Privacy Policy

I, Vanessa Smith, am committed to protecting your privacy. The prime purpose of collecting your data is to provide you with services (i.e."Mentorship") offered by our website ("vasmith.com"), whether that's using my Site to find information, to contact the site owner and service provider, or for some other reason. No matter how you use my Site, my aim is to allow you to interact with it as effortlessly as possible.

Please read the Privacy Policy carefully before you start to use the Website. By using the Website or by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms of Use when this option is made available to you, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by the Privacy Policy. If you do not want to agree to the Privacy Policy, you must not access or use the Website.

Vanessa Smith holds some information about you. This document outlines how that information is used, who we may share that information with and how we keep it secure. This notice does not provide exhaustive detail. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to the vanessa@vasmith.com. We keep our Privacy Notice under regular review. This Privacy Notice was last reviewed in January 2023.

What I Do

Vanessa Smith provides certified life coaching, energy guidance, and spiritual mentorship to help clients gain clarity, confidence, and trust in who they are and what they are here to do. I also provide educational materials via courses on spirituality, self development, healing, and energy reading skills. Each individual session is personalized. In addition, I may provide Live courses or group experiences, monthly meet ups, masterclasses, retreats, and other products. 

How I Obtain Your Personal Data

Information provided by you

You provide me with personal data in the following ways:

-       By signing a terms of engagement form

-       During a coaching and energy reading session

-       Through email, online via ZOOM,  over the telephone or by post

-       By completing any homework assignments for ongoing contracts

-       By submitting a contact form

-       By opting into my newsletter

-       By making an online payment 

This may include the following information:

-       basic details such as name, address, and contact details

-       details of contact we have had with you such as referrals and appointment requests

I use this information in order to provide you with the best service for the options provided here.  This means that the legal basis of our holding your personal data is for legitimate interest. 

Following completion of your sessions I retain your personal data for my business record. This enables me to process any compliment or complaint you may make. In this case the legal basis of our holding your personal data is for contract administration.

Information I get from other sources

I do not obtain information about you from other sources. If there is such a case where this is to occur, you will be notified. 

How I use your personal data

I act as a data controller for use of your personal data to provide effective sessions. I act as a data controller and processor in regard to the processing of credit card and online payments.

I undertake at all times to protect your personal data, including any health and contact details, in a manner which is consistent with our duty of professional confidence and the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) concerning data protection.  I will also take reasonable security measures to protect your personal data storage.

I may use your personal data where there is an overriding public interest in using the information e.g. in order to safeguard an individual, or to prevent a serious crime.  Also, where there is a legal requirement such as a formal court order. I may use your data for marketing purposes such as newsletters, but this would be subject to you giving me your express consent.

Do you share my information with other organizations?

I will keep information about you confidential.  I will only disclose your information with other third parties with your express consent with the exception of the following categories of third parties:

-       Any contractors and advisors that provide a service to us or act as our agents on the understanding that they keep the information confidential

-       Anyone to whom I may transfer my rights and duties under any agreement I have with you

-       Any legal or crime prevention agencies and/or to satisfy any regulatory request if I have a duty to do so or if the law allows us to do so

I will seek your express consent before sharing your information with your therapist, doctor, or other healthcare providers. However, if I believe that your life is in danger then I may pass your information onto an appropriate authority (such as the police, social services in the case of a child or vulnerable adult, or doctor in case of self-harm) using the legal basis of vital interests.

I may share your case history in an anonymized form with our peers for the purpose of professional development.  This may be at conferences, online forums, and through published works. I will seek your expressed explicit consent before processing your data in this way.

What are your rights?

Every individual has the right to see, amend, delete or have a copy, of data held that can identify you, with some exceptions. You do not need to give a reason to see your data.

If you want to access your data, you must make a subject access request in writing to vanessa@vasmith.com. Under special circumstances, some information may be withheld.  I shall respond within 20 working days from the point of receiving the request and all necessary information from you.  My response will include the details of the personal data we hold on you are including:

-       Sources from which I acquired the information

-       The purposes of processing the information

-       Persons or entities with whom I am sharing the information

You have the right, subject to exemptions, to ask to:

·         Have your information deleted

·         Have your information corrected or updated where it is no longer accurate

·         Ask me to stop processing information about you where I am not required to do so by law 

·         Receive a copy of your personal data, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit that data to another controller, without hindrance from us.

·         Object at any time to the processing of personal data concerning you

I do not carry out any automated processing, which may lead to automated decision based on your personal data.

If you would like to invoke any of the above rights then please email vanessa@vasmith.com

What safeguards are in place to ensure data that identifies me is secure?

I only use information that may identify you in accordance with GDPR. This requires me to process personal data only if there is a legitimate basis for doing so and that any processing must be fair and lawful.

Within the coaching sector, I also have to follow the common law duty of confidence, which means that where identifiable information about you has been given in confidence, it should be treated as confidential and only shared for the purpose of providing service. I will protect your information, inform you of how your information will be used, and allow you to decide if and how your information can be shared.

I also ensure the information we hold is kept in secure locations, restrict access to information to authorized personnel only, protect personal and confidential information held on equipment such as laptops with encryption (which masks data so that unauthorized users cannot see or make sense of it). I ensure external data processors that support us are legally and contractually bound to operate and prove security arrangements are in place where data that could or does identify a person are processed.

How long do you hold confidential information for?

All records held by Vanessa Smith will be kept for the duration specified by guidance from our professional association. 

Website technical details

a.    Forms

I do use electronic forms on my website making use of an available ‘forms module’ which has a number of built-in features to help ensure privacy. I also aim to use secure forms where appropriate.

In compliance with EU legislation, the following table lists the use of cookies on this web site:

Cookie name: Purpose

Accept Cookies: This is used to store whether you have agreed to receive cookies. Persistent for one year.

Google Analytics: These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use my site. I use the information to compile reports and to help me improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

Cookies are small. I do not make use of cookies to collect any private or personally identifiable information. The technical platform of this website uses cookies solely to aid the proper technical functioning of the website. The cookies used contain random strings of characters alongside minimal information about the state and session of the website – which in no way collects or discloses any personal information about you as a visitor.

Advanced areas of this site may use cookies to store your presentation preferences in a purely technical fashion with no individually identifiable information. Note also our statement on analytics software below – as analytics software also uses cookies to function.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Analytics

Like most websites, we make use of analytics software in order to help us understand the trends in popularity of our website and of different sections. I make no use of personally identifiable information in any of the statistical reports we use from this package. We use an analytics package called Google Analytics who provide details of their privacy policy on the Google website.

Complaints

If you have a complaint regarding the use of your personal data then please contact me by email vanessa@vasmith.com and I will do my best to help you.