Privacy Policy
1. Introduction
Welcome to Finding Hope in Depression (findinghopeindepression.co.uk, "we", "us", "our"). We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This policy explains what personal data we collect from you, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it secure, and your rights in relation to your personal data.
By using our website, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. This policy is written to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
For the purpose of the UK GDPR, the data controller is Lisa Owens, FHID of United Kingdom. You can contact us at lisa@loc-coach.com.
2. What Information Do We Collect?
We may collect and process the following data about you:
- Information you give us directly:
- Enquiry Form: When you contact us using our enquiry form, we collect your name, email address, and the contents of your message.
- Blog Subscription: When you subscribe to our blog or newsletter, we collect your email address.
- Information we collect automatically:
- Technical Data: Like most websites, we may automatically collect technical information, including your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, and operating system. This is typically collected through server logs and analytics tools.
A Note on Sensitive Data: Given the nature of this website, you may choose to share sensitive personal information (e.g., relating to your mental health) in the enquiry form. We urge you to be mindful of the information you share. We will treat any such information with the highest level of confidentiality and security, but please be aware that email and web forms are not always 100% secure methods of communication.
3. How and Why We Use Your Data (Our Legal Basis)
We only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your data in the following circumstances:
- To respond to your enquiries: We use the information you provide in our enquiry form to understand and respond to your message.
- Legal Basis: Legitimate Interest. It is in our legitimate interest to be able to respond to queries from our website users.
- To send you blog updates and newsletters: If you have subscribed to our blog, we will use your email address to send you new posts and related communications.
- Legal Basis: Consent. We will only send you these communications if you have explicitly opted-in to receive them. You can withdraw your consent at any time by clicking the "unsubscribe" link in any of our emails or by contacting us directly.
- To maintain and improve our website: We may use technical data to administer our site, to ensure it is secure, and to improve the user experience.
- Legal Basis: Legitimate Interest. It is in our legitimate interest to ensure our website functions correctly and is secure.
4. Data Retention: How Long We Keep Your Information
We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.
- Enquiry Data: Data from enquiry forms will be kept for as long as necessary to resolve your query and for a reasonable period thereafter for our records, typically no longer than 12 months.
- Blog Subscription Data: We will retain your email address for as long as you remain subscribed to our blog. If you unsubscribe, your email address will be promptly removed from our mailing list.
5. Sharing Your Data with Third Parties
We do not sell or rent your information to third parties. We may, however, share your information with trusted third-party service providers for the purposes of operating our website. These include:
- Formspree: Our enquiry form is processed by Formspree. When you submit the form, your data (name, email, message) is sent to their service so they can forward it to us. You can view their privacy policy here: https://formspree.io/legal/privacy-policy
- Email Marketing Provider: To deliver our blog updates, we use Mailchimp. This service stores your email address on our behalf.
- Website Hosting: Our website is hosted by GoDaddy.com who may have incidental access to data stored on their servers.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
6. International Data Transfers
Some of our third-party providers may be based outside the United Kingdom (UK). For example, Formspree is a US-based company.
When we transfer your data to such providers, we ensure that a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as the use of Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) or by ensuring the country has been deemed to provide an adequate level of data protection.
7. Your Data Protection Rights
Under UK GDPR, you have several rights regarding your personal data:
- The right to be informed: You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data.
- The right of access: You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.
- The right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to correct data that you think is inaccurate or complete information that you think is incomplete.
- The right to erasure (to be forgotten): You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances.
- The right to restrict processing: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
- The right to data portability: You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
- The right to object to processing: You have the right to object to processing if we are processing your information based on our legitimate interests.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at lisa@loc-coach.com
8. Cookies
Cookies are small text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behaviour information. We use cookies to improve your experience on our website.
You can set your browser not to accept cookies. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.
9. Links to Other Websites
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
10. Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Any updates will be posted on this page. This policy was last updated on 17 September 2025.
11. How to Contact Us or Make a Complaint
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 (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.
Finding Hope in Depression