Industry regulatory disclosure requirements
All personal information gathered by the counsellor as part of counselling services provided by Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching will remain confidential except when:
it is subpoenaed by a court; or
- failure to disclose the information would place you or another person at serious risk to life, health or safety; or
- your prior approval has been arranged to
- provide a written report to another professional or agency (e.g. a GP or a lawyer or other allied health professional); or
- discuss the material with another person (e.g. a parent, employer or healthy provider; or
- disclose the information in another way; or
- you would reasonably expect your personal information to be disclosed to another professional or agency (e.g. your GP) and disclosure of your personal information to that third party is for a purpose which is directly related to the primary purpose for which your personal information was collected; or
- disclosure is otherwise required or authorised by law.
Privacy and Confidentiality
As part of providing a counselling, life coaching, or psychotherapy service, Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching or its employees, associates or partners will need to collect and record personal information that is relevant to a Client’s situation. This information is a necessary part of the consultative service provided to the Client. All personal information gathered during the provision of the counselling and/or life coaching or psychotherapy service will remain confidential and secure unless compelled to do so by law or security reasons.
The Client agrees not to record by any means any session or part thereof including note taking between Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching and its employees, associates or partners by any means except where agreed to with Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching its employees, associates or partners. Failure to do so would constitute a severe breach of client-counsellor confidentiality. Further, recordings of any session may be in breach of the NSW Surveillance Devices Act 2007 No. 64 Part 2 and other legislation as the case may be.
Online counselling
Where appropriate the service may be provided by telephone, email or videoconferencing. You are responsible for the costs associated with setting up the technology needed so you can access online services. You are also responsible to make sure your computer is protected against malicious software that may affect your online activities. Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching will be responsible for the cost of the call to you and the cost associated with the platform used to conduct counselling services.
To access online consultations, you will need access to a quiet, private space; and the appropriate device, i.e. smartphone, laptop, iPad, computer, with a camera, microphone and speakers; and a reliable broadband internet connection.
The privacy of any form of communication via the internet is potentially vulnerable and limited by the security of the technology used.
To support the security of your personal information this practice suggests the use of Skype. Why Skype? According to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners there is currently no evidence to suggest that Skype is unsuitable for clinical use (RACGP Telehealth video consultations guide, accessed 14 April 2020). Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching may also use other teleconferencing software from time to time such as Zoom if that is more convenient for the client.
An online consultation may be subject to limitations such as an unstable network connection, which may affect the quality of the counselling session. In addition, there may be some services for which online counselling is not appropriate or effective. Your counsellor will consider and discuss with you the appropriateness of ongoing online sessions.
In regard to the internet
Who we are
Our website address is: https://sydneycounselling.com. It is a secure website. The business trading name is Sydney Counselling and Life Coaching, ABN 21 318 903 324.
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/ . After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
If you do not wish your comments to be made public, you may choose to send and email or telephone us.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact Forms
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
Who we share your data with
We do not share your data with any person or organisation unless required to do for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
How long do we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights do you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Your contact information
Your name and contact information provided through our website will never be disclosed to any third party except in the event of an emergency or if a criminal offence is about to happen or has happened. In this case the relevant authorities will be contacted in the interests of safety to yourself and/or others.
Additional information
How we protect your data
Any data transmitted between us and you will be electronically stored on our servers or otherwise by backup services or printed material. Any data transmitted will be kept secure between you and us unless required to do so for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
What data breach procedures we have in place
When we become aware of a data breach you will be contacted by either email, SMS or telephone. It will be your responsibility to change any passwords you have created to access the website or specific pages on the website.
Any access passwords issued to you by us to access the website or pages on the website will be reset and you will be issued with new access password. You will be notified by either email, SMS or telephone of the new access password.
What third parties we receive data from
We do not receive any data about you from any organisation in relation to internet services accessed by you. This includes but not limited to social media such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, Twitter or others.
What automated decision making and/or profiling do we do with user data
We do not engage in any automated decision making or profiling of data received from any organisation about you.