Privacy Policy

Graceunlimited Biblical Counselling

Our website address is https://counselling.graceunlimited.co.za.

This practice handles personal information so that a person can arrange a counselling session and so that the counsellor can keep the record of that work. The counselling agreement explains how confidentiality is treated in the session itself: https://counselling.graceunlimited.co.za/agreement/

The website

The website is hosted with Dreamhost and served over HTTPS. The address begins with https, and the browser shows a lock. Information sent between your browser and this website is encrypted on the way.

Reading the pages does not create a counselling record. A record is made when you schedule a session.

What you provide

To schedule a session you give your name, surname, email address, phone number, and date of birth. You may add a short note about the session. There is no fee on this page, and you are not asked to create an account or choose a password.

Scheduling a session is your agreement to the terms on the agreement page. The time of that booking is stored with the record.

Your email address is stored with spaces removed and in lower case. It is used together with your date of birth. An email address on its own is never enough to treat two people as the same person. A shared phone number does not join two people either.

What a visitor can see

The scheduling page lists only times that are still free. A time that has been booked is not shown, and the page does not show who has booked.

If you have come before, the page recognises you only when the email address and the date of birth both match the record. It then shows the name and surname already on file, so you can see that the booking will be added to the right person. It does not show your phone number, your other sessions, or any counselling notes.

The public page is not given access to the database tables. It is allowed to ask three questions only:

• which times are still open
• whether an email address and a date of birth together match a name already on file
• to save the booking you have just made

A match returns the name and surname only.

Where the record is kept

The counselling record is kept in a private database provided by Supabase, in Ireland. The database provider encrypts the stored information, and the connection to it is encrypted. The record is not stored in the public website.

The counsellor signs in to open the record. Every person, appointment, and session note is limited to this practice. A session note can be opened only by the counsellor who wrote it, and only for a person in this practice. No one browsing the website can read those notes, and the notes are not put in the confirmation email.

The email, and the links in it

The confirmation is sent to the email address you gave. It contains the day and time, the Zoom link, and links to cancel, to reschedule, or to schedule again.

A short text is also sent to the mobile number on the booking. It confirms the session, and it reminds you about a day before and about an hour before. The hour-before text includes the Zoom link. A cancellation, or a change of time, is sent by email only. The text does not include the cancel or reschedule links.

Those links are long random values, made from 32 random bytes. They are stored in a list that the public page cannot read. Someone who knows your name or your email address cannot open them by guessing. Cancel removes the Zoom meeting and the calendar entry for that session. Reschedule moves the same meeting to the new time.

After the session

After a session, the platform sends a summary of that counselling session to the same email address you used to schedule it. The summary is not sent to any other address, and it is not shown on the website.

Zoom, Gmail, and Google Calendar

The session is held on the counsellor’s Zoom account. The meeting title is “Session with” your name and surname, together with the time.

A copy of that title, and the Zoom link, is placed on the counsellor’s Google Calendar. Gmail sends the confirmation, and Gmail sends the summary after the session. The keys used to speak to Zoom and Google stay on the counsellor’s own computer. They are not placed on the public page.

Zoom’s privacy policy is at https://www.zoom.com/en/trust/privacy/. Google’s privacy policy, which covers Gmail and Google Calendar, is at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to alan@counselling.graceunlimited.co.za.