Privacy Policy

1. Privacy Policy

• Lifelink is a company limited by guarantee (No.171155) and a charity registered in Scotland (No.SC025643). Registered Office address: Lifelink, Suite 4, Melisa House, 3 Brand Place, Glasgow, Scotland, G51 1DR.

2. How we use your Personal Data

• We may use third party software provided by companies such as Survey Monkey, Eventbrite or Mailchimp to help us keep in touch with you. Only the minimum of required data is shared with such sites (for example name and email address) and fully comply with data sharing agreements and privacy legislation.
• We will never sell or pass your details to any other companies.
• We will not share any personal ideintifiable data or information without your consent except in circumstances where there is serious risk of harm to yourself or others, or for Court orders/ other legitimate legal processes. In these circumstances we will attempt to involve you in decisions about the disclosure as long as this does not create further risk or obstruct legal processes.
• We will delete your data a maximum of 5 years after your last contact with us, or sooner if you request it. 

2.1  Subscribers to our newsletters

• If you choose to subscribe to our newsletters we will occasionally contact you by email, in this instance the only information we will securely store is your name and email address.

2.2 Course and event attendees

• If you have previously attended or expressed interest in any of our courses or events we will occasionally contact you by email, in this instance the information stored is your name, email address, contact details and, if applicable, details of the event or course you attended.

2.3 Referrals to our support services (identified as ‘Service Users’)

• If you have been referred to Lifelink for counselling (either by self referral or by someone else) we will only use the details provided to contact you regarding this and in line with the choices you make in the confidentiality agreement we ask you to fill in on your first appointment. Any further use of information will be for statistical purposes only and used to provide analytical reports. In this instance individuals will not be identified personally and general identifiers such as age range, gender and reason for referral will be the only information collated. Service users information will never be used for marketing purposes unless they have ‘opted’ in to receive marketing communications such as newsletters or feedback forms.  

2.4 Contact via our online enquiry forms

• If you use one of our online enquiry forms to get in touch with us for any reason. We will securely store the information that you provide to us in order to deal with your enquiry or fulfill any request. We will only contact you in relation to your original enquiry/request and where this leads to subsequent communication in order to develop a working relationship or additional enquiries or requests. 

2.5 Incoming and Outgoing calls

• We will record all incoming calls that you make to our team and outgoing calls that our team make to you for the purposes of accessing our services, delivering our services or any queries related to our relationship with you. However, counselling sessions that take place via any digital medium or via telephone calls will not be recorded. These are private sessions between the counsellor and the person receiving counselling.

3. Website Security

• Our website is hosted on a secure server and is protected by HTTPS meaning that any personal information you send us is encrypted and stored as securely as possible. You will find links to other websites (these will be clearly identifiable as external links) that we think you might find helpful, please note we are not responsible for any information external sites contain or the privacy policies which they operate under.

4. Cookie Policy

4.1 What is a cookie?

• Cookies are small ‘text’ files sent to your computer or mobile device usually downloaded onto your device the first time you visit a website. The next time you visit the same website your computer or mobile device checks to see if a cookie is stored (this is usually just a text file containing the website name) and if it does it sends the information back to the website. This allows the website owners to gather information on the number of visitors to their site and how visitors browse their pages. Most websites will give you the option to accept or reject cookies upon your first visit to their website. If you would like further information on cookies you might find this website helpful https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies.

4.2 How our website uses cookies

• We use google analytics to track visitors to our website – this allows us to find out how users find our website (for example through search engines or via social media channels) and to get an idea of the most popular pages on our site. The data gathered has no personal details and cannot be used to identify or contact you. We gather this information to allow us to audit our website on a regular basis and update content accordingly (for example if our client stories have more visitors than our news section then we know to produce more content like this which is of interest to you).
• We also use cookies to allow you to share our content to social media quickly and easily. These cookies collect information relating to how many times particular pages are shared and the geographical locations they are shared from. They do not allow us any form of access to your social media channels or allow us to interact with your social media account in any way via the website. 

5. How you can contact us regarding your Data

5.1 Contact our Data Protection Manager

• As part of our commitment to complying with the Data Protection Act 2018 (of which Lifelink is a registered user) and the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we have a dedicated Data Protection Manager who is responsible for ensuring all data is stored, used and disposed of confidentially and in line with current legislation. If you have any questions or would like further information on this or any of our privacy policies please write to us marked for the attention of the “Lifelink Data Protection Manager”, Suite 4, Melisa House, 3 Brand Place, Glasgow G51 1DR or email us at [email protected] with the subject heading “For immediate attention of Lifelink Data Protection Manager”.

5.2 Your right to unsubscribe, request access to and/or remove your personal data

• You have the right to unsubscribe to our email communications at any time. At the bottom of all email communications from us you will find an unsubscribe link, clicking on this and following the unsubscribe process will remove you from our email marketing list.
• To unsubscribe via telephone please call us on 0141 552 4434, to unsubscribe via post please write to us with your full name and email address to Marketing Department, Lifelink, Suite 4, Melisa House, 3 Brand Place, Glasgow G51 1DR or you can email these details to us at [email protected]. Please note it may take up to ten working days for this to be processed so you may receive further communications within this time.
• In compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 you have the right to request access to the information held about you. This is known as a Subject Access Request and full details on how to request one can be found here Information Commissioners Office.
• If upon review of your personal data you wish to change anything you feel is inaccurate you can request changes to be made. There are two exceptional circumstances that may affect access or changing of your data namely:
  • Where the counsellor/therapist believes that it would be seriously harmful to you to share or amend this information.
  • Where information has been supplied confidentially by a third party (consent must normally be obtained from that person first of all).

• You have the right to request the removal of your personal data and if you wish to do so please write to us marked for the attention of the “Lifelink Data Protection Manager”, Suite 4, Melisa House, 3 Brand Place, Glasgow G51 1DR or email us at [email protected] with the subject heading “For immediate attention of Lifelink Data Protection Manager”. Please note this process will remove all personal identifiable information held about you.