The short version
- Your Independence File is yours. You can read all of it, any time.
- You can export the whole thing free, including on the day you leave us.
- You decide who else sees it, person by person, and you can revoke that.
- We never sell or share your data for marketing. Not ever, not to anyone.
- We keep an access log, and you can see it.
What we collect
From you: the contact details and description you send when you first get in touch, and then whatever your child's support requires — history, reports, goals, session records, correspondence with schools and clinicians.
From this website: very little. This site sets no cookies of its own, has no analytics beyond what our host records in ordinary server logs, and has no advertising or tracking pixels. Fonts are served by Google Fonts, which will see your IP address as part of loading them.
The contact form: does not send us anything on its own. It composes what you wrote into a WhatsApp message and opens WhatsApp so you can read it before sending. Nothing reaches us until you press send there.
What we do with it
We use your child's information to assess, plan, deliver and review their support, and to coordinate with the people you have agreed we should coordinate with. That is the whole list.
Aggregate, de-identified figures feed the annual Independence Report. No child is identifiable in it, and where a group is small enough that a number could identify a family, the number is withheld and we say so.
Who else sees it
Inside Special Minds: your Family Lead, the practitioners working with your child, and their clinical supervisor. Access is by role, and it is logged.
Outside: only who you say. Schools, clinicians and family members get access because you granted it, for as long as you leave it granted. We will ask, in writing, before sharing anything with anyone new.
The exception is where the law or a genuine safeguarding concern requires disclosure. Where a child may be at risk of harm, we act on that, and we will tell you we have done so unless telling you would increase the risk.
Your rights over the record
- See it. All of it, at any time, without asking why.
- Export it. PDF for reading, CSV for the data, free, to whoever you name.
- Correct it. If something is wrong you can require it to be corrected. If we disagree, your objection is recorded in the file next to the entry.
- Restrict it. Revoke anyone's access at any point.
- Delete it. Subject only to the records we are legally required to retain, which we will identify specifically rather than vaguely.
How long we keep it
For as long as we are supporting your child, and then for the period any applicable UAE regulation requires for clinical and educational records. After that it is deleted. If you ask us to delete earlier, we will delete everything not covered by a retention requirement and tell you exactly what remains and why.
Security
Access is role-based and logged. Records are held on encrypted systems, and practitioners do not carry your child's history around on personal devices. If we ever suffer a breach affecting your data, we will tell you what happened, what was affected and what we are doing — promptly, and without waiting to have a comfortable version of the story.
Contact
Anything about your data, including a request to see, export, correct or delete it, goes to hello@specialminds.ae and we will respond within five working days. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled it, say so plainly and it goes to the founder.
This page is written in plain language on purpose. It describes our actual commitments and should be read alongside any formal service agreement you sign with us; where the two ever conflict, tell us, because that is a drafting error on our side rather than a trap.