Privacy
Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Penny Cook, trading as Penny Cook Coaching and Consulting, handles personal information when you use this website. You can contact us, ask about a speaking engagement, or apply for a private coaching conversation.
Who is responsible
Penny Cook is the data controller for personal information collected through this website. Penny decides how your information is used. This website is operated by Penny Cook Coaching and Consulting, which trades from the United Kingdom and serves an international audience.
Correspondence address: Birmingham, UK
For privacy questions, write to support@penny-cook.com. Penny will reply from that address.
Information we handle, by purpose
The table sets out, for each activity, the categories of information, where it comes from, why we use it, the legal basis, who receives it, and how long it is kept or the criteria used to decide. Where information is obtained indirectly, that is noted in the source.
| Activity | Information | Source | Purpose | Legal basis | Recipients | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting and security | IP address, browser and device information, request and security log entries, timestamps. | Collected automatically by the platform that hosts this website when you visit. | To serve pages securely, monitor availability and protect the site against misuse. | Legitimate interests — keeping the site secure and operational. | The hosting platform. Penny Cook reviews security information where needed. | Held by the hosting provider for the period set in its operational and security policy. |
| General enquiries (contact form) | Your name, email address, phone number (optional), the type of enquiry, and your message. | You, when you send a message through the contact form. | To read and respond to your enquiry. Penny reads each message herself. | Legitimate interests — to answer your request and manage correspondence about it. | Penny Cook, and the customer relationship system used to organise and reply to messages (a processor acting on Penny's instructions). | Kept for as long as needed to resolve your enquiry, then for a reasonable period to keep a record of the exchange. |
| Speaking and media enquiries | Your name, work email, show or organisation, audience or topic, an optional event link, and your preferred timing. | You, when you ask about a podcast or event through the contact form. | To consider and respond to a speaking, podcast or media request. | Legitimate interests — to assess and answer the opportunity you describe. | Penny Cook, and the customer relationship system used to organise the enquiry. | Kept for as long as needed to handle the enquiry, then for a reasonable period afterwards. |
| Private coaching applications | Your name, email address, and what you tell Penny about your role, your situation and what you would like to be different. | You, when you apply for a private conversation. | For Penny to read your application herself and decide whether to invite you to a complimentary conversation of about an hour. | Legitimate interests and pre-contractual steps — to assess whether the engagement is a fit before either of us commits. | Penny Cook, and the customer relationship system. | Kept for as long as needed to consider your application and, where relevant, to arrange or reflect on the conversation, then for a reasonable period. |
| Scheduling a complimentary conversation | Your name and contact details, and any time you suggest, arranged directly with Penny. | You, if Penny invites you to a conversation. | To arrange and hold the agreed conversation. | Legitimate interests — to organise the meeting you have both agreed to. | Penny Cook, and the calendar or scheduling arrangement you both use. | Kept for as long as needed to manage the arrangement, then for a reasonable period. |
| Personal Audit delivery and answers | The reflections and answers you complete for the Personal Audit, and the email address or download route used to send them to you. | You, when you complete and receive your audit answers. | To give you a self-guided reflection, and — if you go on to work with Penny — to inform that work with what you have already considered. | Legitimate interests to deliver what you ask for; consent where you ask for the audit to be sent to you. | Penny Cook and authorised members of her team who need access to handle your audit or coaching enquiry, together with the customer relationship system provider that stores and processes the information on Penny's instructions. | We keep your audit answers while handling your audit enquiry and, if you work with Penny, while they are needed to provide your coaching. Afterwards, we delete or anonymise them when they are no longer needed for those purposes, unless the law requires us to keep them. You can ask us to delete your answers at support@penny-cook.com. |
| Optional marketing | Your name and email address, if you ask to receive Penny's writing or updates. | You, if and when you opt in. | To send you the content you have asked for. | Consent. You can withdraw it at any time; withdrawal stops future messages. | Penny Cook and the email tool used to send the content. | Kept while your consent stands, and for a short period afterwards to record that you withdrew. |
| Consent records | A record of what you consented to, when, and how you gave it. | You, when you give or withdraw consent. | To demonstrate and manage the consents that underpin the processing above. | Legitimate interests — to keep an accurate record of your choices. | Penny Cook, and the system used to record consents. | Kept for as long as needed to evidence the consent, and for a reasonable period afterwards. |
| Publication of client stories | Approved client quotations, and a first name, role or other attribution the client has agreed to. | Clients who have given their express permission. | To illustrate what working with Penny can be like, with each client's consent. | Consent, given by the client for the specific words and attribution shown. | Anyone who visits the client stories page. | Published for as long as consent stands; removed if a client withdraws it. |
The contact form asks for your name and email because they are needed to reply. Your phone number is optional. If you leave a required field empty, Penny may not be able to respond. The form is not a subscription: submitting a general enquiry does not add you to marketing. No box is preselected for marketing, and consent to marketing is never a condition of sending an enquiry.
Health and other sensitive information
Please do not include medical, health or other especially sensitive details in an enquiry, application or audit answer unless Penny has specifically asked you to and has confirmed that a suitable basis for collecting it is in place. If such information is needed, it is handled only with an additional, specific legal condition, and you will be told how it will be used before you provide it.
Transfers outside the United Kingdom
Some providers used to run this website and to manage enquiries process information outside the United Kingdom. The fact that you read this site from outside the UK does not, by itself, mean your information is actively targeted in your country.
Where your information is transferred outside the UK, Penny relies on an adequacy decision for the destination or on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or standard contractual clauses, together with any measures needed to keep it protected. You can ask support@penny-cook.com for a copy of the safeguards or further information about the transfer.
Automated processing
The contact form assigns a session identifier and a simple desktop-or-mobile label so messages can be organised; it does not produce decisions about you. This website does not carry out solely automated processing that has a legal or similarly significant effect on you.
Your rights
You have the right to ask what information Penny holds about you, to receive a copy of it, and to ask for it to be corrected, deleted or restricted. You can object to processing, ask for information you gave us to be provided in a reusable form (portability), and withdraw any consent you have given. You can also object to direct marketing at any time.
To use any of these rights, write to support@penny-cook.com. Penny will respond and, where the law requires it, explain the reasons if a request cannot be met in full.
If you are not satisfied, you have the right to complain to the UK supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office. You can find out how at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. You are welcome to contact Penny first.