2.1.1 Privacy, Confidentiality and Privilege
Privacy, confidentiality and privilege have different meanings, and as an advocate, you must know and understand these differences to be able to effectively advocate for the survivor.
Privacy is a survivor’s right to control their story and personal information.
For some survivors, maintaining their privacy may directly reduce their chances of experiencing assault again. If the survivor’s information is not kept private, the perpetrator may be able to find the survivor and to perpetrate another crime against them.
Confidentiality refers to the rules that prohibit service providers from disclosing survivor information.
Many service providers, including advocates, are bound by the rules of confidentiality.
Often, local or national laws, regulations, donor or grant conditions, agency or organization policies or codes of ethics will include confidentiality rules.
These rules:
Limit the disclosure of any information about the survivor by community-based service providers without the survivor’s informed, written and time-limited consent and
Require that service providers disclose any limits to confidentiality during their initial meeting with the survivor.
Privilege is different from confidentiality. It applies to communications between the survivor and certain professionals, as defined by law.
These professionals include physicians, psychologists and clinical social workers. In some countries and contexts, crisis counselors for sexual assault survivors and intimate partner violence survivors are included, but this is not always the case.
Keep in mind that communication is not considered privileged if it’s overheard by a third party. If you work in an area where you are not covered by such a law, you must be very careful in your discussions with the survivor because if you are present when they are in a privileged conversation (with a lawyer, for example), then your presence as a third person could invalidate that privilege.
There are exceptions to confidentiality.
If you are advocating for a survivor of child or elder abuse, your country will likely have mandatory reporting laws that compel you to report the case to an authority.