Privacy Policy | Forensic Psychology Clinic | Dr Jenny Hopton

Introduction

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Forensic Psychology Clinic collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal or sensitive data about you so that you are fully aware of how and

why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them

Controller

Forensic Psychology Clinic is the data controller, and we are responsible for your personal data (referred to as “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice).

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Dr Jenny Hopton

Email address: info@forensicpsychologyclinic.co.uk

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated in July 2024.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it.

2. The data we collect about you

Wemayhold data about the following people:

Employees and associates
Clients
Suppliers & service providers
Advisors, consultants and other professional experts
Enquirers

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). Wemaycollect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you including:

Personal details 
Medical records 
Financial details
Employment details 
Family and lifestyle details 
Education and training details 
Court documents 
Test forms and results.

Additionally, we may also collect special category information, including:

Physical and mental health details
Racial or ethnic origin
Religious beliefs
Criminal convictions
Sexual orientation

3. How is your personal data collected?

You may give us your Identity and Contact data verbally during discussions at our practice, or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. Forensic Psychology Clinic stores emails on our server so we can use this information to respond to your enquiry. Our server is GDPR compliant, and emails are stored on password protected and encrypted hardware. Should we not go on to work with you following your initial enquiry we will destroy your email.

The data provided to Forensic Psychology Clinic often is provided by the instructing party or by the client/ service user. Should we go on to work with you the next sections will explain how we process and store your information

4. How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
With your consent.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We my a use your information for the following purposes:

Provision of expert witness services
Maintaining accounts and records
Supporting and managing employees and associates

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data.

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive.

We use the following cookies: 

Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services. 
Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We are very strict about who we share your data with and this will usually be within the staff/ associates and suppliers who work for Forensic Psychology Clinic.

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below:

Service providers, acting as processors who provide IT and system administration services.

Professional advisers, acting as processors or joint controllers, including healthcare professionals, lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.

HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities, acting as processors or joint controllers, based who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

We may transfer your data outside the United Kingdom and European Economic Area (EEA).

Many of our external third parties are based outside the United Kingdom and the EEA so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the United Kingdom and the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the United Kingdom and the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide anadequate level of protection for personal data by the United Kingdom.

Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office and the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the United Kingdom and the EEA

7. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so

8. Data retention

Howlong will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

By law we have to keep information about client for 7 years after we have completed our services. By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see your legal rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

If you want us to establish the data's accuracy. 

Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it. 

Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. 

You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.