This notice explains how Arianne Sheikh, trading as Soma Anima, handles personal information when you contact her or receive counselling. For privacy questions or requests, email arianneCounselling@proton.me.
Who is responsible for your information?
Arianne Sheikh, trading as Soma Anima Therapeutic Counselling, is responsible for personal information collected for this practice. You can contact Arianne at arianneCounselling@proton.me.
What information is collected?
If you use the website enquiry form, it asks for your name, email address, optional phone number, preferred session type and a brief message. Please do not include health details or counselling history in that form.
If you begin counselling, Arianne may hold contact and emergency details, information relevant to arranging sessions and payment, the counselling agreement and signature, and brief notes needed to provide the service. This can include sensitive health information you choose to share in counselling.
Why is it used?
- To respond to an enquiry and discuss whether counselling may be suitable.
- To arrange and provide counselling, communicate with you and keep appropriate professional records.
- To manage fees, payments, cancellations and accounting obligations.
- To meet legal, safeguarding and professional responsibilities.
Website enquiry details are used to respond to your request. Counselling and agreement information is used to provide the service and meet professional responsibilities. Where sensitive health information is recorded, Arianne will handle it under the applicable data protection conditions for health and counselling information.
Lawful bases
For an enquiry, Arianne uses your information to take steps you request before deciding whether to enter a counselling agreement. Once counselling is arranged, information is used to provide the agreed service. Accounting information is kept to meet legal obligations, and limited practice administration is based on Arianne’s legitimate interests in running the service responsibly.
Health information is special category data. For health information needed to provide counselling, the applicable condition is health or social care purposes under Article 9(2)(h) UK GDPR and paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 2018, subject to professional confidentiality requirements.
Who can see it?
Arianne holds the identifiable counselling records. Nadia Hajat receives website enquiries and signed agreements at nadia@tessa-tools.org for administration and countersigning. The online agreement form does not ask for counselling notes or health history. Arianne may discuss work in professional supervision, taking care to anonymise it and avoid unnecessary identifying details. Information may be shared where required by law or where necessary to address a serious risk or safeguarding concern. Where it is safe and appropriate, Arianne will discuss this with you first.
Website forms are processed by Netlify. Website enquiries and agreements awaiting countersignature are emailed to Nadia Hajat at nadia@tessa-tools.org. To contact Arianne directly, use her Proton Mail address above. Arianne also uses Zoom for online sessions and a reMarkable device for her work. These services may process information as part of their operation. Their own privacy information applies to their services. Arianne does not use AI tools to process counselling records and does not record sessions.
How long is information kept?
Unbooked website enquiries are normally deleted after one month. Counselling records are normally kept for three years after counselling ends, as explained in the counselling agreement, unless a legal or professional reason requires a different period. Payment and accounting records are kept for the period required by applicable tax and accounting rules.
How is it protected?
Arianne takes reasonable steps to keep records private and secure and to limit access to identifiable information. No website or electronic service can guarantee absolute security. Please use the enquiry form only for a brief first contact and do not send urgent or highly sensitive details through it.
Your data protection rights
You can ask Arianne about the personal information she holds about you, request access or correction, and raise a concern. Depending on the circumstances, you may also have rights to deletion, restriction, objection or data portability. Some rights have limits, particularly where information must be retained for legal, safeguarding or professional reasons.
To make a request, email arianneCounselling@proton.me. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Website forms and email
Netlify stores website form submissions and sends notification emails. The enquiry form asks you not to include health information. The online agreement records the agreement text, your name, email address, typed signature and the date and time of signing. It is sent to Nadia’s work inbox for countersigning. Once countersigned, a completed copy is emailed to that work inbox and to the client email address saved with the agreement. Private review links, agreement records and PDF files are held in Netlify storage. Resend sends the agreement emails and PDF attachments and processes the agreement and recipient addresses for delivery. Please do not forward a private countersigning link. Client copies use a separate document link that cannot be used to sign the agreement. Technical test agreements remain labelled as tests and do not create a counselling agreement.
Changes to this notice
This notice may be updated if the practice or its information handling changes. The date above shows when it was last reviewed.