Privacy Notice

When you trust us with your personal information, we take our responsibility to protect it very seriously. We respect your privacy and your rights to control your personal information. With that in mind, we want to be clear about the information we collect and why.

The main purpose of collecting your information is to provide you with the services offered on our website (our site), whether that’s using our site to find information, to contact a life coach or nlp practitioner, to advertise your business, or for some other reason. No matter how you use our site, we want to help you to use it as effortlessly as possible.

We will not sell your personal information to third parties.

This privacy notice (together with our website terms of use and any other documents referred to in them) explains how we will gather and use your personal information. It’s relevant to you if you use our services as a life coach or nlp practitioner listed in (or applying to be listed in) the Life Coach Directory (the directory), a visitor to our site, or a contributor to our site.

Please read this privacy notice carefully and make sure you understand it. You are considered to have accepted our privacy notice when you first use our site. If you do not agree with and accept it, you must stop using our site immediately.

Our site may contain links to other websites that are not covered by this privacy notice. Also, this privacy notice does not apply to any contact between you and a life coach or nlp practitioner displayed on our site. You should check the other party’s privacy notice to make sure you understand how they collect and use your information. We use service providers to gather and process comments received through our site. Under our contracts with those service providers, they must keep to data-protection regulations.

We may update the directory from time to time. Please revisit this page occasionally to make sure you are aware of any changes.

1. Who we are

We are Memiah Limited (www.memiah.co.uk), and we have the following brand names:

• Counselling Directory (www.counselling-directory.org.uk)
• Hypnotherapy Directory (www.hypnotherapy-directory.org.uk)
• Life Coach Directory (www.lifecoach-directory.org.uk)
• Nutritionist Resource (www.nutritionist-resource.org.uk)
• Therapy Directory (www.therapy-directory.org.uk)
• Happiful (www.happiful.com)

We are the data controller, which means we are responsible for how personal information is gathered, stored and used.

We’re registered in the United Kingdom under company number 05489185. Our registered office and main trading address is:

Memiah Limited
Building B, Riverside Way
Camberley
Surrey
GU15 3YL.

Our Data Compliance Manager is Claire Vince. We have also appointed an independent Data Protection Officer (DPO), Karenjit Dhaliwal. They work together to oversee matters relating to data protection. If you have any questions or concerns about your personal information, please contact them at privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under registration number Z2071820.

2. Our site

If you provide your personal information when you visit or use our site, we (and any third party we use to process comments on our website) keep it private and store it securely until we no longer need it. We will only use it to provide the services you want.

We have taken steps to make sure that the online forms you use to send us emails or comments are safe and secure. However, it is not possible to guarantee that any email is secure, so if you email us, you do so at your own risk.

We make sure that the personal information you provide is:

• used and stored in line with the appropriate privacy laws and regulations; and
• protected by safety measures so that it cannot be seen or used by anyone who is not entitled to access it.

No information sent over the internet is completely secure. We will do our best to protect your personal information as explained in this privacy notice, but we cannot guarantee its security.

We take the security of your information very seriously and follow industry best practices. We have appropriate security measures in place to stop your information being lost, stolen, changed or seen by people who shouldn’t have access to it. Each year, we carry out a Cyber Essentials assessment, and have achieved Cyber Essentials Plus certification. You can check our certification at https://iasme.co.uk/cyber-essentials/ncsc-certificate-search/.

We limit who has access to your information. Only employees and contractors who need it for their work can see it. They must follow our instructions and keep your information confidential.

We have procedures in place to deal with any situation where we suspect that an unauthorised person has had access to your personal information or that this privacy notice has not been followed. If required by law, we will tell you and any appropriate regulator about this.

If you know or suspect a data breach, please tell us as soon as possible.

A data breach is when your personal information is:

• accessed inappropriately;
• lost, damaged or accidentally destroyed;
• altered without your permission; or
• given to somebody it should not have been given to.

3. The types of personal information we collect

Personal information means any information from which a person can be identified.

We may collect, use, store and transfer the following personal information about you.

Information you give us

We collect information you voluntarily provide through our site, over the phone, by email, through our live-chat services, in comments posted on our website, or in any other way. This includes information you provide when you:

• contact a life coach or nlp practitioner through our site;
• apply to be listed in (or are listed in) the directory; or
• report a problem with our site.

The information you give us may include your name, address, email address and phone number. If you are a life coach or nlp practitioner applying to be listed in the directory, you may also provide information about financial matters, qualifications, insurance, and membership of professional bodies. You may also send us documents, a personal description and a photograph. If we take payments from you, we may collect financial information. We will do this securely and in line with industry standards.

Special category data (sensitive information)

When you provide information through our site, you are in control of the type and amount of information you share. You may choose to provide information that is classed as special category data (for example, details about your health).

Special category data includes, but is not limited to, information about the following:

• Your mental or physical health
• Your racial or ethnic background
• Your sex life or sexuality
• Your political opinions
• Trade-union memberships
• Your religious or philosophical beliefs

If you:

• use any of our forms to contact a life coach or nlp practitioner;
• provide material to be published on our site (such as a story of your personal experience); or
• send us other information;

you agree to us processing your information (including any special category data) as necessary for our services (for example, emailing a copy of your enquiry to a life coach or nlp practitioner, or publishing your story on our site).

Do not include sensitive information (such as details of your medical history) in any comment you post on our website. Also, do not give us information about criminal convictions or offences, or similar matters, in our online forms or comments on our website.

Information we collect automatically

Whenever you visit our site, we may automatically collect the following information.

• Technical information, such as the type of device you are using, its operating system, your IP address, your log-in details, the browser type and version, the user agent string (an identifier the browser sends, describing the software, operating system and device) and other technology on your devices.
• Information about your visit, including what you click on, pages you view or search for, page response times, download errors, length of visit to certain pages, browsing methods, and any phone number used to contact our membership services.

Like many websites, we use cookies to improve your experience and gather information about visits. For detailed information on the cookies we use and their purposes, see our cookie policy.

Information we receive from other sources

We may receive information about you if you use any of our other websites or services. For example, if you subscribe to happiful.com or use the Happiful mobile app, we may receive information about what you have viewed.

If you are a life coach or nlp practitioner applying to be listed:

• we may get information from professional bodies to help us approve your application more quickly; and
• your clients, potential clients or the public may also give us personal information about you through queries or complaints.

Analytics services

We use Google Analytics to collect statistical information about how our website is used, such as pages visited and time spent on pages. This helps us improve our site and the services we offer, and identify bots (software that mimics human actions). The information collected is pseudonymised (that is, it is identified by random numbers and letters, not personal details) and is used with other people’s information to understand overall patterns of use. It is not used to identify, or make decisions about, individual users.

Under the UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, statistical cookies used just to improve a service can be set without a person’s permission. You can opt out of statistical cookies, or change your cookie preferences at any time, on our cookie policy page or through your browser settings.

How we use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve our service

We use AI tools (including Intercom and Aircall) to help us understand our communications better. This includes:

• transcription – converting calls and emails to a written or printed form so we can review them more easily;
• mood analysis – using technology to identify the mood of a conversation (for example, if a customer is frustrated!) so we can prioritise help and improve our training; and
• keyword spotting – automatically flagging specific topics to make sure we are giving you the right information.

We use such tools to improve our customer service and train our staff effectively. We have carried out a formal assessment of the use of the tools to make sure it does not unfairly affect your privacy.

We sometimes use AI to help us improve our website, review content and provide better search results. We do this to support our work and improve your experience on our site, while making sure we handle your information in line with privacy laws.

Call recording

When you phone one of our directory or sales lines, we record the call. We also have a reminder of this on our website, next to our contact telephone numbers. We record calls to keep a true record of what was discussed, to train and support our team, to maintain the quality of our service, and to help solve any disputes. We may also transcribe recordings and use AI tools to summarise them so our team has accurate notes (which may include transcripts or AI summaries). A member of our team always reviews these notes and decides on any action that follows your call.

Our lawful basis for recording calls is our legitimate interests in the purposes set out above. You can object to this at any time.

If you prefer not to be recorded, please tell the agent at the start of the call, or contact us by email at privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

Please share only the information we need to help you. If you choose to tell us sensitive information during a call (for example, about your health), we will only use it to provide the service you have asked for, and we take care to limit how it appears in any call notes. You can ask us not to use a recording of your call for training by emailing privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

We keep recordings, and any call notes we take, for a limited period only and then delete them automatically — see Section 8 for more detail.

Lawful reasons for processing

We will only process your personal information if one of the following applies.

• You have given us permission (for example, by signing up to receive our Happiful magazine).
• We need to process the information to enter into a contract with you, or meet our obligations under a contract with you.
• We must process the information to meet a legal requirement.
• The processing is necessary to protect your life or someone else’s life.
• The processing is necessary for us to do something that is in the public interest.
• The processing is in our legitimate interests (for example, to improve your experience of our service or to prevent fraud), or the legitimate interests of a third party providing a service to us, unless your rights override these interests.

If we process your information because you have given us permission, you can withdraw the permission at any time.

If we process your information based on legitimate interest or it being in the public interest, you can object to this at any time.

If, while using our services, you provide personal information about another person, please make sure they are aware of this privacy notice and that you have their permission to share their information.

It may sometimes be appropriate for us to combine your personal information with other information we have about you, such as combining your name with the history of your relationship with us or where you live, work or visit.

Children and young people

Our services are primarily designed for adults. However, we recognise that parents, guardians or other adults may use our site to find life or business coaching support for children or young people in their care, and that older teenagers may use our site themselves.

If you are under 18, you should discuss our services with a parent, guardian or another trusted adult before you contact a life coach or nlp practitioner, or provide personal information, through our site.

If you are an adult using our services on behalf of a child or young person, you are responsible for providing their personal information and making sure they understand how it will be used. By providing information about a child, you confirm that you have the authority to do so.

We do not knowingly collect or process personal information from children under 13 without permission from the parent, guardian or appropriate adult. If we become aware that we have collected information without proper permission, we will delete it straightaway.

The life coaches and nlp practitioners listed in the directory are independent practitioners. They handle all information, including information about children and young people, in line with their own privacy policies and professional duties.

4. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other visitors. Cookies improve your browsing experience (for example, by saving content or keeping you logged in) and help us improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and what we use them for, please see our cookie policy.

5. What we use your personal information for

We use your personal information to provide you with our products and services. Below are some examples of how we use your personal information.

Example 1: Contacting a life coach or nlp practitioner

If you use our site to contact a life coach or nlp practitioner, we will email your information to the professional.

In some cases, your details may also be available in our secure members’ portal. If you provide a mobile number or email address, we might send you a confirmation message by text or email.

We will store your personal information for up to 14 days.

We will not use your personal information for any other purpose.

The servers our site is stored on record the IP addresses of people who visit our web pages for a short time, so we can monitor the performance of our site, but we will usually delete this information as soon as we no longer need it. We may also store information about you, such as your IP address or website activity, to record certain actions. For example, when you contact a life coach or nlp practitioner listed on our site, we use Google Analytics and advertising pixels (such as Meta Pixel or Microsoft UET) to record that you’ve successfully completed this action. We use this information to monitor and manage our site (such as evaluating how effective our advertising is).

Example 2: Directory listing

If you are listed in or apply to be listed in the directory, or you sign up to receive updates to the directory, we will use your personal information to:

• manage our service to you and create your listing; and
• communicate account details, new services, security updates and other notifications.

We distinguish between the following two types of information provided by our members.

• Published information, which includes the information you choose to display on your public profile (for example, information about you and your training, qualifications, experience and professional contact details). This information is publicly available and can be viewed by users, search engines and others.
• Private information, which consists of your private contact information and other details that are not made public. Only authorised staff will have access to this information.

If you contact us, we may also use your personal information to improve our service or communicate with you.

Example 3: Happiful magazine subscription

If you subscribe to our Happiful magazine (printed or e-magazine), we will:

• use your details to let you know when a new issue is released;
• keep you informed about news and services that might interest you; and
• offer you options to change your email preferences or unsubscribe.

We will not share your details with third parties, except as necessary for the magazine to be delivered.

Summary of uses

We may use your personal information to do the following.

• Display content on our site in the most effective way for you and your device.
• Provide information, products and services you request or may be interested in.
• Meet legal and regulatory requirements, and our obligations under contracts.
• Enable you to use our services.
• Tell you about changes to our services or new services.
• Manage and improve our site, for troubleshooting, data analysis and system testing, and to carry out research and surveys.
• Improve site security.
• Keep records as required by law (for example, keeping accounting records for at least six years).
• Settle disputes.
• Respond to feedback and comments.

We take every step reasonably possible to protect your rights and to keep to data-protection law, including the UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (2003, as amended).

We are not responsible for images which life coaches and nlp practitioners upload to our site or the directory. You will need to contact the particular life coach or nlp practitioner.

Marketing purposes

With your permission (or as allowed by law), we may use your personal information for marketing purposes. This means we might contact you by phone or email with updates, news and special offers. We will only use your information as described in this privacy notice, we will not send you any spam emails, and we will make sure that we are only sending you relevant marketing communications.

You can ask us not to use your information for marketing purposes. If you opt out of receiving marketing information, we will still send you communications that are essential for administrative or customer-service purposes (for example, relating to order confirmations, updates to our policies and procedures or checking that your contact details are correct).

If you are listed in the directory, you can update your marketing preferences in the "members" area, or email us at privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk. If you are not listed in the directory, please email us at the same email address.

Automated decision-making

We do not use automated decision-making (where a decision is made about someone by a computer system, without any person being involved) or profiling (where personal information is processed by a computer system to assess things about a person or make predictions). Although we use technology to help run our services (such as detecting spam and running analytics), any important decisions about your account, your membership or complaints are made by our staff, not by automated systems alone.

6. Where we store your personal information

We may transfer and store your information outside the United Kingdom. It may also be processed by colleagues or suppliers located overseas (for example, to process payments or provide support). We will take reasonable steps to make sure your personal information is adequately protected.

Information can be transferred to destinations covered by a "UK adequacy regulation" (such as all EEA states, Gibraltar, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, certain US organisations and territories listed by the UK Government) without additional safeguards such as those shown in the paragraph below, as they are recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection.

If we transfer personal information to any other country, we put approved safeguards in place. Those safeguards are typically the UK International Data-transfer Agreement (IDTA), the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or another safeguard approved under the UK GDPR. These safeguards require your information to be protected to UK standards. You can request a copy of the relevant safeguards by emailing privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

We have appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures in place to keep your information secure. Access is limited to those who need it to do their job, and they must meet confidentiality requirements. If you choose a password to access parts of our site, please keep that password confidential.

7. Providing your information to others

We can give your personal information to others in the following circumstances.

• If we want to sell our company, any part of our business or any assets, we can give your information to the potential buyer.
• If we want to buy any business or assets, we can give your personal information to the seller of the business or assets.
• If we have to provide the information by law, or in order to protect other people’s property, safety or rights.
• If we have to provide the information in order to enforce or apply our website terms of use.

We can give your personal information to other businesses in our group of companies.

We can share information with others:

• to prevent fraud or credit risks; and
• in connection with legal proceedings.

Third parties or publicly available information

We work with suppliers who provide services on our behalf (for example, processing card payments, email services, technical support, advertising and marketing). These suppliers may need access to some or all of your personal information. We will only share the information they need to perform their services and will take steps to make sure it is handled securely and in line with the UK GDPR and other laws.

For any questions about our suppliers, please email privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

We will get your permission before we share your personal information with any third party for their own marketing purposes.

Contacting professionals listed on our site

When you fill in an online form to contact a life coach or nlp practitioner listed in the directory, we share your personal information with the chosen professional so they can provide the service to you.

Third-party processors

We use a range of trusted service providers to help run our services. These providers handle personal information on our behalf and must keep to the UK GDPR and contracts we have with them.

Our service providers can only use your information for the specific jobs we ask them to do. They cannot use it for their own purposes.

The following table shows the categories of processors we work with.

Category	Examples
Cloud storage and infrastructure	Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Cloudflare, Digital Ocean
Payment processing	Stripe, Checkout.com, Barclays Merchant Services
Statistical analytics	Google Analytics
Advertising	Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google Ads
Communications and customer support	Aircall, Twilio, Intercom, Slack, LivePerson, Crisp
Productivity and collaboration	Google Workspace, Jira (Atlassian), Github, Zapier
Technology and development services	OpenAI LLC, Algolia, TypeSense, DataDog
E-Commerce and domain services	Shopify, WooCommerce, Nominet
Document management	DocuSign
Professional services	HR, payroll, accounting, recruitment and AI tools
Other	Delivery services, form and survey tools, content platforms

8. Keeping your personal information

We keep your personal information for as long as we need it to provide our services, meet legal requirements, settle disputes and run our business. How long we keep different types of information for depends on why we collected it and how you use our site.

Managing your information in the directory

If you’re listed in the directory, you can update or delete information in your profile through your members’ area. While your membership is active, we keep your profile information (both what’s shown publicly and your private details) so we can run your account and show your listing.

After you cancel your membership:

• Your profile will no longer be seen by the public, but we will keep it so that you can come back easily if you want to. Many members return after career breaks, and this means you won’t need to give your details and documents again.
• Your account will stay active – you will still be able to log in to use member features like viewing your invoices and payment history, and download certificates you may need for professional body registration or renewals, or for insurance purposes.

You can ask us to delete your account and profile by emailing or phoning us. We recommend downloading any certificates first if you will need them.

Information we delete automatically

We delete the following types of information after set periods.

• Contact form enquiries: When you contact a life coach or nlp practitioner using the contact form on our site, the message is deleted from our database as soon as it’s delivered (usually within minutes). We delete your contact details (name, email and phone number) within 14 days of you sending your message to the life coach or nlp practitioner. System logs keep information about message deliveries (such as when it was sent and whether it was delivered successfully) for up to two months, but do not keep the contents of your message. If we see unusual patterns in contact form enquiries, and this suggests spam, we might store messages a bit longer while we review them, but we’ll delete them once we’ve carried out our checks. We keep IP addresses for up to 18 months to help us detect spam patterns and prevent fraud.
• Introductory call requests: We delete call details and phone numbers within 14 days of your call.
• Call recordings and notes: We keep recordings of inbound calls to our directory and sales lines, and any call notes of them, only for as long as we need them for quality, training and dispute-resolution purposes. We then delete them automatically. Call notes relevant to an open complaint, disagreement or legal claim may be kept for longer while we investigate and solve this.
• Security logs: We keep log-in records and other security information for up to 18 months so we can keep our site secure, investigate any suspicious activity and spot any problems. We keep logs of all access to our server for up to two months.
• Backup copies: We keep encrypted backup copies of information for up to 100 days in case something goes wrong with our systems. After that, the copies are deleted.

Information we must keep for legal reasons

We have to keep the following information for longer to meet legal requirements.

• Financial records: UK tax law requires us to keep records of invoices and payments for at least six years from your last payment. We also need to keep any information that’s part of an invoice so our records stay accurate.
• Records of disputes and complaints: If there’s been a complaint or dispute, we keep the relevant emails, notes and evidence for up to seven years after the matter is settled. This lets us defend ourselves in the future if needed.

What happens when you ask us to delete your information

If you ask us to delete your information, here’s what happens.

We’ll delete your profile, contact details, documents you have provided and other personal information straight away (or on the date you ask for). This usually takes up to three months to complete fully because we need to keep a backup copy for a short period in case of mistakes, and it takes time to remove profiles from our systems.

However, we can’t immediately delete financial records and records of complaints and disputes, as explained above.

If we can’t delete something you’ve asked us to remove, we’ll explain why and let you know when we’ll be able to delete it.

Sometimes the process of deleting information might take a bit longer than usual because of system maintenance, unexpected problems or technical issues. We have systems in place to spot and fix any delays.

How we decide how long to keep information

When we’re working out how long to keep different types of information, we think about:

• how sensitive the information is;
• what could happen if it got into the wrong hands;
• why we collected it in the first place;
• whether we could do the same job without keeping it; and
• what the law requires.

If you have questions about how long we keep information, or you’d like to ask us to delete your personal information, email privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

9. Your rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights.

• The right to get a copy of your information – You can ask for a free copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• The right to get your information corrected – You can ask us to correct or update your personal information (for example, if your name or contact details have changed).
• The right to "data portability" – You can ask us to transfer your personal information to another organisation.
• The right to be informed – You can ask us for detailed information about how we process your information (for example, the type of information we are using, what we are using it for and how long we will keep it).
• The right to limit how we use your information – In certain situations, you can restrict how we can use your information.
• The right to object to how your information is used – You can object to how we use your information.
• The right to get your information deleted – You can ask us to delete your personal information. However, as explained in section 8, we may need to keep some information for legal reasons.

You can also ask us not to use your information for marketing purposes.

We try to respond to requests within one month. However, it could take us longer if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will keep you updated.

Please note that in some situations, we may not be able to fully agree to your request straight away (for example, due to a law or regulation). If this is the case, we will explain when we’ll be able to delete your information.

If you ask to exercise any of your rights, we may need to get specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and your right to access your personal information and exercise any of your rights. This is a security measure to make sure that personal information is not given to any person who is not entitled to receive it. We may also ask you for further information about your request to speed up our response.

10. Links to other sites

This privacy notice (and any documents referred to in it) does not apply to other websites you access by clicking on links on our site. We have no control over how those websites collect, store or use your personal information. You should check the privacy policies of other websites before providing any personal information.

When you contact a life coach or nlp practitioner through our site, their own privacy notice will apply to the information you give them. Please ask them for specific details of how they use and store your information.

11. Changes to this privacy notice

We regularly review this privacy notice. If this privacy notice changes, we will post the changes on this web page. We may also email details to you.

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is complete, accurate and up to date. If your personal information (for example, your email or postal address) changes during your relationship with us, please email us at privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

12. How to contact us about this privacy notice

Our Data Compliance Manager, Claire Vince, and our independent Data Protection Officer (DPO), Karenjit Dhaliwal, handle questions about this privacy notice and requests to exercise your rights (see Section 9). You can write to them at:

Memiah Limited
Building B, Riverside Way
Camberley
Surrey
GU15 3YL.

You can also send an email to privacy@lifecoach-directory.org.uk.

Our Data Compliance Manager and DPO may work with our Customer Service or Membership Services team when dealing with your concerns.

13. Complaints

We are committed to working with you to deal with any concerns you have about your personal information. If you have any concerns about how your information is handled, you should contact our Data Compliance Manager or Data Protection Officer as explained above.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the following ways.

• Website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
• Phone: 0303 123 1113
• Textphone: dial 18001 followed by 0303 123 1113

Version history

• 04/06/2026: Added DPO (Karenjit Dhaliwal), Cyber Essentials Plus certification, AI and call-analysis disclosures, a call recording statement, a children and young people section, a data-breach definition, and third-party processor examples. Expanded data-retention detail and clarified the lawful bases for processing. Updated for UK GDPR (UK adequacy and the UK IDTA) and the UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
• 04/06/2020: Additional service provider information added; clarification on processing of special category data.
• 01/12/2019: Crystal Mark and Plain English.
• 26/09/2018: Updates made to reflect FB Pixel usage.
• 21/05/2018: First published.