PRIVACY
POLICY.

WHO I AM

I am Darren Jones, trading as Coach Darren Jones, a self-employed personal trainer based in Norfolk. I am the data controller for the information described in this policy, which means I am responsible for how it is handled.

 

Email: hello@coachdarrenjones.co.uk
Phone: 07712 154841

 

I work from the two gyms below rather than from business premises of my own, so I do not publish a postal address. If you need one in writing, for a data request or a complaint, email me and I will provide it.

 

I train clients at HyleteFit in Swaffham and Suggs Gym in Wymondham. Those gyms are separate businesses with their own privacy policies, and this policy covers only the information I hold.

 

WHAT INFORMATION I COLLECT

When you enquire

• Your name, email address and phone number.

• Which gym you would prefer and what you are hoping to achieve.

• Anything else you choose to tell me in the message.

 

When you become a client

• Contact details and an emergency contact.

• Date of birth, where it is relevant to programming.

• Health information, gathered through a health questionnaire and consultation: medical conditions, injuries, surgeries, medication that affects training, pregnancy, and anything else that changes what is safe for you to do.

• Training records: your programme, the weights you lift, attendance, and notes on how sessions went.

• Measurements, weight and progress photographs, where you choose to provide them.

• Payment records, including dates and amounts.

When you sign up to my emails

• Your name and email address, and whether you open the emails.

When you visit the website

• Standard technical information collected by cookies: your approximate location, the pages you visit, the device and browser you use. This is covered in the cookies section below.

 

HEALTH INFORMATION, AND WHY IT NEEDS YOUR EXPLICIT CONSENT

Information about your health is what data protection law calls special category data. It carries extra protection, and I can only hold it if you have given me clear, explicit consent, which is why the health questionnaire asks you to confirm this separately rather than burying it in the small print.

 

I collect it for one reason: to coach you safely. Knowing about a shoulder injury, a heart condition or a medication that affects your blood pressure changes what I programme for you. Training someone without that information is genuinely unsafe.

 

I do not share your health information with anybody, including the gyms, unless you have asked me to or there is a medical emergency. You can withdraw your consent at any time, but I should be honest that without this information I may not be able to continue coaching you safely.

 

WHY I AM ALLOWED TO HOLD YOUR INFORMATION

UK data protection law requires a lawful basis for holding personal information. Mine are:

 

• Contract. To provide the coaching you have booked and paid for, including programming, scheduling and taking payment.

• Explicit consent. For health information, for progress photographs, and for marketing emails. Consent can be withdrawn at any time.

• Legitimate interests. To respond to your enquiry, to keep basic records of who has contacted me, and to run and improve my business.

• Legal obligation. To keep financial records for the period HMRC requires.

 

PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO

I sometimes film or photograph sessions for use on social media and my website. I will never use an image of you without asking you first, and asking means a specific request about that image or that session, not a box you ticked when you signed up.

 

If you say no, nothing changes about your training, and I will not ask again. If you agree and then change your mind, tell me and I will remove the image from anywhere I control. I cannot recover copies other people have already downloaded or shared, which is worth knowing before you agree.

 

ADVERTISING

I advertise on Facebook, Instagram and Google. To see whether those adverts are working, the website uses tracking tools supplied by those platforms: the Meta Pixel and Google Ads conversion tracking.

 

In plain terms, these do three things:

• Measurement. They tell me how many people who clicked an advert went on to make an enquiry. Without this I am guessing about where my advertising budget goes.

• Audiences. They let me show adverts to people in particular places, such as Swaffham and Wymondham, or within certain age ranges. This is based on the platform's own information about its users, not on anything you have told me.

• Remarketing. If you visit the website and do not get in touch, you may see my adverts again afterwards on Facebook, Instagram or elsewhere. That is why an advert can feel as though it is following you around.

These tools only run if you accept advertising cookies. They are not essential to the website, so they sit behind the cookie banner. Decline them and the site works exactly as before; I simply lose the ability to measure my advertising.

 

What I do not do. I never upload client lists, health information or anything from your training records to an advertising platform. I do not create custom audiences from my client or newsletter lists. The only information these tools see is anonymous website activity: which pages were visited and whether an enquiry was submitted.

 

You can limit this at the source as well as through my cookie banner. Facebook and Instagram advert preferences are in your account settings under Ads, and Google's are at myadcenter.google.com.

 

WHO I SHARE INFORMATION WITH

I do not sell your information to anybody, ever. I use the following services to run the business, and each holds some of your information on my behalf: MyPT Hub, Wix, MailerLite, Google, Meta, Payment provider. I may add 3rd party service providers to help me manage my business.

 

Some of these companies are based outside the UK. Where information is transferred abroad, it is protected by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or an adequacy decision.

 

I will also share information where I am legally required to, or where there is a genuine risk to someone's life, such as passing your emergency contact and relevant medical details to paramedics.

 

HOW LONG I KEEP IT

• Enquiries that do not become clients: up to twelve months, then deleted.

• Client records, including health information: seven years after you stop training with me. This is for insurance and legal reasons, because a claim can be brought some time after the event.

• Financial records: six years after the end of the relevant tax year, as HMRC requires.

• Newsletter subscribers: until you unsubscribe, and then only enough to make sure I do not email you again by mistake.

 

HOW I KEEP IT SAFE

• Health questionnaires and client records are held in My PT Hub, which is password-protected and accessed only by me.

• My phone, tablet and laptop are password-protected and encrypted.

• I do not keep paper records of health information. Anything completed on paper is transferred and then destroyed.

• Nobody else has access to your records. I have no staff.

 

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to:

• See what I hold about you, free of charge. I will respond within one month.

• Have mistakes corrected.

• Have your information deleted, where I am not legally required to keep it.

• Withdraw consent for health information, photographs or marketing emails.

• Object to how I use your information, or ask me to restrict it.

• Receive a copy of your information in a portable format.

To exercise any of these, email hello@coachdarrenjones.co.uk. You will never be treated differently for asking.

 

COOKIES

The website uses cookies, which are small files stored on your device. Some are necessary for the site to function. Others measure how the site is used, so I can see which pages are worth keeping.

They fall into three groups:

 

• Necessary. Required for the site to load and function. These cannot be switched off.

• Analytics. Measure which pages are visited, so I can see what is worth keeping.

• Advertising. The Meta and Google tools described in the advertising section above.

When you first visit, you will be asked which of the non-essential groups you are happy to accept. You can change your mind at any time through the banner or your browser settings, and declining them does not stop the site working.

 

CHILDREN

I do not coach anyone under sixteen without the written consent of a parent or guardian, and I do not knowingly collect information about children other than through that consent.

 

COMPLAINTS

If you are unhappy with how I have handled your information, please tell me first and I will try to put it right. If you are still not satisfied, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator:

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone 0303 123 1113
ico.org.uk

 

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

If I change how I handle information, I will update this page and change the date at the top.