Privacy Policy

Effective date: 31 October 2026

WhatLifecoach is a trading name of Truly Empowered Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 11904082, registered office 71-75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ. We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. Contact: hello@whatlifecoach.com. You have the right to raise a concern with the ICO at any time (ico.org.uk).

We collect only what we need to run a verification and comparison service: member applications and documents, client enquiries so they can be delivered, and minimal site analytics. We do not sell personal data to anyone, we do not run advertising trackers, and clients' enquiry details are shared only with the life coach they chose to contact.

Account security and choices: we store protected sign-in and recovery proofs, trusted-browser records, and any evidence needed for an operator-assisted account recovery. We also store your review-display choice, declared professional bodies, dated guidance acknowledgement and optional availability-email preference. These records support account security and your chosen settings. Essential service messages remain separate from optional availability reminders.

Admission records include the member declaration, the coaching body's public directory link, the exact credential level, review outcome, check dates, scope review and reference to private insurance evidence. We keep a review history for decisions and corrections. Only the public evidence fields and dates appear on an active profile; uploaded documents and internal reviewer notes do not.

What we collect: your name, contact details, practice addresses, your coaching body, credential and credential level, other professional memberships you state, insurance provider, uploaded documents (your insurance schedule and any other evidence you choose to send us), payment records (processed by Stripe; we never see your full card number), profile content you write including any fees you choose to publish, your optional taking-new-clients confirmations, an optional gender you may declare (used only as a search filter, never shown as text on your profile, and entirely your choice to leave unset), and usage of your dashboard.

Why and on what lawful basis: to assess your application and verify your documents, including looking up any professional body membership you state on that body's public directory, to publish your profile and operate your membership (performance of a contract); to keep verification records and meet tax and accounting duties (legal obligation); to send you service emails such as renewal reminders and document-expiry chasers (performance of a contract); and to tell you about relevant site features and offers (legitimate interests, with an opt-out in every email, or consent where we have asked for it).

Your documents: uploaded certificates and insurance schedules are stored securely, accessed only for verification and record-keeping, and are never published. To speed up review, we may use an AI assistant (Claude, run by Anthropic) to read the documents you upload and pull out the details for checking. Its reading only ever assists the human reviewer: every membership decision is made by a person. Your public profile shows the outcome of verification (route, level, dates, and any confirmed body membership), not the documents.

Your profile: where we build your profile for you, the answers you write for us are sent to the same AI assistant (Claude, run by Anthropic) to draft your bio. If you give us your website address and leave the box ticked to use it, we also read the main pages of your website and send that text with your answers. Any text you paste in for us is sent as well. You read that draft, change anything you want, and nothing is published until you approve it. Anthropic processes what we send on our instructions as a data processor and does not use it to train its models.

Public data: your published profile (name, member number, town, coaching body and credential level, verification dates, confirmed professional body memberships, and the content you choose to add, including any published fees and the date of your latest taking-new-clients confirmation) is public by design; that is what a listing is. Lapsed and removed statuses are shown as described in our Verification Standard and Complaints Procedure.

Retention: membership records and verification documents are kept for the duration of membership plus 6 years (limitation and record-keeping). Declined applications are kept for 12 months, then deleted.

What we collect: when you send an enquiry through a profile, we collect your name, email, optional phone number, your selected enquiry type and your message. When you use the notify-me feature, we collect your email address and search location. When you sign up for launch updates, we collect your first name, your email address and the area you were searching for. These two sign-ups are separate: an alert about a practitioner joining near you is only ever sent to someone who asked for that, and never to someone who signed up for launch updates.

Why and on what lawful basis: to deliver your enquiry to the life coach you chose and acknowledge your saved message to you (legitimate interests: providing the service you asked for); to keep a delivery log so we can make sure the enquiry system works and investigate problems (legitimate interests); and to send you the single notify-me alert you requested, or the launch updates you asked for, whichever you signed up to (consent, which you can withdraw at any time by emailing us). The two are recorded separately: we only ever send you the one you agreed to.

Who sees it: your enquiry is shared with the life coach you contacted, and no one else. We never use enquiry details for marketing, and we never sell them.

A note on sensitive information: an enquiry to a life coach is a personal thing, and we ask you not to include more detail than you need to; the place for your story is the coaching itself. Anything you choose to include is handled with extra care as special category data, on the basis of your manifest decision to send it to the life coach, and is not used for any other purpose. An enquiry is not coaching, and coaching is not crisis support: if you need urgent help, call 999 in an emergency, or contact the Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night.

Retention: enquiry logs are kept for 12 months, then deleted with their associated delivery records. Notify-me emails are deleted after the alert is sent or after 24 months, whichever is sooner. Launch-update emails are deleted 24 months after you sign up, or as soon as you ask us to remove you.

In building the directory we may hold limited professional contact information about life coaches we have not yet met, obtained from publicly available sources such as professional listings and practice websites: typically your name, practice name, town, publicly listed phone number, website and professional category. We use it only to assess the market and, where the law permits (for example, by postal mail), to invite you to join. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: introducing a professional service to practitioners to whom it is directly relevant, using minimal data, with a documented Legitimate Interests Assessment on file. We do not send unsolicited marketing emails, texts or messages to sole traders without consent. You have the right to object at any time: one message to hello@whatlifecoach.com and we will permanently suppress your details from any further contact and delete what we hold, unless we need a minimal suppression record to honour your objection. We do not publish any listing for a life coach who has not applied; the directory is opt-in only.

We use essential cookies to make the site work and privacy-respecting analytics to understand aggregate usage (legitimate interests). We do not use advertising trackers. Server logs (IP address, pages requested) are kept briefly for security. See the cookie notice for details and choices.

Service providers who help us run the site, under contract and only as needed: our hosting provider (UK/EU data centres), Stripe (payments), our email delivery provider, Anthropic (the AI assistant described above), and our accountant for financial records. We share data with authorities where the law requires. If the business is ever sold, data transfers with it under the same protections and you would be notified.

We keep data in the UK or EEA wherever possible. Where a provider processes data outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or the appropriate safeguards (such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement).

Data is encrypted in transit, documents are stored with restricted access, payment card data is handled entirely by Stripe, and access to admin systems is limited and logged.

You have the right to access your data, correct it, have it erased, restrict or object to processing (including an absolute right to object to direct marketing), and data portability, where those rights apply. To exercise any right, email hello@whatlifecoach.com; we respond within one month. If you have a data protection complaint, please raise it with us first (we operate a complaints process for data concerns and will respond promptly) and you can complain to the ICO at any time: ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113.

We will post any changes here and, for material changes affecting members, email you. Previous versions are available on request.