How attune protects you
Therapy works when you can be honest. That requires safety - of who you’re talking to, of what they say they are, and of what happens to the words you share. Here is exactly what we do, in plain English.
Therapist verification
Every therapist on attune is checked against an established UK professional register before they appear in matches. We accept HCPC, BACP, UKCP, and NCPS, and we re-check every active therapist against their register weekly. If a registration lapses or is suspended, the therapist is hidden from matches the same day.
Recognised professional bodies
Therapists on attune are accredited, registered, or regulated by recognised professional bodies. We verify membership at onboarding against the bodies’ public registers - being listed below does not imply endorsement of attune by any of them.
Data protection
- We operate under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
- Every message and clinical session note is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, using a per-conversation key derived from a master key held outside the database.
- Data residency is UK / EU, your data does not leave the European Economic Area without explicit consent.
- We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), registration number 00014027351.
- You can export everything we hold about you, or request erasure, from your profile settings. Where the law requires us to retain clinical records, we tell you exactly which fields and why.
Crisis support
attune is not an emergency service. If you or someone you know is in crisis right now, please use one of these, they are free, 24/7, and answered by trained humans:
- Samaritans116 12324/7 phone, free from any UK phone
- Shouttext 8525824/7 SMS, free, anonymous
- NHS111urgent medical / mental-health advice
Inside attune, our messaging system automatically detects crisis language (suicidal ideation, self-harm, imminent risk) and surfaces these contacts on screen the moment a message containing them is sent, without waiting for your therapist to read it.
Complaints process
If something has gone wrong, clinically, professionally, or in how we’ve handled your data, there is always somewhere to take it. The three steps below are independent: you can skip ahead at any time.
- Speak to your therapist. If you feel safe doing so, raising it directly is often the fastest fix and is appropriate for misunderstandings about scope, pace, or fit.
- Contact attune. Email [email protected]. We acknowledge complaints within 3 working days and aim to give a substantive response within 20 working days, in line with our full complaints policy. Safeguarding concerns are routed immediately, day or night.
- Escalate to the therapist’s professional body. Every register we accept (HCPC, BACP, UKCP, NCPS) has its own complaints procedure that operates independently of attune. We will help you find the right one, and we will cooperate fully with their investigation.
For complaints specifically about how we’ve handled your personal data, you can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office directly.