Privacy Policy

( Updated December 8 2022 )

I do not, will not, sell your data, ever.
I do not, will not, spam you.

Any information gathered about you in person, via email, in online conversations, or via my online forms (including your name, contact details, and birth details) will never be sold or deliberately shared with any other parties, apart from the following exceptions:

• if required to do so by law;
• in the secure processing of that data as necessary in fulfilling my work for you (see the Third Party Services I use, below);
• if expressly requested to do so by you in writing (by email)
  — example: for cross-referencing with other therapists or counsellors.

While I take great care to protect your personal data, if at any time you want your personal data altered, or deleted from my devices or server, you have that right. Please don’t hesitate to contact me in that instance.

Also, while I have great trust in the reputation of the third-party services I have chosen to employ in my work for you, I cannot take responsibility for their own security systems.

1. Third Party Services I Use

1. Sending an email to me does not place you on my mailing list.

1. My Email and Booking Forms are hosted on this server, designed by me using the Divi Builder software by Elegant Themes, and are protected by Google’s Invisible reCaptcha v3. The forms are sent as emails directly to my ProtonMail account (see 1.2 below).
2. ProtonMail is a Swiss open source project developed by scientists at CERN to more greatly protect the privacy of any global citizens using email.
3. Sending an email to me does not place you on my mailing list.
4. Your Booking Form is stored only on an external hard drive as a PDF document (as soon as your initial session has been completed) and is password-protected. It is not stored in my ProtonMail account, but is deleted from there after I’ve downloaded it to my computer as a PDF for preparing your chart.
5. Any further email correspondence I have with you is generated via the Spark email apps (on my Mac OS and iOS devices), using my domain email addresses. The Spark email client is created by Readdle, an award-winning Ukrainian (now global) software company. 
6. My websites and domain email accounts are hosted by Namecheap who take privacy very seriously.
7. I offer secure online credit/debit card processing on this ExceptionalPurpose.com website via Stripe, which is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet, currently serving businesses in over 44 countries and processing payments throughput most of the world. I never have access to your credit/debit card information.
   This ExceptionalPurpose.com website is also encrypted for your security (note the https and lock icon in the address bar for all pages on my websites: check this for any site where you are sharing your data!), even though all transactions occur on the Stripe server, not my ExceptionalPurpose.com (Namecheap host) server. And all forms are protected by Google reCaptcha v3.
8. My private Stripe dashboard (at Stripe.com) allows me to see only your name, email address, billing address associated with your payment amount, payment date, and type of card used (VISA, Mastercard, etc). But I do not personally collect this data, apart from contact information for our communication together, which you provide on your Booking Form. Stripe needs such data for your card verification, of course.
9. I use Zapier to securely and automatically populate my mailing list (stored now on the MailerLite server, see #1.8 below) from your online Stripe card payments to me. If you do not wish to receive any newsletter correspondence from me in the future, you can either unsubscribe easily from within the next newsletter email (though, I don’t send them often) or contact me to request removal from my newsletter list and/or from my email Contacts list altogether — it’s your prerogative.
10. Newsletter: My Exceptional Purpose Resource newsletter Subscribe forms are handled off-site digitally by MailerLite, my CRM (Customer Relationship Management) service of choice. I had been using MailChimp for many years up until early July 2021, and all my data has been deleted from MailChimp. MailerLite is very serious about spam protection and also issues guidelines to all their clients to help protect their reputation and those of the people they serve. You can read their own Data Processing Addendum to their T&C.
11. Your Audios: As of December 30 2018, 
    Sync is a Canadian company that abides by Canada’s strong privacy laws; and the exclusive link I will email to you, for your private access to your file(s), will be end-to-end encrypted. I have also been highly impressed with the speed of Sync’s servers for uploads and downloads. You can read the Sync Privacy White Paper HERE, and also check out their in-depth Privacy Policy on their site.
12. Video Sessions: I use Microsoft’s Skype app for live video/audio session calls. (I am no longer able to use FaceTime, as Apple has reconfigured their privacy settings since the Mojave operating system to prevent the recording of FaceTime calls on any Apple device). Skype is encrypted at both ends, but I DO NOT record the session to Skype’s cloud.
13. Session Recording app: I have been using the Ecamm Call Recorder app for recording Skype client sessions directly to my computer. The app is housed on my MacBook Air and is not a cloud service. It integrates with Skype automatically at the start of a call. (Ecamm have deleted their FaceTime recording app from their range due to Apple’s current privacy policy for FaceTime.) 
    — However, now that I have an M1 silicon-chip MacBook Pro, I won’t be able to use Call Recorder, and am presently sorting out a reasonable alternative. I will include that outcome here.

2. Session Recordings Access

1.  Sessions booked to be more than one hour in duration are digitally recorded for you as mp3 audio files, and it is your own responsibility to keep that file secure at your end. 
2. This is how I keep your audio file secure at my end:
   I store a digital mp3 copy of your audio session(s) only on a separate external drive, and for a limited time, as a reference for me in fulfilling further work for your ongoing or future sessions.
3. You will be able to access the audio file again, at no charge from me, if you lose it while I still have a copy. I can’t keep them for forever, though, due to their size and the expense—and clutter!—of storage devices, but please do inquire if you have lost your copies.
4. I don’t store your recordings in the cloud, apart from the brief interval (one week) when you can access your mp3 audio file for download from my sync.com cloud account (as above, see #1.9) (I may occasionally have to use Dropbox for this purpose during peak times, so I appreciate your swift collection of your downloadable files).
5. Uploading your audio file(s), Resources PDF, personal asteroids list, and charts, to the sync.com cloud service allows me to offer you ONE WEEK for exclusive access to your own audio file(s), strictly for downloading your file(s)—not live-streaming—for your private use, via the private encrypted link I will email to you. 
   I will delete your audio file from the sync.com cloud asap after you have alerted me that you have successfully downloaded your file(s). I cannot store these large files in the cloud indefinitely, and it is up to you to download your file as soon as possible after I alert you that it is ready for download. (Please see #10 of the Terms and Conditions, below, on your use of my Sync account.)

3. Confidentiality

1. All Consultations (discussions and written material) are strictly confidential. And that goes for both sides: if I share anything personal with you during your session that may be pertinent for you, I expect you to also honour my own privacy. 
   This also means that no part of your audio recording(s) is to be distributed publicly, via digital or material means, as it must be kept private for you. Though, you can share your realisations and general information with others, of course, as you see fit.
2. I store a paper and a digital copy of your astrology chart from our session(s) indefinitely as a resource for any future work you may need from me at any time.
3. Your digital basic computer-calulated astrology chart, which includes your birth details, is stored privately in my astrology apps on my devices for any future work you may require from me. Your birthchart and birth details are never shared.
4. I don’t write client report files about you (but I do store what you have included in your Booking Form—see #1.3), apart from creating the personal Suggested Resources PDF files I email to you, as your astrology chart itself is shorthand for me and unintelligible to most other people, including many astrologers! You will receive an emailed digital PDF or JPG copy of your messy asteroid ‘work-chart’ via email after your session(s) with me.

4. Cookies

1. My websites use Google Analytics cookies to collect general usage data for analytics processing only. However, I have activated IP-anonymization on all my websites (your IP address is therefore truncated) to prevent personally identifiable information or associations about you being sent to Google.  I have opted to do this for your privacy because I do not use analytics to personally target you with advertising (and in this instance, neither will Google).
2. So, on my sites, Google Analytics records your anonymous movements around my website, the time you spend on each page, demographics such as country or city location, and type of device (i.e. operating system such as iOS, OSX, Windows version, etc), so that I may improve my sites for all visitors.
3. The ‘Persistent Cookies’ (text files) in your browser are also set to expire after one month.
4. By scrolling any of this site’s pages, you are accepting these IP-anonymization  cookies.

If you have any security concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

5. Testimonials

1. Offering a testimonial for my use on my websites implies you are happy with me using your testimonial on any of my websites and my promotional material. I will not publish your testimonial on social media sites, unless I have your written permission and for an express purpose.
2. Any testimonials you have offered that are published on my websites can be deleted or edited at your will. Please contact me for any changes, and I will implement them asap.

6. Comments (on my Resource blog site and podcast site) 

1. Your Gravatar:  An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/.
2. After approval of your comment, your Gravatar profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Personal Recommendation regarding the GDPR Legislation

I recommend you check out as much information as you can regarding the new GDPR legislation from the European Union, whether as a site visitor or a website owner. It ultimately applies to all of us, regardless of where we live. As a website visitor, you will have extra rights to all of your online stored data, globally, as of May 25 2018.

Data-harvesting is currently the biggest money-spinner in the world, leading to companies being sold for millions or billions of dollars purely for the personal data they have harvested from their customers and subscribers. You now have rights.

All websites, including blogs, must have a plain-English (or whatever language the site displays) Privacy Policy — so I firmly suggest you take a few minutes to read the policies of the sites you visit and especially the ones you interact with using your personal data, including comments. There should be a visible Cookie Policy notice when you first open the site.

As a website/blog visitor, you will automatically have rights to all of your online stored data from European Union websites, as of May 25 2018. Though, all websites, globally, will now have to follow the same privacy and data practices, as EU visitors will be accessing websites globally, and can claim their privacy and personal data rights globally under EU law.

As a website/blog owner outside the EU, you will benefit from complying with the new GDPR legislation. This will not only protect you and your business from any future litigation hassles, but you will be building trust with your site visitors, customers, and clients. You will also be contributing to this much needed global benefit for all of us. The GDPR legislation has been put in place to make the internet safer for everyone.