s EU data centre. Jotform is a US-based provider and some processing may take place outside the EU.
I am responsible for ensuring that appropriate legal arrangements apply to international transfers, such as UK adequacy regulations or approved contractual safeguards. Jotform’s Data Processing Addendum sets out its contractual safeguards, including Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK Addendum.
You can contact me for further information about relevant international transfers or a copy of the safeguards that apply.
14. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis being used, you may have the right to:
Be informed about how your information is used
Request access to your personal information
Ask for inaccurate information to be corrected
Ask for information to be deleted in certain circumstances
Ask for processing to be restricted
Object to certain uses of your information
Receive some information in a portable format
Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent
These rights are not absolute. For example, I may need to retain some information because of an insurance requirement, legal obligation, safeguarding concern or potential legal claim.
I may ask for reasonable evidence of identity before releasing personal information.
Where records contain information about another person, including a partner in couples counselling, I may need to remove or withhold some third-party information before responding to a request.
To make a request, contact:
counselling@stevecharalambous.com
I will normally respond within one month, although the law allows additional time in certain complex circumstances.
15. Complaints
Please contact me first if you have a concern about how your personal information has been handled:
Steve Charalambous
Email:counselling@stevecharalambous.com
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data-protection regulator. Information about making a complaint is available at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.
16. Changes to this notice
I may update this notice if my services, technology providers or legal responsibilities change.
The most recent version will be published on this website, together with the date it was last updated.