Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to me, and as such, I’ve attempted to write this privacy policy in plain, everyday language that will be hopefully be clear and not full of legal jargon.  To that end, I’d ask if you have any concerns, please contact me to discuss (See contact details at bottom of this document).

There’s a few different areas of privacy that are covered on this page.

(a)  Your privacy when engaging me as your coach

(b)  Your privacy when using my website

As a coach

If you choose to engage me as your coach, then I’m bound by the International Coach Federation (ICF) Code of Ethicswhich covers matters my professional behaviour. Confidentiality is paramount.  Any information you provide me during our coaching engagement will be used solely for the purposes of providing you with coaching.

I will maintain confidentiality except in the following circumstances:

  • I am compelled to break confidentiality by law (i.e., court order) as coaching isn’t protected in the same way a doctor and patient would be protected
  • If you tell me that you’re going to do harm to yourself or others
  • If you tell me you’ve committed, or going to commit, a crime.

As a professional coach, I also engage with coach supervision to help me develop further as a coach and for my own self-care.   When working with a supervision I may discuss aspects of the coaching I’m providing so that I can learn, validate and understand myself better as a coach. When sharing these aspects, no personally identifiable information is shared with the supervisor and its more focused on how I’m being as a coach, rather than any particular client.   I will always work with a supervisor who is a member of the ICF and also bound by the same code of ethics that I am bound by.

During our initial contracting session, I will create a document that will contain details of how we will work together, the goals of coaching and other aspects of our partnership.  This will be shared with you and is our agreement about how we will work together.  I will also keep a copy of this document for seven years to comply with any legal and insurance requirements.  After such time, it will be destroyed.   This agreement, which we co-create, will also contain details of any other notes, actions or data that we agree to capture and how they will be handled.

Using my website

When browsing my website, I don’t store or track personal details about you unless you choose to create an account or purchase services from me.  There are a number of cookies that you can choose to consent to and details can be found here.

I specifically avoid Google Analytics due to the intrusive nature of tracking involved and instead opt for a self-host analytics plugin called Matomo.  Within Matomo, I have disable the use of tracking cookies and anonymise IP addresses.  This means I can gain insights into the general usage of my website but I cannot track users over multiple visits or track individual behaviours. 

The web host I use, SiteGround may also maintain server logs which will be used in the event of any security issues. I also use a service provided by https://cloudflare.com to enable traffic to my website to be encrypted and to help maintain the security of the website.  Through this site, I get rudimentary statistics on the geographic area where traffic to my website originates but no other personally identifiable information.  It’s interesting to look at every now out of curiosity but this information isn’t used by me for any purpose.  Cloudfare.com  may log specific information for the sole purposes of providing their respective services – please check with the individual privacy policies for third party as sadly they’re outside of my control..

I have also been making a conscious effort to remove my usage of third party service providers so that I can control and reduce any privacy concerns.  For example, I use a self-contained marketing CRM system which is used to store opt-in subscriptions to my mailing lists.

Appointment bookings are now managed directly via another  self-contained plugin.  

Purchases are managed through the self-contained WooCommerce plugin.

There are some situations that I can not avoid.  For example, I use PayPal to process payments for any purchases you make.  

Marketing and website generated emails are sent via the Amazon Simple Email Service (SES).

Any questions or concerns?

If you’ve any concerns, or want to make any specific requests under GDPR, please contact me using:

·     Email:  stephen@stephenclements.ie

·     Post: Stephen Clements, Bysands Limited, 17 Elmbrook Lawn, Lucan, K78 PH32, Ireland

Finally

From time to time I’ll need to update this privacy policy and I reserve the right to make those changes and make the newest version available via my website. The last modifications where made to this document on the 27th February 2022