The talkline is an anonymous and confidential service. We have taken extensive measures to protect your privacy.

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Your personal details

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Our talkline is an anonymous service. You should not provide any personally identifying details, such as your name or address. The only exception to this is where you use our “request a call-back” service.We ask you to provide a telephone number and name you are happy to be used when we make contact. You don’t have to give your real name.

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This information is only accessible by those members of our team who are supporting you. The voicemail will remain in our telephone system but we will not listen to it again after we have successfully made contact with you or after we made two unsuccessful attempts to contact you.

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The only identifiable information that we have access to is the phone number of the device you are using. If a volunteer needs to return a call the talkline telephone number will be withheld.

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Are the conversations recorded?

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What you discuss with the talkline volunteers during your chat session is intended to be a private conversation. We do not save transcripts of the chat sessions.

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Volunteers will only record the type of support or information provided to you and how long the chat lasted for. This information will not identify you personally, will not identify information you may have provided, and is only collected for monitoring and reporting purposes.

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Abortion Talk will not collect, store or process any information related to you.

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Sharing information with other agencies

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Most of the time whatever you tell us will stay between you and the volunteer. However, we may need to share information with others if we believe a child or adult at risk is at risk of serious or immediate harm, or if we are instructed by a court of law.

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If this is the case, and you disclose information that could lead us to identify your name and location, we may have to share information with the appropriate authorities.

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We would initially ask for your consent to share such information, and we can only help in these situations if we have information which identifies you.

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Breaking confidentiality without consent

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In extremely rare cases, the talkline may need to share personal information without gaining consent. This will be in situations where:

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•   If a user shares information (such as location) which identifies a child or vulnerable adult who is at risk of serious harm

•   A user appears to be unable to give consent or become unconscious and they have told us where they are, allowing us to alert emergency services

•   A user threatens the safety of volunteer talkline operators or other staff, or any other third person about whom the user makes specific threats of harm

•   There is a legal requirement to provide information following receipt of a court order requiring us to share information

•   If information is received regarding an imminent act of terrorism or similar risk to the life of a third party