Website Privacy Policy
Your privacy is important to Whitney Richards, LMFT. Please read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use, and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
By using our website http://whitneyrichardsmft.com, you signify your consent to the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use this site or submit any personal information to us.
1. Who We Are
Whitney Richards LMFT operating at http://whitneyrichardsmft.com collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you.
2. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
This website and any products and services offered herein are not intended for persons under the age of 13. Whitney Richards LMFT does not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13 years of age. Whitney Richards LMFT prohibits children under the age of 13 from using all interactive portions of this website, including leaving any comments, filling out forms, or otherwise submitting information. Whitney Richards LMFT will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If Whitney Richards LMFT learns it has any information or content from anyone under the age of 13, it will delete that information.
3. The Personal Information We Collect and Use
a. Information Collected by Us
Whitney Richards LMFT may collect, use, and is responsible for certain personal information that you provide when you voluntarily sign up for e-mails or free gifts, register for a class or presentation, leave comments, order a service or product, fill out any type of form, access private membership pages, or otherwise contact Whitney Richards LMFT via an online form or e-mail. The information collected may include your name, e-mail, address, phone number, billing information, and/or your reasons for seeking therapy. You are not required to provide any personally identifiable information to merely access or visit this website.
Whitney Richards LMFT may collect domain information, your numerical IP address, the type of browser you use, which pages you view, and the files you request. We may also use “cookies” (small files saved on your hard drive by your web browser) to analyze website and advertisement performance, track user patterns, save information from your previous visits and customize your experience.
If your browser sends a "Do Not Track" signal, only a generic cookie will be placed on your device while the website is accessed.
We will ask for your consent to allow us to use cookies. Whitney Richards LMFT or its third-party vendors may collect nonpersonal information through the use of these technologies. Nonpersonal information might include the browser you use, the type of computer you use and technical information about your means of connection to this website such as the operating systems and the Internet service providers utilized and other similar information. Whitney Richards LMFT’s systems may also automatically gather information about the areas you visit and search terms you use on this website and about the links you may select from within this website to other areas of the Internet.
If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union and we are responsible as controller of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
If you are located in the United Kingdom (“UK”), we are regulated under UK data regulations known as “UK GDPR.”
b. Information Collected from Other Sources
We also obtain your name, date of birth, email address, and phone number from Simple Practice
c. How we use your personal information
Whitney Richards LMFT collects such information in order to improve website performance and customer service and for setting up an initial phone appointment.
d. Who We Share Your Personal Information With
Whitney Richards LMFT respects your privacy and will never sell, trade or transfer your personally identifiable information to third parties (beyond what is necessary for fulfilling a customer transaction or for the basic functionality of an online service) without your consent.
We do, however, share your name and delivery address with our credit card processor company called Stripe and our secure EHR system called Simple Practice.
This data sharing enables us to provide you with our services. Those third-party recipients are based outside the European Economic Area or the UK--for further information including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see Transfer of your information out of the EEA, UK below.
Whitney Richards LMFT may release personal information to enforce its Website Terms and Conditions of Use, other Terms and Conditions, manage its business, protect users or the general public, or to otherwise comply with legal obligations.
If you give Whitney Richards LMFT your permission, it may also use personal identification information for internal or external marketing and promotional purposes.
On occasion, Whitney Richards LMFT may collect personal identification information from you in connection with optional contests, special offers or promotions. Whitney Richards LMFT will share such information with necessary third parties for the purpose of carrying out the contest, special offer or promotion. We will ask for your consent to such disclosure and use of such information, prior to your participation in the contest, special offer or promotion.
We reserve the right to transfer personal information in the event that we merge with or are acquired by a third party. We also may disclose your personal information for any other purpose permitted by law or to which you consent.
We will not share your personal information with any other third party.
e. Whether Information Has to Be Provided by You and Why
The provision of names, phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, contact preferences, billing addresses, debit/credit card numbers, and other similar information is required for us to provide therapy services. We do not require you to provide any personal data in order to access the public areas of our website. We will inform you when we collect it whether you are required to provide the information to us.
f. How Long Your Personal Information Will Be Kept
We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless otherwise required by law.
We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements). No purpose in this notice will require us keeping your personal information for longer than 1 year.
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
g. Reasons We Can Collect and Use Your Personal Information
Whitney Richards LMFT collects and uses your personal information to post testimonials, to send administrative information to you, to protect our services such as fraud monitoring and prevention, to enforce our terms, conditions and policies for business purposes, to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or in connection with our contract, to respond to legal requests and prevent harm such as if we receive a subpoena or other legal request, to deliver and facilitate delivery of services to the user, to send you marketing and promotional communications which you can opt out of, to process your payment for the purchase of goods or services under a contract (we only use third party payment processors that take the utmost care in securing data and comply with the GDPR), for targeted social media advertisements, we may share your information with trusted third parties such as our newsletter provider in order to contact you via email, or our merchant accounts to process payments, and Google/social media accounts in order to run advertisements and our affiliates, and to respond to user inquiries/offer support to users.
4. Use and Transfer of Your Information Out of the EEA, UK
This website is operated in the United States and third parties with whom we might share your personal information as explained above are also located in the United States. If you are located in the EEA, the UK, or elsewhere outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide will be transferred to the United States. By using this website, participating in any of its services and/or providing your information, you consent to this transfer.
These countries do not have the same data protection laws as the EEA or UK. While the European Commission has not given a formal decision that United States provides an adequate level of data protection similar to those which apply in the EEA, any transfer of your personal information will be subject to the derogation in Article 49 permitting non-repetitive transfers that concern only a limited number of data subjects, as permitted by Article 49 of the General Data Protection Regulation that is designed to help safeguard your privacy rights and give you remedies in the unlikely event of a misuse of your personal information.
If you would like further information, (see “How to contact us” below. We will not otherwise transfer your personal data outside of the EEA or UK, or to any organization (or subordinate bodies) governed by public international law or which is set up under any agreement between two or more countries.
5. Your Rights
If you want to unsubscribe from receiving e-mails from Whitney Richards LMFT, you may do so at any time. Each e-mail from Whitney Richards LMFT includes instructions for unsubscribing from these e-mail communications.
If you are covered by the General Data Protection Regulation, or other relevant privacy regulations, you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:
• Fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your use personal information
• Access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Notice is already designed to address
• Require us to correct any mistakes in your information which we hold
• Require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations
• Receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit those data to a third party in certain situations
• Object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing
• Object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you
• Object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information
• Otherwise restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
You may also have the right to claim compensation for damages caused by our breach of any data protection laws.
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, visit www.gdpr.eu; https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/; or https://www.priv.gc.ca/en .
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:
• Email, call, or write to us
• Provide us enough information to identify you (e.g., first and last name)
• Provide us proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driver’s license or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill)
• Provide us with the information to which your request relates
6. Keeping Your Personal Information Secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorized manner and may be subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable authorities of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
It is important to understand that no security measures are absolute. We cannot guarantee the safety of any information you provide to us.
Please note that any comments or information that you post on the website, including the and social media pages or groups, become public and third parties may use your information. Whitney Richards LMFT is not responsible for any unauthorized uses by third parties in such context. You disclose such information at your own risk.
7. Links to Other Sites
You may see advertising or other content on this website that links to the sites and services of our partners, suppliers, advertisers, sponsors, licensors or other third parties. Any products or services reached through a third-party link are subject to separate privacy policies. Whitney Richards LMFT is not responsible for or liable for any content on or actions taken by such third-party websites.
8. How to Complain
We hope that we can resolve any question or concern you raise about our use of your information.
If you are covered by the General Data Protection Regulation or UK GDPR, you may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the UK or European Union (or European Economic Area) state where you work, normally live, or where any alleged infringement of data protection laws occurred.
9. Changes to This Privacy Notice
This policy is effective as of October 3, 2022. We may change, modify or update this Privacy Policy at any time and will notify you of any fundamental changes by email or postal mail. Otherwise, we will reflect any such modifications to this Privacy Policy on our website. We suggest that you periodically consult this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of our website after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of this Privacy Policy, as revised.
10. How to Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, the information we hold about you, or you wish to change your personal information in our records, please contact Whitney Richards LMFT at WhitneyRichardsMFT@gmail.com.
11. Do You Need Extra Help?
If you would like this notice in another format (for example: large print) please contact us (see “How to contact us” above).
Policy Last Updated October 3, 2022