HelloSelf Therapist Privacy Notice

We are HelloSelf and we believe it's important that we are clear and transparent in how we use your personal information.

This privacy notice (“Notice”) sets out how and why HelloSelf collects your personal information when you join our therapist network, whether to provide your professional services via HelloSelf’s website and members’ app, join our directory for direct referrals, use our platform to support your own clients, receive our therapist newsletter, get invitations to and attend our CPD events and/or otherwise benefit from the services we offer therapists. It also sets out the rights you have about our use of your information. Your privacy is very important to us and so we will only ever use your personal information appropriately and in a secure manner.

If you have any questions about this notice please email us at dpo@helloself.com.

Who are we?

HelloSelf operates a platform (the “Platform”) which provides certain services to therapists and also enables individuals to book and conduct psychological healthcare consultations ("Sessions") with you through our website at https://www.helloself.com/, and other domains or subdomains owned and operated by HelloSelf, (our "Website"), and HelloSelf | Therapy & Coaching, our members’ mobile application (our "App").

HelloSelf provides services (the "HelloSelf Service") to individuals through the Platform that enable:

users to sign up and create an account to track their lifestyle, emotions and experiences, set life goals, conduct psychometric self-assessments and set up therapy sessions ("Members");
Members to share this information with, and access therapy sessions with you, i.e. a qualified, registered and/or accredited therapist in the business of providing psychological therapy ("Therapists");
you to promote your services, provide therapy and coaching sessions ("Sessions") to, and communicate with, Members;
you to join our therapist directory to benefit from direct referrals from your directory profile;
you to use our platform to support your own clients and benefit from HelloSelf handling administrative tasks such as invoicing and late payments;
you to use our video and notes storage platform;
you to access our clinical team for support;
you to connect with and message other therapists within the HelloSelf network;
you to receive our therapist newsletter;
you to receive access to therapist training; and
you to receive invitations to, and attend, our continuing professional development (CPD) events.

HelloSelf comprises HelloSelf (UK) Limited (company number 11492566) and Leathes Psychology Limited (company number 08190535). These companies act as a data controller in relation to your personal data. Together these companies are referred to in this privacy notice as "HelloSelf".

Any reference in this notice to "we" or "us" means HelloSelf.

What is "personal information"?

Personal information is data that identifies or is associated with you (your "personal information" or "personal data") when you provide your services via our Platform, or otherwise interact with us, for example by phone or email.

We collect personal information when you use any of our services for Therapists, including when you set up your account on the Platform, when you provide your services via our Platform, when you upload information to the HelloSelf Platform, or that you otherwise provide when you communicate with us (including through email or phone).

Most of the information that we collect is collected directly from you. However, third parties may also provide us with personal information about you, subject to their own privacy policies.

We may collect personal information about you from:

Organisations and professional bodies such as but not limited to the General Medical Council (“GMC”), British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (“BACP”), British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (“BABCP”), UK Council for Psychotherapy (“UKCP”) or The Health and Care Professionals Council (“HCPC”) who provide us with correct and up to date accreditation information.

Like most online services, we also collect certain personal information about you automatically when you use the HelloSelf Platform in order to understand how the HelloSelf Service is used and how we can improve it. For further information on how we process your personal data as a Website or App user, please see our general privacy notice.

We have set out the categories of personal information we collect and how we use them in detail below.

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How and why do we use your personal information?

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a lawful basis to do so. For example:

where you have given consent;
to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract; or
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party.

A legitimate interest is when we or a third party have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

We are the data controller of the personal information we collect and use through the HelloSelf Service as described in this Privacy Notice. This means that we determine and are responsible for how your personal information is used when you use the HelloSelf Service or otherwise interact with us by email, phone or otherwise.

We provide further details below about what we use your personal information for and why.

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1. Therapists that join the HelloSelf Platform

Therapists join HelloSelf to benefit from our therapist services, including to promote their services on our Platform, provide Sessions to, and communicate with, Members. The personal data we collect from Therapists, our purposes of processing and our legal basis for processing in respect of this is detailed below.

Personal data that may be processed	Purpose of processing	Legal basis for processing data
Information contained in the HelloSelf Application Process	To ascertain whether you are suitable to join the HelloSelf network as an Therapist,	The processing is necessary for the performance of or entry into a contract with you (such as the “Therapist Terms of Service”)
Contact information including your first name, last name, email address and phone number We will ask you to provide a CV We will ask you to set up your profile by providing information such as a professional biography and your experience and qualifications We will also collect information relating to your clinical expertise and preferences for types of clinical work	To ascertain whether you are suitable to join the HelloSelf network as an Therapist, subject to a satisfactory interview process (where appropriate)	The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (such as the “Therapist Terms of Service”)
	To create a HelloSelf email address for you to enable you to set up and manage your Therapist account with us
	We will use your name to search the registers of practitioners maintained by the British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies ("BABCP") and/or Health & Care Professions Council ("HCPC") to confirm that you are currently registered with the appropriate organisation
	We use this information to promote your services to users of the HelloSelf Service
	Where appropriate, we use information about your experience and qualifications to match you with Members seeking to book and attend therapy sessions
	We will use your contact information (including your HelloSelf email address) to contact you in relation to therapy sessions set up for you, any changes in relation to those sessions or any safeguarding issues that arise in respect of your Members	The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (such as the “Therapist Terms of Service”) The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests in allowing you and our Members to arrange sessions and in adequately dealing with any safeguarding issues that arise
Bank account details	We will use your bank details to provide you with payment for the Sessions you provide Members	The processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (such as the “Therapist Terms of Service”)
Your photograph	We will make your photograph available on the Website where you select to customise your profile	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests in allowing you to customise your profile
Your registration information with the BACP, BABCP, UKCP and/or HCPC	We use this information to ensure that we meet our commitments by working only with appropriately accredited Therapists	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests and Members’ legitimate interests, namely in ensuring that Therapists are appropriately accredited and that we meet our commitments in this respect
Evidence of your professional indemnity insurance policy	We use this information ensure that we meet our commitments by working only with appropriately insured Therapists	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests and Members’ legitimate interests, namely ensuring that Therapists are insured to cover any issues that may arise when providing Sessions to Members
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check	To assess your suitability to provide your services via our Platform	We will seek your explicit consent before running DBS checks on you
Details relating to the time, dates and duration of Sessions you have booked to provide, or have provided, along with the name of the relevant Member or client with whom you had your Session(s)	To bill Members for their Sessions and/or to enable Members or third parties covering the cost of any Sessions to claims the costs from their insurer or to arrange direct payment of the cost of any Sessions from the insurer	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely ensuring that we can bill Members, receive payment for the running of our business and pay you
Written session notes and summaries taken by you and uploaded to the HelloSelf Service, which may include information Members or your clients provide to you during sessions, verbally or via the messaging or summarising function, and diagnoses and treatment plans provided by you	We process this information for safeguarding and quality assurance purposes. It may also be used by other Therapists or professionals where we believe you require safeguarding support and for investigating complaints	The processing is necessary for the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services
	We may process this information (when the Member has consented) to allow you to keep session notes, summaries, diagnoses and treatment plans stored on the Platform	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely increasing the efficiency and quality of our Service
	We may share extracts of this information with the Member’s insurer, or any other party that is funding the Member’s treatment, with the Member’s consent, if required to support an insurance or funding request for payment claim	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely allowing our Members to claim their Sessions via their insurance (or other funding method) and to ensure we receive payment for the running of our business
Transcripts and automated summaries of your Session, capturing your discussion with the Member during the Session	To provide you with a detailed record of your Session to aid in your preparation of Session notes	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely increasing the efficiency and quality of our Service
Session recordings, including any audio or video recordings of your Session	To provide you and our Members with a record of the Session that you and they can refer to at a later date	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely increasing the efficiency and quality of our Service

Personal data collected in relation to events, including name, email address and job title	To coordinate, manage and plan our events	Necessary for our legitimate interests in planning, managing and running our events
Details relating to your attendance at training sessions, including name, email address and job title	To coordinate, manage and plan training session	Necessary for our legitimate interests in offering training sessions to Therapists

Where we process your personal data for entry into or performance of a contract and you do not provide us with this information, we will be unable to enter into a contract with you.

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2. Marketing and communications with Therapists

HelloSelf will collect certain information from you in our communications with you which relate to your preferences on how we communicate with you and the types of communications you wish to receive from us. These are detailed below.

Personal data that may be processed	Purpose of processing	Legal basis for processing data
Contact information including your first name, last name, email address and phone number	We use this information to send you newsletters and information about promotions and new features on the HelloSelf Service	We will only process your personal information in this way to the extent you have given us your consent
Your marketing communication preferences, such as whether you asked or agreed to receive emails from us promoting the HelloSelf Service	We use this information to ensure that we only send promotional communications to you in accordance with your preferences	We will only process your personal information in this way to the extent you have given us your consent
When you communicate with us, such as by email, phone or social media, we will collect the comments, queries and feedback that you submit to us when you contact us and the content of our responses to you	We use this information to respond to your comments, queries and feedback about the HelloSelf Service or us	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely communicating with therapists and prospective therapists
	We use this information to tailor the communications we send to you so that they are more relevant to you	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely ensuring that the contents of any communications that we send is relevant to your needs and interests
	We use this information to improve the HelloSelf Service in response to any comments, complaints and feedback that you provide	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests, namely maintaining and improving the HelloSelf Service
Social media account data, such as social media handles	We use this information to tag you in posts on social media or to reshare content that you have shared on social media	The processing is necessary for our legitimate interests

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3. Prospective Therapists

If you apply to join our therapist network and/or apply to provide your services via the HelloSelf Platform as a Therapist, we may collect information about you as follows:

Personal data that may be processed	Purpose of processing	Legal basis for processing data
Contact information including your first name, last name, gender, postal and email address, and phone number	To assess your suitability to provide your services via our Platform, to contact you about your application and to consider entering into a contract with you	The processing is necessary for entry into or the performance of a contract
Personal data included in your application, including information in your CV such as educational and employment backgrounds. We may request a photo of you	To assess your suitability to provide your services via our Platform and to contact you	We process the personal data of prospective Therapists based on our legitimate interest in selecting the best therapists for HelloSelf
Professional qualifications, including your registration information with the BABCP and/or HCPC and evidence of your professional indemnity insurance policy	We use this information ensure that we meet our commitments by working only with appropriately accredited and insured Therapists	Legitimate interests
Depending on the role, we may need to collect employment references about you and run background (e.g. DBS) checks on you	To assess your suitability to provide your services via our Platform	We will seek your explicit consent before collecting employment references or running background checks on you

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How long do we keep your personal information?

We will only keep your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, or as otherwise required for compliance with applicable contracts and /or guidelines, applicable laws and/or for the purposes of establishing, exercising and defending any legal claims.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of it, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means. We also take into account legal and regulatory requirements which require the retention of personal information for a minimum period of time and limitation periods for legal claims.

Who else may receive your data and how they use it

We may share your personal data with certain third parties as part of the running of our business, including:

Members – Therapists will voluntarily share information with Members in order to provide them with sessions and HelloSelf will share information with Members about the Therapist they have been matched with as well.
Service providers – we may share your personal information with certain trusted suppliers and service providers who we rely on in order to provide you with the HelloSelf Service. For example, to pay you, to provide cloud storage, to host the platform, to provide us with a software and to provide IT technical services.
Partners such as the NHS, insurers and Members’ employers – your name may be disclosed to our partners so that they can liaise with you regarding Member care.
Social media – if we interact with you through social media, that social media platform will receive and process the personal information contained in such communications.
Purchasers and third parties in connection with a business transaction - your personal information may be disclosed to third parties in connection with a transaction, such as a merger, sale of assets or shares, reorganisation, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business.
Law enforcement, regulators and other parties for legal reasons or concerns regarding risk to self, others or for safeguarding or supervision purposes as part of our duty of care - we may share your personal information with third parties as required by law or if we reasonably believe that such action is necessary to (i) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (ii) detect and investigate illegal activities and breaches of agreements; (iii) manage risk and safeguard and/or (iv) exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of HelloSelf, its users or others.
Professional advisers – we may share your personal information with our professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants and auditors where we have a need to do so.

Storing and transferring your personal information

How we keep your information secure

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, change or damage. All personal information we collect will be stored on our hosting provider's secure servers. We will never send you unsolicited emails or contact you by phone requesting your credit or debit card information or national identification numbers.

International Transfers of your personal information

Your personal information is primarily processed within the UK and European Economic Area. We do, however, use certain service providers located in the USA, who may receive and process your personal information on our behalf.

Where we transfer personal information to these service providers, we do so in accordance with agreements with these service providers that incorporate agreements approved for the transfer of personal data under the GPDR and UK Data Protection Act 2018, including standard contractual clauses issued by the European Commission as amended by the approved addendum to those Standard Contractual Clauses issued by the Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO").

If you wish to enquire further about the safeguards we use, including obtaining a copy of any standard contractual clauses we have in place with recipients outside the EEA or UK, please contact us at dpo@helloself.com.

Your privacy rights

In accordance with applicable privacy law, in certain circumstances, you may have the following rights in respect of your personal information that we hold:

Right of access. The right to obtain:

confirmation of whether, and where, we are processing your personal information;
information about the categories of personal information we are processing, the purposes for which we process your personal information and information as to how we determine applicable retention periods;
information about the categories of recipients with whom we may share your personal information; and
a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

Right of portability. The right to receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format that supports re-use, or to request the transfer of your personal data to another person.

Right to rectification. The right to obtain rectification of any inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you without undue delay.

Right to erasure. The right to require us to erase your personal information without undue delay if the continued processing of that personal information is not justified.

Right to restriction. The right to request that we limit the purposes for which we process your personal information if the continued processing of the personal information in this way is not justified, such as where the accuracy of the personal information is contested by you.

Right to withdraw consent. If you have given us your consent to process your personal information in a particular way, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This may impact your ability to continue using our Service. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing of your personal information prior to that withdrawal.

Right to object. You have the right to object to any processing based on our legitimate interests where there are grounds relating to your particular situation. There may be compelling reasons for continuing to process your personal information, and we will assess and inform you if that is the case.

If you wish to exercise one of these rights, please contact us at dpo@helloself.com.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office. Information about how to contact the ICO is available here.

Links to third party sites

The Website may, from time to time, contain links to and from third party websites, including those of our partners, advertisers, social media platforms and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies. Please check the individual policies before you submit any information to those websites.

Changes to this policy

Any updates we may make to our Privacy Notice will be posted on this page, and we may also provide you with notice of any material changes, such as via email or our website. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our Privacy Notice.

Notices to you

If we need to provide you with information about something, whether for legal, marketing or other business-related purposes, we will select what we believe is the best way to get in contact with you. We will usually do this through email or by placing a notice on the Website.

Last updated: 27 March 2025