Rebecca,
This is obviously the theme of the week! After nothing like this for years, I
have had three recent calls from students' relatives in cases where the student
has gone off the rails (for whatever reason), and fallen out of contact with
them (and, usually, us).
The safest policy is to say nothing, of course. This is what I have done in two
cases, though this does leave you having to use rather convoluted language of
the "I can't even confirm if I've ever heard of your son/daughter even though,
obviously, in having this conversation I am tacitly admitting that I have
information about them which you don't have access to" sort.
In the third case, however, we were asked by a student's sister whether he was
still at the university because nothing had been heard for so long. This was a
student with a long history of mental instability whom we had not seen for 6
months and whom we were in the process of "writing off". The sister wanted to
put him on the missing persons register, though this would be pointless if he
had re-registered. So, we made a very limited disclosure to her - confirming
her brother had not re-registered and we no longer considered him a member of
the University - so that she could ask the police to investigate. This
disclosure was undertaken using the "vital interests of the subject" clause
from Schedule 2, and was logged in our "exceptional disclosures" log.
Of course, there is no absolute guidance to be offered in these cases. Every
case is a separate judgement call. I'm sure a half decent lawyer could argue
that, in the case above, there was NO evidence whatsoever that this student's
health or life were in danger (our own suspicion is that he's had a nervous
breakdown and is probably living rough). However, we have acted in good faith
and the exceptional disclosure log is at least an attempt to demonstrate our
motivations. I think that's all you can really do.
Andrew Okey
Lancaster DP Project
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rebecca Hughes [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 07 November 2001 09:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Mental health
>
> Urgent problem! can anybody help?
>
> Parents have requested confirmation of their daughter's registration
> status at the University. The daughter, who has a record of serious
> mental health problems has not registered and her whereabouts are
> uncertain. The parents are obviously very worried, but can we tell them
> anything? A third party has also intervened who may know the
> whereabouts of their daughter. If more information were to be obtained
> from this person, could we pass that on to the parents without the
> daughters consent?
>
> Any advice very gratefully received.
>
> Rebecca
> -------------------
> Rebecca Hughes
> Administrative Officer (Data protection)
> [log in to unmask]
>
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