1. Who we are and how to contact us
The Menopause Coach (“TMC”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is a trading name of Natural Optimum Health Ltd, a private limited company registered in Northern Ireland, company number NI615022. Our registered office is 24 Glendale Park, Belfast, County Antrim, BT8 6HS. Natural Optimum Health Ltd is the data controller responsible for the personal information described in this policy.
You can contact us about data protection at: email kieranthemenopausecoach@gmail.com, or by post at the registered office above. Our website is https://themenopausecoach.com/.
We are not required to appoint a dedicated Data Protection Officer given the size and nature of our business. All data-protection queries should be sent to the contact details above.
This policy should be read together with our Cookie Policy and our Terms & Conditions.
2. Who and what this policy applies to
This policy explains how we collect, use, store, disclose and protect your personal information when you visit our website, book a consultation, enquire about, purchase or participate in one of our programmes or services, subscribe to our newsletter, leave a testimonial or otherwise interact with us.
It applies to website visitors, prospective clients, clients, programme participants, newsletter subscribers and anyone else who communicates with us. Our services are intended for adults aged 18 and over; we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18 (see Section 18).
3. Personal information we collect
- Contact and identity information: your name, age or age range, email address, telephone or mobile number, postal address (where needed), country or general location, and your communication preferences.
- Programme and consultation information: the programme or service you purchase, consultation booking details, consultation notes, questionnaires, self-assessment results, your Personalised Individual Plan, progress records, and any support or feedback you provide.
- Health and special-category information: because of the nature of our services you may share information about your physical or mental health, menopause or perimenopause symptoms, lifestyle, nutrition, wellbeing, and (where you take one) remote food-sensitivity or intolerance test results. This is “special category” data under UK GDPR and is handled with extra care (see Section 6).
- Payment and transaction information: invoice details, amounts paid, payment status and transaction history. Full payment-card numbers and security codes are processed directly by our payment processor PayPal, Stripe and others that may be added to our payment system and are not stored on our systems.
- Marketing and communications information: your newsletter subscription status, marketing consents, and any testimonial you choose to give.
- Technical and usage information: your IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring website, pages visited and access times, collected through cookies and analytics (see our Cookie Policy). We do not collect precise device geolocation.
- Information you choose to give us: anything you submit voluntarily through forms, email, telephone, consultations or social media.
4. How we collect your information
- Directly from you, through website forms, enquiry and booking forms, email, telephone, consultations, questionnaires and assessments.
- Automatically when you use our website, through cookies, analytics and similar technologies.
- From third-party service providers where necessary to deliver our services, including our payment processor, booking/scheduling provider, video-conferencing provider, and scheduling services.
5. How we use your information and our lawful basis
Under UK GDPR we must have a valid “lawful basis” for every use of your personal data. The table below sets out the main purposes, the data used, and the lawful basis we rely on. For health data we also need an additional “special category” condition, which is shown in the final column.
| Purpose | Data used | Lawful basis (Art. 6 UK GDPR) | Special-category condition (Art. 9) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deliver programmes, consultations and services | Contact, programme, health | Performance of a contract with you | Explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)) |
| Personalise your service and Personalised Individual Plan | Health, lifestyle, programme notes | Performance of a contract / legitimate interests (tailoring our service) | Explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)) |
| Respond to enquiries and book free consultations | Contact details | Legitimate interests (responding to your enquiry); consent where you opt in to further contact | Not applicable unless you disclose health details voluntarily |
| Process payments, invoices and accounting | Payment, transaction | Performance of a contract and compliance with a legal obligation (HMRC record-keeping) | Not applicable |
| Send service and administrative messages | Contact details | Performance of a contract / legitimate interests | Not applicable |
| Send newsletters and marketing | Contact details, preferences | Consent (required by PECR for electronic marketing) | Not applicable |
| Publish testimonials (with your permission) | Testimonial, name/identity, health details if identifiable | Explicit consent | Explicit consent (Art. 9(2)(a)) |
| Operate, secure and improve our website and services | Technical, usage | Legitimate interests (security, improvement, fraud prevention); consent for non-essential cookies | Not applicable |
| Comply with legal obligations and defend legal claims | Any relevant data | Compliance with a legal obligation / legitimate interests | Explicit consent or other applicable condition |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, these include: responding to enquiries, administering and improving our services and website, ensuring IT and information security, preventing fraud, and managing our business effectively. We always balance these interests against your rights and freedoms, and you can object to any such processing (see Section 14). We do not sell your personal information.
6. Health and special-category information
Information about your health is “special category data” under UK GDPR and receives the highest level of protection. We process it only where: (a) we have an Article 6 lawful basis (usually performance of your contract or your consent), and (b) an Article 9 condition applies — in our case your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)), obtained at the point you book a consultation, complete an intake questionnaire or join a programme.
We collect only the health information reasonably necessary to deliver and personalise our services. You may withdraw your explicit consent at any time by emailing us; withdrawal will not affect any processing already carried out lawfully, but if the information was necessary to provide your service, we may no longer be able to continue it.
7. Newsletters and marketing
We send marketing emails (programme news, educational content, events, workshops and offers) only where you have subscribed or otherwise agreed in accordance with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
We use a third-party email service provider (Namecheap) to send these emails. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in every marketing email or by contacting us. Unsubscribing from marketing will not stop essential service or administrative messages.
8. Cookies and similar technologies
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Strictly necessary cookies (required for the site to function) are set without consent. All other cookies — analytics, functional and marketing cookies — are set only after you have given consent through our cookie banner. Full details of the cookies we use, their purpose and duration, and how to change your preferences are set out in our separate Cookie Policy. You can also delete or block cookies through your browser settings; doing so may affect some website features.
9. Who we share your information with
We share your personal information only with recipients who need it to perform services for us (our “processors”), or where we are required or permitted to by law. We require our processors to handle personal information in accordance with our instructions and applicable data-protection requirements. Categories of recipients include:
- Payment processing: PayPal and Stripe.
- Booking and scheduling: Calendly, Katalyst
- Video conferencing for consultations and group calls: Zoom Communications Inc. (based in the United States) and Google Meet, WhatsApp or other video conferencing services as may be available
- Email marketing platform: Namecheap
- Online programme/course hosting and delivery: Katalyst
- Website hosting, cloud storage and backups: Katalyst
- Website development and maintenance: Katalyst who do not have access to personal data.
- Website analytics: Katalyst and Google Analytics
- Professional advisers: Specialist advisers on nutritional and food technology, our accountant, insurer and solicitors, and others as and where necessary.
- Regulators and public authorities: the ICO, HMRC, law enforcement agencies and courts, where lawfully required or to establish, exercise or defend legal rights.
We do not share your personal information with independent third parties for their own marketing purposes. If Natural Optimum Health Ltd or its business assets were involved in a merger, acquisition, restructuring or sale, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the same confidentiality obligations.
10. International transfers of your information
Some of our service providers include providers that may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where UK data-protection law restricts an international transfer, we ensure a valid legal mechanism is in place — typically the UK-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK Addendum to Standard Contractual Clauses (IDTA/SCCs). You may contact us at any time to request a copy of the safeguards applicable to your information.
11. How long we keep your information
We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purpose it was collected, and to meet legal, accounting and regulatory requirements. Our standard retention periods are:
| Type of information | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Enquiry and lead data (no programme purchased) | 12 months from last contact, then deleted |
| Client and programme records, consultation notes and health data | 6 years from the date of your last contact with us |
| Financial, invoice and accounting records | 6 years (HMRC requirement) |
| Newsletter/marketing list | Until you unsubscribe, or 24 months of inactivity, after which we remove you |
| Published testimonials | Until you withdraw consent, or a maximum of 3 years before we seek fresh consent |
| Website analytics data | 26 months, then anonymised or deleted |
When information is no longer required, we securely delete, anonymise or dispose of it.
12. How we protect your information
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or disclosure, including encryption of data in transit (HTTPS/TLS), password-protected and access-controlled systems, confidentiality obligations on anyone handling your data, and limited access to health information on a need-to-know basis. No method of transmission or storage over the internet can be guaranteed completely secure, but we take our security obligations seriously.
13. Data breaches
We have internal procedures to detect, assess and respond to personal-data breaches. If a breach occurs and is likely to result in a high risk to your rights, we will notify you without undue delay. Where required by law, we will notify the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach. We may notify you by email or by a notice on our website.
14. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the applicable law, you have the following rights over your personal information:
- Access: obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you (a subject access request).
- Rectification: ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
- Erasure: ask us to delete your information where it is no longer needed or where you withdraw consent.
- Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your information in certain circumstances.
- Data portability: receive your information in a machine-readable format to pass to another controller, where we process it by consent or contract.
- Withdraw consent: withdraw any consent you have given (including for marketing and for processing health data) at any time, as easily as you gave it.
- Object to processing: you have the right to object at any time to processing based on our legitimate interests, including direct marketing. To object, email us at kieranthemenopausecoach@gmail.com and we will stop that processing unless we can show compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at kieranthemenopausecoach@gmail.com . We may ask you to confirm your identity before responding. We will respond within one month (extendable by two further months for complex or multiple requests). There is normally no fee. These rights may be subject to legal exemptions.
15. How to complain to us about your data
You have a statutory right to complain directly to us about how we handle your personal information. To make a data-protection complaint, email us at kieranthemenopausecoach@gmail.com or write to us at our registered office. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it, investigate it without undue delay, keep you informed of progress, and tell you the outcome. If you remain dissatisfied, you may then complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (see Section 16).
16. Complaining to the Information Commissioner’s Office
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information or our response to a complaint, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): website ico.org.uk, helpline 0303 123 1113, or post to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
17. Users outside the UK (including the EEA)
Our services are accessible internationally. If you access our services from the EEA and EU GDPR applies to our processing, we will handle your personal information in accordance with any additional requirements that apply.
If EU GDPR applies, we do not currently target or monitor individuals in the EEA and have not appointed an EEA representative; please contact us directly.
Nothing in this policy removes or restricts any mandatory privacy right that applies to you under the law of your country.
18. Children and age restriction
Our services are intended for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it where required.
19. Third-party websites and testimonials
Our website may link to third-party websites and social-media platforms (including LinkedIn and Facebook and others on occasions). We are not responsible for their privacy practices and encourage you to read their own privacy policies.
Where clients voluntarily provide testimonials, we publish them only with your explicit written consent, taking particular care where a testimonial is identifiable or reveals health information. You may ask us to remove your testimonial at any time.
20. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology, providers or the law. We will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, where changes are material, publish a notice on our website or notify you by email.
21. Contact us
Natural Optimum Health Ltd (trading as The Menopause Coach)
Company number NI615022 · Registered in Northern Ireland
Registered office: 24 Glendale Park, Belfast, County Antrim, BT8 6HS
Email: kieranthemenopausecoach@gmail.com
Website: https://themenopausecoach.com/