Keeping conversations confidential is very important to us, but keeping you, or the young people you interact with safe and supported is our biggest priority. So, there may be times that we need to break confidentiality, which means telling other people about our conversations. We will only do this if we think we have to in order to keep you or someone else safe.

Where possible, we will always talk to you first about who we might need to tell and what information we will give them.

When might we share information?

There are times that we may need to share information about you or the conversations we have had with you. We would only need to do this if:

• You ask us to – we know that it can be hard to talk about certain things and that we might be the only people you feel comfortable talking to about this at the moment. But, if there are others who can help you or are in a position to keep you safe, we can help you contact them and support you in the process.
• We believe your or someone else’s life is in danger.
• You are being hurt by someone who may be or might be able to hurt others as well. This might be a teacher, sports coach, religious leader, doctor, parent or anyone in a position of trust with young people.
• You tell us that you are seriously harming someone else or we have concerns that you might cause harm to someone else.
• You tell us about another young person who is being hurt and who is not able to get help or cannot tell someone, or they are unable to understand what is happening to them.
• We are required to share information by law, for example in a court case.

What do we know about you?

You have the option to create an account with us or to use the website and web chat as a guest. We take different information depending on how you choose to use the service.

If you create an account, we will ask for the following:

• Your name
• Your age
• Your area (e.g., town or city)
• Your pronouns
• Your email address
• What you want to chat about

If you join as a guest you will be ask for:

• Your name
• Your age
• Your area (e.g., town or city)
• What you want to chat about

Sometimes our chat operator will ask if you want to share any more information about yourself (for example your name or whereabouts you live) to get a better understanding of you and how they can help you, especially if you are logging in as a guest. You do not need to share any information that you aren’t comfortable with. We only ask for this information so that we can build up a picture of you and how we can support you; we will not share this information with anyone unless we need to.

There may also be times that we use your IP address (which is a number used by your internet provider to identify your laptop, tablet, phone or other device), your phone number or your email address (if we have access to them). We will only use these if we think you, or someone else is in danger and we need to get help to you urgently. We will always try to talk to you first to explain this before we pass on any information.

We will also keep a record of the chat conversation which will be used by us to monitor the conversation to see if we can improve our services, or if you contact us again and we need to look back on what we have spoken about before. Conversations will only be stored for as long as is absolutely necessary, in line with our privacy policy.

If you are unsure about any of this or have any questions, you can speak to the operator about this during that chat.

What happens if we share your information?

Remember, we will only share your information if we need to in order to keep you, or the young people you interact with safe, or if you ask us to. We take your confidentiality very seriously, and so there are a number of things we will do before we share your information with anyone else.

Our operators will start every chat as confidential, but if they become concerned for your safety, or the safety of someone else, during a chat they might (where possible) explain to you that they are worried and ask if you would like them to contact someone who can help you. If you say no to this help, they might then explain that if they continue to be concerned that you, or someone else is in danger that they will have to break confidentiality so they can do what they can to keep you, or the other person/people, safe.

If this happens, we might pass your details, as well as a summary of the conversation, our concerns, and (only is absolutely necessary) a full log of the conversation, on to people we think might be able to help, such as:

• The ambulance service, if we think you need medical attention.
• The police, if we think you or someone else is in danger.
• If you have told us that someone else is in danger, then the services that we contact may want to speak to you so that they can find them and make sure they are safe.
• Other people we might tell could include social services, who might then arrange to speak to you to see how they can help.

Anyone we tell will only want to protect you and anyone else we are worried about.