Privacy Policy

Introduction

Welcome to my privacy policy.

I respect your privacy and am committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you about how I look after your personal data when you visit my website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. 

It contains important information on who I am and how and why I collect, store, use and share your personal information. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact me or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

I collect, use and are responsible for certain personal information about you. When I do so I am subject to data protection laws which apply across the European Union and the United Kingdom and I am responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

By providing me with your data, you warrant to me that you are over 13 years of age.

I have also included our Data Complaints Policy at the end of this document should you need it.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how I collect and process your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you fill in my contact form, sign up to receive information from me, purchase a product or service or take part in a competition. 

This website is not intended for children and I do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or notice or fair processing notice I may provide on specific occasions when I am collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why I am using your data. This privacy policy supplements the other policies and notices and is not intended to override them. 

Controller

Dr Bernadette Sewell is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "I", "me" or "my" in this privacy policy).

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact me using the details set out below. 

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or my privacy practices, please contact me. My full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Dr Bernadette Sewell, PhD

Name or title of person to contact: Dr Bernadette Sewell

Email address: hello@drbernisewell.com

Postal address: Meadow House, Gwscwm Road, Burry Port, SA16 0BT, United Kingdom

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). However, I care deeply about your data protection rights and I would appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact me using the details above in the first instance.

Your duty to inform me of changes

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

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. I do not control these third-party websites and am not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave my website, I encourage you to read the privacy policy or notice of every website you visit.

2. The data I collect about you

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).

I may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which I have grouped together as follows:

I also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, I may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature.

Sensitive Data

Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data, and criminal convictions and offences.

I may need to collect the following sensitive data about you in order to deliver or personalise our services or products:

Information about your health and/or mental health; information about your relationships or sex life, information about your sexual orientation, race or ethnicity, personal history or political opinions.

I require your explicit consent for processing sensitive data, so when you submit your details, I will ask you to confirm your explicit consent to this processing.

3. How is your personal data collected?

I use different methods to collect data from and about you, including through:

4. How we use your personal data

I will only use your personal data when the law allows me to. Most commonly, I will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

Purposes for which I will use your personal data

I have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways I plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases I rely on to do so. I have also identified what my legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that I may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which I am using your data.

Marketing

I strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. My lawful ground for processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either your consent or my legitimate interests (namely to grow my business).

Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, I may send you marketing communications from me if (i) you made a purchase or asked for information from me about my goods or services or (ii) you agreed to receive marketing communications and in each case you have not opted out of receiving such communications since. Under these regulations, if you are a limited company, I may send you marketing emails without your consent. However you can still opt out of receiving marketing emails from me at any time.

Promotional offers from us

I may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what I think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how I decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (I call this marketing). 

You will receive marketing communications from me if you have requested information from me or purchased goods or services from me and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Third-party marketing

I will get your express opt-in consent before I share your personal data with any third party.

Opting out

You can ask me or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting me at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to me as a result of a product/service purchase, warranty registration, product/service experience or other transactions.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies I use, please see my cookie policy.

Change of purpose

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

Please note that I 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

I may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above:

I require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. I do not allow my 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 my instructions.

International transfers

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for me to share your personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and/or the UK, eg:

These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.

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

If you would like further information, please contact me using the contact details in clause 1 above.

Personal Data and AI

We shall only submit personally identifiable client data into AI platforms to the extent that such submission complies with GDPR and any other applicable legislation. We shall implement appropriate safeguards and comply with applicable data protection laws whenever we use AI.

6. Data security

I 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, I limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on my instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. 

I 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 I am legally required to do so.

7. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

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

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, I 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 I process your personal data and whether I can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law I have to keep basic information about my customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

If you are not a customer, I shall retain your data for 2 years following your last engagement with me.

In some circumstances you can ask me to delete your data: see ‘Request erasure’ below for further information.

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

8. Your legal rights

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

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, I may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, I may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

Changes to this privacy policy

I may change this privacy policy from time to time – when I do, I shall inform you via my website.

Data Complaints Policy

1. We are committed to providing a high-quality service, in accordance with data protection law. At all times, we seek to comply with data protection principles by ensuring we:

•  process personal data lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;

•  collect personal data for specific and legitimate purposes and do not process personal data in a way that is incompatible with those purposes;

•  collect and use adequate, relevant and minimal personal data;

•  take reasonable steps to make sure personal data is accurate and kept up to date;

•   do not keep personal data longer than necessary; and

•   implement appropriate security measures.

2.  We acknowledge that we may not always get things right, so if something has gone wrong, we need you to tell us. This will help us to improve our standards of service and data protection controls.

3.  How to make a complaint

3.1.       You can contact us in writing by email to the following email address (hello@drbernisewell.com) using the words ‘Data Complaint ‘ in the subject heading.  Alternatively, you can send a letter to the postal address set out in our Privacy Policy.

4.  Acknowledging and verifying your complaint

4.1.  We will contact you within seven days acknowledging your complaint.

4.2. We will take reasonable steps to verify the identity of the person making the complaint. This may involve requesting further information or documentation from you. If the complaint is made on behalf of someone else, we will also need to check that the person making the complaint is properly authorised to do so.

4.3. If, having requested additional information, we are not in a position to identify the person making the complaint or we are not satisfied that they have proper authority to make the complaint, we may refuse to deal with it - see section 7.2.1 below.

5. Investigating your complaint

5.1. We will investigate your complaint. This will usually involve:

5.1.1.  reviewing your complaint;

5.1.2. locating and reviewing the records we hold about you;

5.1.3. establishing the relevant facts; and

5.1.4. liaising with individuals who you may have dealt with.

5.2. We may also need to ask you for further information or documents. If so, we will ask you to provide the information within a specific period of time.

5.3. We will update you on the progress of your complaint at appropriate times.

6.  Notifying you of the outcome of our investigation

6.1. We will contact you at the end of our investigation to tell you what we have done and what we propose to do to resolve your complaint.

6.2. We usually aim to do this within 30 days of the date of receiving your complaint. However, this time period may be extended where:

6.2.1.   we ask you to provide further information to verify your identity or your authority to make the complaint, or in relation to the complaint itself;

6.2.2.   your complaint is complex or involves locating and/or reviewing a large volume of information; or

6.2.3.   you have made several complaints, which we need to investigate at the same time.

6.3. We will tell you if we need more time to properly investigate your complaint and explain why.

7.  Refusing to deal with your complaint or charging a fee

7.1. We prefer to deal with complaints and, preferably, to resolve them. We will not usually charge a fee for handling a complaint.

7.2. We may, however, refuse to deal with a complaint where:

7.2.1.   after requesting additional information in accordance with section 4.2, we are not in a position to identify you and/or to verify that you are authorised to make the complaint; or

7.2.2.   we have asked for more information in relation to the complaint itself (section 5.2), but you have not provided this within a reasonable time.

7.3. Where we consider the complaint to be manifestly unfounded or excessive, eg because you have made the same complaint repeatedly, we may:

7.3.1.   refuse to act on the complaint; or

7.3.2.   charge a reasonable fee for dealing with the complaint, based on our reasonable administrative costs - we will notify you of the proposed fee in advance of incurring it.

8. What to do if we cannot resolve your complaint

8.1. If you are unhappy with the outcome of your complaint, you can complain to the data protection authority of the country where you are based. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), or you can seek to take action in the courts.

8.2. The ICO’s contact details are:

More details on how to complain to the ICO are available on the Complaints page of the ICO’s website. You should usually submit your complaint to the ICO or other data protection authority within three months of your last contact with us.

9. Additional information

Social media platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owner participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate/engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website or its owner will never ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and I encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact me through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened links in social media

This website and its owner through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy URLs [web addresses] (this is an example: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo).

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened URLs published on social media platforms by this website and its owner. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published, many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owner cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Information you share

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily make your Personal Information available to third parties (for example on message boards or web logs, through email, during webinars, classes, telephone conferences, or coaching calls or in comment or chat areas) that information can be seen, collected, heard, and/or used by others besides me. I cannot be responsible for any unauthorised third-party use of such information.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act compliance

I do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Site. If you are under 13, please do not give me any Personal Information. I encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and to help enforce my Privacy Policy by instructing their children to never provide Personal Information through the Site without their permission. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to me, please contact me, and I will endeavour to delete that information from my databases.