We know that being anonymous makes it easier and safer to talk about difficult subjects. RightLines wants to operate with minimum personal identifying details. Information that is given will be treated confidentially to the service, and with great respect. There is no obligation to provide personal information although it does mean our help is likely to be more useful sooner, if we know, for instance, someone’s age and gender. RightLines does have a duty of care and concern for the protection of life so if RightLines is told that a person is at imminent risk of serious harm or death we will take action to inform relevant services to step in.  This is the only situation in which names, phone numbers, email addresses and other personal details if known, would be passed on.

All interactions with RightLines are saved for a period of 90 days so that history is available in the short term to aid in work with the young person.  At this point all data is deleted automatically.

Any user of RightLines has the right to know what information we hold on them. To do this, please contact

hello@rightlinesuk.org  We will respond within 5 working days.

• You be honest with us, we’ll be honest with you. 
   
• Let’s all try and be respectful of each other and work together. 
   
• We know these conversations can be difficult, we will go at your speed, it takes time. 
   
• All conversations with RightLines are confidential, only people in RightLines and you know what is said. 
   
• We do have a concern / responsibility for you while you talk with RightLines so if you tell us / we believe that you are at risk of serious harm or death we will talk to you about getting emergency help and get this for you if necessary.  This is the only time we would break confidentiality. 
  
• Please don’t ever be frightened to tell us what’s really going on. If we aren’t getting it – tell us. 

Collection of Personal Data  

RightLines respects the privacy of young people using the services.  For this reason workers on RightLines cannot see the email addresses or phone numbers of young people using the services.  Names provided are first names only and may or may not be pseudonyms.  IP and email addresses and phone numbers are not collected or stored.

RightLines does need to evidence to its supporters and funders how their donations are used so it is necessary to provide narrative and statistical analysis of RightLines services.  So we do store the age, gender and location of the young person when it’s provided.  We do ask for this information but withholding it does not preclude use of the service. This is stored under the terms of the GDPR May 2018 on a secure server in the UK. There are no personally identifying details collected or recorded i.e. full name, address, date of birth, phone number is not asked for or recorded by the messaging and webchat services.  Any narrative used by RightLines to demonstrate impact and outcomes is completely anonymised and not traceable back to any user.

Quality Assurance

We want to make sure our services are as good as they can be so all threads will be quality assured by management which is also in our legitimate business interest. These are deleted after a 90 day period in which the thread has been inactive.

Consent for Collection and Transfer of Personal Information for Protection of Vital Interests

If a user of RightLines services presents with a cause for concern, defined as being at imminent risk of death or reports the same situation affecting a third party, or with information pertaining to terrorism then this is the only circumstance in which detailed personal data information (name, address/location, date of birth, contact telephone) will be requested. In this instance personal data can only be obtained with the consent of the person in contact with RightLines.

After this consent is received information will be gathered to pass on to emergency services so that the individual subject of the cause for concern can be reached and assisted.  This data is only passed on to the emergency services. They record it according to their policies and procedures, beyond the control of RightLines.

In the case of information pertaining to terrorism whatever is known will be passed on to the Terrorism Hotline, it is considered not appropriate to request further detail or consent, in this situation.

Storage and Retention

In order to protect the vital interests of RightLines users the information provided to RightLines by the individual in this cause for concern situation is recorded by RightLines on paper.  It is kept for seven years, it is stored to allow reference should this be required in due course because of police investigation following a death or to recognise repeated demands for assistance.

Message and webchat threads are kept and deleted completely when there has been no contact for 90 days.

Users of RightLines services are entitled to access to recordings, which will be available upon request within the timeframes given above.

Users Rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) as a user of RightLines services you have a number of rights with regards to your personal data which is only obtained in the situations outlined above. You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data, the right to restrict processing, you can object to processing as well as in certain circumstances the right to data portability.

Withdrawal of Consent

If you have provided consent for the processing of your data you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn.

Making a Data Protection Complaint

You have the right to lodge a complaint to the Information Commissioners’ Office if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the GDPR or DPA 18 with regard to your personal data.

Data Protection Officer

 If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed you can contact: Data Protection Officer at hello@rightlinesuk.org

All data is stored in line with the requirements of the GDPR (May 2018) and any Subject Access Requests will be handled efficiently in a timely fashion.

Website Descriptor

RightLines is for you if you are between 13 and 35 and you self harm already or feel you might self harm and you want to understand why, and cope with it, or stop.

RightLines View on Self Harm

RightLines accepts that a great many people of all ages self harm.

We understand that it begins feeling as a release, a comfort, a help. We appreciate that the feelings it releases can become addictive and harder to achieve.

RightLines includes cutting, burning, insertion, picking, pulling and banging, and poison (eg drinking bleach, swallowing batteries)  as ways to self harm, we do not include overdosing on meds, eating disorders and over the top use of drugs and alcohol in our remit.  Other expert services work in these fields and we would signpost to them, although we would not withdraw our service.

Images Policy

RightLines will exclude all and any images showing acts of self harm before, during or after.

RightLines reserves the right to make this judgement and all decisions are final. RightLines will use images of people sparingly and sensitively taking due regard of equality and diversity, obligations and policies.  Users of RightLines may upload images subject to these rules.  Publication is at the discretion of RightLines.

Internet / Social Media Policy

RightLines operates on the web. Rightlines operates websites and social media accounts which are portals to real time services.

RightLines will moderate use of the website and social media platforms and delete or refuse any material that glorifies self harm, including all images, and any material that appears to encourage and instruct others to harm themselves.

Information on Message Handling

RightLines aims to respond to messages within 24 hours of receipt.  

It cannot be guaranteed that the same individual in RightLines will handle all the responses to one individual.  Training of responders should ensure a consistent approach from the service.

Safe and timely notification of replies to provided email addresses (notification of a reply being available, log in needed) cannot be guaranteed.

Users are asked to provide their age, gender and location so the service can give the most appropriate response.  Withholding this information does not preclude an individual from using the service.

See section on privacy for information on storage and retention of this information.

Messages and responses are saved for 90 days to ensure continuity and understanding.  Users may request immediate deletion at any time and are able to do this for themselves.

Only numerical data: number of messages and responses over time will be stored for longer, with no detail of message content.

Acceptable and unacceptable use of service

RightLines understands that young people who feel the urge to self harm are under a lot of pressure.  RightLines therefore tolerates swearing and ‘bad language’ to a degree that might not be acceptable in, for example schools, college or work places.  However personal abuse directed at RightLines personnel will not be tolerated and the young person will be asked to stop this.  If they are unable to, reluctantly, the RightLines offer of service will be withdrawn from them.

RightLines will moderate use of the website and social media platforms and delete or refuse any material that glorifies self harm, including all images, and any material that appears to encourage and instruct others to harm themselves.

Any participant who seems to develop a dependency or affection for RightLines personnel will be worked with one to one to help them understand this and work through it.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality – Is the undertaking between the service and the user that identifying details of the contact will not be disclosed outside of the team delivering the service and the key personnel of RightLines involved with the service.  Conversations are confidential between the user and the service, not the individual worker. It is important that RightLines is felt by users to be a safe space in which to talk, and to know that their confidentiality will not be breached without their knowledge and consent except in specific and dangerous situations, as described below.

Statistical information is recorded to demonstrate the number of contacts, the approximate geographical location and the age and gender of people using the services.  The topics discussed are also noted so that funders and supporters of the service can be informed of the impact of their support.

Definition of Harm

To guide those implementing these policies and procedures we take significant harm as it is defined as the threshold criteria under section 31(2) of the Children Act 1989.  Whilst there is no statutory definition of significant harm the meaning in case law has developed to mean enough to justify state intervention.

In the Act ‘Harm’ is defined as

•       Ill treatment

•       The impairment of physical or mental health (including that suffered from seeing or hearing another person suffer ill treatment)

•       The impairment of physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development (including that suffered from seeing or hearing another person suffer ill treatment)

Ill treatment includes sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse and psychological abuse.

A child is defined as someone below the age of puberty, in the UK the average age for girls is 11, the entry age for access to the Rightlines is 13, however emotional maturity is different again and in each situation helpline workers will follow the course of action judged to be most likely to keep the child/young person safe. A young person is defined as someone under 18.

RightLines will also use the above definition of harm in relation to the situation described as affecting any user of any age.

The welfare, safety and wellbeing of any caller of any age is always the paramount concern of RightLines.

Breaking Confidentiality

Confidentiality will only be broken in exceptional circumstances.  The decision to break confidentiality is taken by the senior workers in consultation with the worker working with the user.  The service is unable to break confidentiality without consent as no personal information is gathered before interaction takes place. Therefore the worker will encourage and support the young person at risk to provide the information requested, if they cannot be persuaded to make themselves safe any other way.  The worker will always endeavour to make a ‘safe plan’ with the young person.

When an individual informs RightLines of an impending act of terrorism every effort will be made by the service to gather information to pass on to the Anti Terrorist Hotline.

In all cases the decider is that there is risk of significant harm to an individual. See the definition of ‘harm’ above.

RightLines will exclude all and any images showing acts of self harm before, during or after. RightLines will moderate use of the website and social media platforms and delete or refuse any material that glorifies self harm, including all images, and any material that appears to encourage and instruct others to harm themselves.

RightLines reserves the right to make this judgement and all decisions are final. RightLines will use images of people sparingly and sensitively taking due regard of equality and diversity, obligations and policies. Users of RightLines may upload images subject to these rules. Publication is at the discretion of RightLines.