Your privacy, plainly

This website

Making an enquiry through this website

When you send an enquiry through this website, it is delivered to my inbox by Resend, an email service, and you get a short email from me confirming it arrived. Resend is a United States company, so your message may pass through servers outside Australia. It is not added to a database or a mailing list.

This website sets no tracking or advertising cookies, and uses no analytics. The only third-party script on these pages is Cloudflare Turnstile, a bot check on the enquiry form. It is designed to be privacy-preserving and it is not Google reCAPTCHA.

To limit spam, the enquiry form records the time the form was opened and keeps a one-way hash of the sending IP address for one hour. The IP address itself is never stored.

The newsletter

If you subscribe to Kindly put, my newsletter, the only thing I ask for is your email address. This website passes on nothing else: no name, no location, and nothing about which page you signed up on.

The list is held by Buttondown, an email service that sends the letters for me. Your address goes to Buttondown from this website’s server when you subscribe; no Buttondown script runs on these pages. Buttondown is a United States company, so your address may be stored outside Australia.

No letters are sent until you confirm. When you subscribe, you get one email with a link in it, and you are on the list only once you click it.

The letters carry no tracking. Open and click tracking are switched off, so I can’t see who opens a letter or which links anyone follows.

Every letter has a link to unsubscribe, and one click takes you off the list. You can also ask me to remove you at any time.

The list is kept apart from everything else. I never add enquiry or client email addresses to it, and I never combine it with client records or enquiries.

To limit spam, the sign-up form uses the same checks as the enquiry form: it records the time the form was opened, and keeps a one-way hash of the sending IP address for one hour. The IP address itself is never stored, and it is not passed to Buttondown.

There is more about the letter itself on the newsletter page.

In counselling

Privacy

Australian Government privacy legislation applies to personal information collected about an individual that could be used to identify them, directly or indirectly.

Confidentiality

Your right to privacy includes confidentiality. Information discussed during our sessions is confidential and will not be shared with anyone without your written permission, except where I am legally obliged:

• To report a serious and imminent threat to the life, health or property of yourself or another person.
• To report abuse or neglect experienced by a young person under the age of 18.
• To release client records when required by a court order.

Records

Confidential written records are kept, reflecting the issues and goals identified in counselling sessions, and are held securely for seven years.

I may use Heidi to take session notes. Full detail on that, including your right to decline it, is set out in the intake and consent information.

Supervision

I have an ethical responsibility to reflect on my practice, and as part of that I may discuss my work with you with my clinical supervisor. In those conversations, what is presented is de-identified.

Questions

If you have a question about any of this, please ask by email at sharon@counselme.com.au.