PCEA Privacy Notice (Privately Commissioned Work)

The Psychology Clinic of East Anglia > Privacy Policies > PCEA Privacy Notice (Privately Commissioned Work)

Third Party Instructions – Assessments and related activities

Last updated: 2/9/2022

Our contact details

Name: The Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd.

Address: 68 Bishopgate, Norwich, NR1 4AA

Phone Number: 01603 610059

E-mail: dpo@pcea.co.uk (data protection queries)
admin@pcea.co.uk (general enquiries)

What is the purpose of this document?

The Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd (‘PCEA’) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This document specifically relates to how we collect and process personal data in relation to instructions we and our affiliated Psychologists (‘we’) receive from third parties (not from direct instructions/contracts with the individuals themselves). Examples of third parties that instruct us are the Courts, Local Authorities, Insurance companies, etc. The assessments and related tasks (the ‘Service’) we are instructed to carry out are required to inform a specific process, such as a legal process, health and social care support or dealing with an insurance claim. These are just examples of some of the organisations that instruct us and the kinds of processes involved.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you in relation to a third party instruction to carry out an assessment or related activity (such as attending a professionals’ meeting or hearing to discuss the assessment findings), in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Unless there is an explicit contractual agreement between PCEA and the third party that PCEA is a ‘Data Processor’ in this process, PCEA will be a ‘Data Controller’. Please note that there are likely to be other organisations and parties with Data Controller responsibilities in this process, depending on who instructed the work.

Where you or a third party supply Personal Data to us so we can carry out the instructed Service, and we process that Personal Data in the course of carry out that Services, we will comply with our obligations imposed by the Data Protection Laws:

  1. before or at the time of collecting Personal Data, we will identify the purposes for which information is being collected;
  2. we will only Process Personal Data for the purposes identified;
  3. we will respect your rights in relation to your Personal Data; and
  4. we will implement technical and organisational measures to ensure your Personal Data is secure.

This notice applies to private individuals who are the subject of psychology work instructed through the Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd by third parties. We may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  4. Accurate and kept up to date.
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  6. Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold 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).

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
  • Date of birth.
  • Gender.
  • Bank details (e.g. in the event that you are due a refund).

There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal information, examples of which are listed below. We may need to collect this kind of data in order to provide the contracted service, such as a psychological assessment or intervention.

Examples of special category information:

  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
  • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
  • Information about criminal convictions and offences.
  • Psychological, developmental and medical histories and presentation.
  • Psychometric test results.

How we get personal information and why we have it

We collect personal information about the subjects of psychological assessments as part of providing the instructed Service. This will be gathered directly from the individual, such as during an assessment interview, or from third party sources, such as Court documents or medical records we are sent in order to inform and facilitate the delivery of the Service.

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information is:

(e) Public task (Article 6(1)(e). This is on the basis that you we acting on the instructions of a third party (Court, Local Authority, etc.) which creates a duty to the Court for PCEA to comply with (i.e. to prepare/commission an independent assessment).

Special category data and criminal offence will only be collected if it is necessary to deliver the Service which has been contracted and will be processed fairly and legally. See below for more information about this kind of data and additional legal basis for processing this data.

How we use your data

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • To enable us to provide the Service instructed by the third party.
  • To facilitate logistical and organisational aspects of providing the Service.
  • To request and process payment of our fees or, where appropriate, to action refund payments to you (where you are liable to pay our fees. This is not automatically the case for third party instructions).
  • Adhering to our legal and professional obligations.
  • Dealing with legal disputes and complaints.
  • Complying with health and safety obligations.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the Service we have been instructed to carry out (such as providing a completed assessment report) and will not be held responsible for the consequences of such, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations. Should you have any disagreement or concerns regarding the instruction we have received, you should take this up with the instructing body. If you are not sure who this is in your particular case, we can provide their details on request.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, as set out above. We would never use your data for marketing or similar purposes nor pass your data on to others for such purposes. We do not envisage that we will use your data for any other reason than those set out above but if we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is permitted by law.

Use of particularly sensitive personal information

“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. Given the nature of the services we supply regarding potentially sensitive psychological information and histories, this may be necessary in order to meet provide the instructed Service. Such sensitive data also requires additional justification in law for their collection, under conditions set out in Article 9. In the provision of psychological services to the Courts and other bodies to inform a legal process, we rely on Article 9(2)(f) – “processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity”. Provision of services to Local Authorities and other bodies, outside of legal proceedings, in support of provision of health and social care relies on (h) Health and Social Care, and either or both of the associated conditions under Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the DPA 2018 – 2. (d) Provision of health care or treatment, and 2. (e) Provision of social care.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

Information about criminal convictions

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is relevant to the Service we are providing, for example, as pertaining to psychological or developmental history which is a factor in a psychological assessment we produce. The additional conditions for processing such data are as set out for “Special Categories” data.

Data sharing

We will not share your information with third parties except where it is necessary to provide the Service or where we are required to by law. For example, the Service may be carried out by sub-contracted, independent practitioners or we may need to share information with the practitioner’s professional body to respond if you lodge a complaint.

All such third parties are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes.

Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we 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 we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

With regards to assessment and related work where Psychologists working through PCEA are instructed via third party organisations (e.g. the Court, a Local Authority, the Police, insurance companies), data can be classified under two groups: That gathered directly by the Psychologist and held principally by the Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd, and external data provided by third parties to inform the Psychologist but held principally elsewhere.

Internally gathered data retention

Data collected/produced by the Psychologist working through The Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd and not held elsewhere, such as psychometric test data, interview notes or recordings to be held for up to 7 years.

Externally gathered data retention

Data held principally by third party Data Controllers and shared with The Psychology Clinic of East Anglia Ltd for the purpose of completing assessments and reports, or to inform attendance at Court hearings, professionals’ meetings, etc, such as but not limited to:

  • Court bundles
  • Social Worker logs
  • Medical records
  • Police records and interviews
  • Video and audio recordings of assessments, contact sessions, etc.
  • Images, recordings, videos, statements and other data from external parties
  • Third party professionals’ reports

Shall be kept no longer than necessary to complete work and likely follow up work. Regular reviews to be carried out to determine whether cases have been concluded or remained dormant for a sufficient period to allow for such data to be securely destroyed/deleted.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  1. Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  2. Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  3. Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  4. Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes (although please note that we never envisage using your personal information for the latter purpose).
  5. Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  6. Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Protection Officer (Stewart Long – dpo@pcea.co.uk) in writing.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Data Protection Officer. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Data protection officer

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO (Stewart Long) at dpo@pcea.co.uk. 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.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact our Data Protection Officer.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at dpo@pcea.co.uk (see our Data Protection Officer’s details above).

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk