Information Sharing - Child and Adult Protection

The protection of children, young people and adults at risk is everyone's responsibility.

This cuts across all aspects of private life and professional business. We all have a duty, individually and collectively, to protect vulnerable people in our communities:

  1. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and human rights law are not barriers to justified information sharing, they provide a framework to ensure that personal information about living individuals is shared appropriately whether they be the person at risk or the alleged perpetrator.
  2. Be open and honest with the person (and/or their family where appropriate) from the outset about why, what, how and with whom information will, or could be shared if a child, young person or adult is at risk.
  3. Seek advice from your line manager if you are in any doubt about sharing the information concerned.
  4. Under the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 you may share information without consent if, in your judgement, there is a lawful basis to do so, such as where a child, young person or adult may be at risk. You will need to base your judgement on the facts of the case. When you are sharing or requesting personal information from someone, be clear about the basis upon which you are doing so and why.
  5. Consider safety and well-being: base your information sharing decisions on considerations of the safety and well-being of the individual and others who may be affected by their actions.
  6. Necessary, proportionate, relevant, adequate, accurate, timely and secure: ensure that the information you share is necessary for the purpose for which you are sharing it, is shared only with those individuals who need to have it, is accurate and up-to-date, is shared in a timely fashion, and is shared securely.
  7. People should still be told about information sharing, even if you are not providing an opportunity for them to consent to it, so they know what is happening. One exception to this is if the child/young person or adult may be put at risk by doing so.
  8. Keep a record of your decision and the reasons for it - whether it is to share information or not. If you decide to share. then record what you have shared, with whom and for what purpose.

Updated 25 January 2022 : Review Date 2025