Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) Practice Guidance 4 - Information sharing

Annex B - Information Sharing Charter – Children and Young People

A charter is a guide to your rights. This charter explains how you can expect this organisation to manage information about you and aims to make your rights to do with your personal information easier to understand.

Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is Scotland’s way of promoting, supporting, and safeguarding the wellbeing of children and young people. GIRFEC puts the rights of the child at the heart of good practice, including what happens with information about you.

We need some information about you so that we can provide a service (e.g. so that we contact you) and so that we can support your wellbeing.

The Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) lay down rules on how services (e.g. schools, health services and voluntary services) must manage information. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is an independent regulator that protects your rights when it comes to information about you. More information can be found at ico.org.uk or contact ICO Scotland on 0303 123 1115.

Charter commitments

1. We will explain, as much as we can, what we are doing with your information and why.

2. We will not put you under pressure to agree to share information. We will explain what information we need to support you and why. Sometimes sharing information makes it easier to get more support.

3. When you become involved with our service, we will be clear about what information sharing will be necessary, with whom, why and what will be done with the information. For example, to help you get support from another service, we might need to pass on some information about you. In some situations this may save you repeating yourself to lots of people.

4. We will not share information about you further, or use it for anything that we have not told you about, unless we are worried that you may be at risk of harm. If we have to share information without your agreement, we will only share what is needed.

5. If you are under 12 your parents/carers have rights to ask if we hold information about you, what we use it for, and to ask to be given a copy of that information and to be told who the information has been shared with. If you are 12 or over, you have the right to ask for information about yourself. If we do not give you the information we will explain why. If you are under 12 the law does not give you this right but you can still ask. If we do not provide the information we will explain why.

6. We will keep information about you accurate and up to date for as long as we need it for the purpose for which it was obtained.

7. We only keep information for as long as we need it for the purpose for which it was obtained. Every organisation has its own rules for how long they keep information before they delete or destroy it.

8. If you don’t agree with information that we hold about you, you and your parents/carers have the right to tell us and ask for it to be changed or deleted. We will consider your request and explain what happens next. If you are not happy with our decision you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/).

9. We store and process information about you securely and protect it from being accessed or used, when it shouldn’t be, and from being lost or damaged.

10. We have a privacy notice that explains in more detail how we collect, store, use and share personal information.

11. If you think information about you has not been managed correctly, you can tell us. If you’re unhappy with our response or if you need advice, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/).