Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 October 2026

This policy explains what personal information Charles Clark Counselling collects through this website and the booking, messaging, and invoicing that goes with it, why, and what rights you have over it, in line with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

Who is responsible for your information

Charles W. Clark, Registered Counsellor (HPCSA #PRC0039209), practising as Charles Clark Counselling, Medical and Dental Centre, Suite 1, No. 1 8th Avenue, Summerstrand, Port Elizabeth, 6001, South Africa, is the responsible party and Information Officer under POPIA for information collected through this site and this practice.

You can reach him directly about anything in this policy:

What information we collect

What we don’t collect through this site: clinical or session notes. What’s discussed in a session is kept in Charles’s own professional records, governed by his confidentiality obligations as a Registered Counsellor and HPCSA’s ethical rules — not by this website, and not shared with any of the tools listed below. Apart from the optional statistics above, this site doesn’t use analytics, tracking pixels, or advertising cookies. The booking calendar embedded on this site is provided by a third party (Cal.com) and may set minimal cookies needed for it to function (for example, distinguishing a genuine visitor from automated traffic), and reports technical errors to its own error-monitoring service — never for tracking or advertising. We don’t collect more than we need to run the practice.

Why we collect it

Only to run the practice, specifically to:

We don’t use your information for marketing, and we don’t sell or rent it to anyone.

If what you tell us in a message or a booking touches on your health or the reason you’re seeking counselling, POPIA treats that as special personal information, which gets extra protection. We’re permitted to process it because doing so is necessary for your proper treatment and care by a registered health professional, and because you’ve confirmed your consent at the point of booking. It’s handled with the same confidentiality Charles applies to everything else about your care.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of specialist service providers to run the parts of the practice this website touches — a hosting provider (Cloudflare) that runs this website and briefly stores the booking details needed to send reminders and prepare invoices, a scheduling provider to manage bookings and calendars, an invoicing provider to prepare and track invoices, a messaging provider (Meta) to send WhatsApp confirmations and reminders and to answer WhatsApp messages with its automated assistant, an email provider to deliver contact-form messages to Charles, and, only if you accept statistics cookies, an analytics provider (Google). Each only receives the information it needs to do that specific job, under its own data-protection terms. Some of these providers may process information on servers outside South Africa; where that happens, it’s under contractual safeguards consistent with POPIA’s requirements for sending information across borders.

Charles also uses a private, internal AI assistant to help manage day-to-day admin — things like checking a calendar or invoice status. It operates under the same confidentiality and security expectations as any other part of running the practice, and every action it takes that changes something real requires Charles’s explicit confirmation first.

Beyond this, we don’t share your information with anyone else, except where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Records connected to counselling sessions are kept for at least six years after your last session, in line with HPCSA’s guidance on patient records — longer where a client is a minor, kept until their 21st birthday. If you contact us and don’t go on to book a session, that enquiry is kept only as long as needed to respond to you, and in any case no longer than 12 months, unless we’re required to keep it longer.

The website itself keeps only what it needs to send your reminder and the note after your session (your name, WhatsApp number and session time), and deletes it automatically within a day or two after the session. If an invoice can’t be prepared straight away, the details needed for it (your name, email address and session time) are kept for up to 30 days so it can be prepared later, then deleted. Contact-form messages aren’t stored by the website at all: they’re emailed to Charles and handled under the 12-month rule above.

How we protect it

Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

To exercise any of these, contact Charles directly using the details above. If you’d rather go straight to the regulator:

The Information Regulator (South Africa) Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191 Email: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za Phone: 010 023 5200 / 0800 017 160

Children

This site isn’t directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from a child without a parent or guardian’s involvement. Where a minor is the client, a parent or guardian is expected to be the one booking and handling the practice’s administrative contact with us.

Changes to this policy

We’ll update this page if what we collect or how we use it changes, and update the date at the top when we do. Significant changes will be reflected here before they take effect.