The Importance of Confidentiality and Data Protection
Home-based childminders gather a lot of private information about both the children and families with whom they work with. This information may of been picked up from the children themselves, or told directly to the childminder from the parents, or other professionals such as teachers, providing the parents have given them consent to do so. The upmost crucial characteristic of confidentiality is not passing on or sharing information about either the child or their families with other people. All information that you may have on a child must be treated as confidential and it must only be shared between yourself, the child and the child’s parents. There may be occasions from where you can share information to other professionals, for example if the child sees a speech therapist; you may wish to seek help and advice from them. Or, if you collect children from school, or another Early Years setting and the teacher may want to discuss the child’s progress with you, or if you have taken the child to a health visitor and they may wish to talk to you about the child. You can only do this however providing the parent has given written permission for you to do so. If you have not been given this written consent then you would need to explain to the relevant professional that you cannot discuss or share information with them regarding the matter and explain that to do so would be a breach of confidentiality and be unprofessional. The one and only exception to this would be in the case of safeguarding, when you feel that telling the parents may jeopardise the safety of the child. Children and their families have a legal right to privacy. The Data Protection Act (1998) is designed to prevent confidential and personal information being passed on, or shared to other individuals without a person’s consent. This includes photographs, written paperwork and any information that may be stored on a computer. There are 8 principles of the Data Protection Act (1998) and they