Socialheads
I've been invited
to Socialheads
Someone who supports you has invited you to a new place to message them. Here's what it is, in plain words.
Here as staff? How staff can get started
So what is it?
A messaging app. You type, you press send, they read it and reply. It works like the apps you already use. What's different is who it's for: the people who support you. Your service sets the conversations up.
- It stays when people move on. If they leave, the conversation stays with the service. You don't have to start your story again.
- You know who you're talking to. Everyone has a profile you can read before you say anything.
- It's free for you to use. Your service pays for it.
Messages, like normal
Type, send, get a reply. Press and hold one of your own messages to see when it went and whether it's been read.
Photos and files
Send a picture or a document the way you would anywhere else. Tap one to open it.
Just your conversations
Just the conversations you're part of. Nothing to scroll, nothing to keep up with, and the only people who can start one with you are the people your service adds.
What does it actually look like?
Like this. These are drawings of the app's screens, not photographs, so nothing here is anyone's real conversation.
Nadia Ahmed Wed 11:20
Your worker
Hi Mia, lovely to see you here
1Other conversations
Nadia, Chris and you Wed 11:25
3 people
Nadia: Hey Mia, welcome to the group
1Your messages here are private and encrypted. Only you and the people supporting you can see them.
Wednesday
Hi Mia, lovely to see you here
I'm Nadia, your worker. You can message me whenever you like, about anything at all.
Thanks, this is easier than I thought
What "the people supporting you" means
The person you message, and a small number of named people at the service whose job is looking after you and your records. More on who can see what.
How do I get in?
Four steps, and the whole thing takes about a minute.
Your invite arrives
By email or text. It has a link and a code.
Tap the link, type your code
We ask for two things, not one. That's what keeps your account yours.
Say yes to a couple of things
Your service will show you how they look after your information, and how they'll use Socialheads with you. Have a proper read, and ask whoever invited you anything you like. It stays on your account screen, so you can read it again.
You're in
Your conversation is waiting. Say hello, or don't. There's nothing you have to do on day one.
If something about it doesn't work for you, say so to the person who invited you. Sorting that out is part of what they're there for.
Invite closed, or lost the message? Ask whoever invited you for a fresh one. They send fresh ones all the time and nobody minds.
Coming back next time? No password. You type in your email address or mobile number, we send you a code, you type it in.
No smartphone? It opens in a web browser, so a library computer, a shared tablet or a friend's phone all work. On a borrowed device, sign out when you've finished.
Who am I talking to?
Real people. Each of them has a page you can read, so you know who somebody is before you say anything.
Nadia Ahmed
Hi, I'm Nadia. I've been doing this kind of work for about eight years. You can talk to me about pretty much anything, big or small. There's no such thing as a silly question.
Things you can talk to me about
School · Friends and family · Feeling stressed · Confidence · What's coming up · Or just a chat
A little about me
Who can see my messages and my information?
The people in your conversation. That's you, the person supporting you, and anyone else who has been added. A small number of named people at the service can see that a conversation exists, and when messages were sent. They can't see what you wrote.
Nobody else can look just because of their job title. Someone at the service has to switch it on for one person by name. They type a reason first, and their name, their reason and the time all get written down. The app has a screen called Who supports me, so you can check part of this yourself whenever you like.
Does a computer read my messages?
A person reads what you write, and a person replies.
Your messages are never sent to an AI company, and they are never used to train anything. Anything we build to help the people who support you runs on our own computers, and it will never talk to you or take the place of a person.
Can I get my messages, or have them deleted?
Yes, and you can do both yourself. There's a My data screen on your account, and you don't have to go through anybody first.
This covers what's in Socialheads: your messages and the files shared with them. Your service keeps its own records too, like notes about your support, and you ask them for those directly.
Northside Support
A copy of my messages
Being reviewed
The data protection officer is reviewing your request. Your download will appear here.
Deleting my Socialheads data
You can ask for your Socialheads data to be deleted at any time. The data protection officer reviews every ask, and some records have to be kept by law.
- 1You ask. One button per organisation. It checks with you first, so one wrong tap doesn't send it.
- 2Someone looks at it. It goes to that organisation's data protection officer. That's their job.
- 3You follow it along. The same screen shows where it has got to.
- 4You download it. Your copy stays for a while so you can get it more than once, then it's deleted.
Deleting works the same way, and the answer depends on the service you're with. Some have to keep certain records for a set time because the law says so, and a data protection officer decides what that means for your ask. If some of yours has to stay, the app tells you which parts, and who to ask about why.
Either way, it's your service that decides, not us.
Who are Socialheads?
We make the software. That's the whole of our part in this.
We're not your service and we're not part of it. Your service decides who is in your conversations and how long records are kept. We hold the information for them, and we look after it.
- SOCIALHEADS LIMITED, a private limited company registered in England and Wales.
- Company number 16129065, incorporated on 10 December 2024.
- Registered office: Canopi, 82 Tanner Street, London SE1 3GN.
- Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration ZB957712. They're the UK body that checks how organisations look after people's information.
- No one at Socialheads has a screen that opens your conversations as part of their job.
Jeremy Pitt, who started it, owns most of Socialheads. A few advisers own small amounts. There are no outside investors, so nobody else can change what Socialheads is for. You can check this yourself. The public register shows who controls Socialheads.
The longer version is on about us, and our privacy notice covers how we look after our own records.
What if something isn't right?
Three doors, so you're never stuck with one. Tell the service, tell the regulator, or tell us.
If something about your information doesn't seem right
Tell the service's data protection officer first. That's their job, and whoever supports you can tell you who they are. If they don't put it right, you can take it to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. That's your right, and it's free.
If something in a message worries you
Every message has an option to raise it with the service. Being in the conversation is all it takes to use it, and that includes a message from someone who supports you. It goes to the people whose job is keeping people safe. It never goes to the person who wrote it.
If you want to complain about us, not your service
Email [email protected] and tell us what happened, and we'll reply. If you'd rather not come to us, the Information Commissioner's Office takes complaints about us too. You can go to them if you're not happy with what we say.
Questions people ask
Tap a question to open the answer. Open as many as you like.
A messaging app. You type a message, you press send, and the person reads it. It's for talking to the people who support you. There's no feed and nothing to scroll.
Your invite comes by email or text. Tap the link, type in the code it gives you, and you're in. It opens in a web browser, so it works on a phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a computer at school.
Ask whoever invited you for a fresh one. They'll send it the same way. Invites close after a while, so this happens a lot, and yours tells you how long it stays open. They have a button for it, and nobody minds.
Only if you want to. Apps for iPhone and Android are on their way to the stores, and Socialheads opens in a web browser too, like a normal website. It is the same thing either way. You don't need an app store account, a bank card, or a phone of your own. A library computer, a shared tablet at home or a friend's phone all work.
No. It's free for you to use. Your service pays for it.
No. You type in your email address or your mobile number, we send you a code, and you type the code in. Nothing to remember and nothing to reset.
A person reads what you write, and a person replies.
Your messages are never sent to an AI company, and they are never used to train anything. Anything we build to help the people who support you runs on our own computers, and it will never talk to you or take the place of a person.
The people in your conversation. That's you, the person supporting you, and anyone else who has been added. A small number of named people at the service look after its records, and they work with dates and names rather than what anyone wrote. There is more on who can see what, and why, at socialheads.co.uk/who-can-see-my-information.
There's a Who supports me screen in the app, on the You tab. It lists everyone you have a conversation with, and you can open it whenever you like. It doesn't show quite everyone. A small number of named people at the service look after the records. They can see that a conversation happened and when, but not what you wrote. They're not on that list.
It means they work for your service, and the service has said so. Workers are checked and trained before they get it. Not everyone in a chat will have one. A family member, or someone from another organisation, won't. The badge is how you can tell who's a worker at your service, just by looking.
No. Being someone's boss doesn't let them read your messages. Someone at the service has to switch reading on for one person by name. That's usually the person whose job is keeping people safe. Most of the time nobody outside your conversation looks at all.
WhatsApp is built for friends and family, and it's good at that. Using it for work means swapping personal phone numbers, and the conversation sits on somebody's own phone. Here, nobody swaps numbers. The conversation belongs to the service. If the person supporting you moves on, you don't have to tell your story again from the start. It's fairer on them too. They keep their own phone number, and they don't get work messages at night.
Yes, and you can do it yourself. There's a My data screen in the app. For each organisation you're part of, you can ask for a copy of your messages and the files shared with them. The same screen shows how far your ask has got, and when it's ready you download it from there.
That covers what is in Socialheads. Your service keeps its own records as well, like notes about your support, and you ask them for those directly.
You can ask, from the same My data screen. The organisation's data protection officer looks at every ask, and what they can agree to depends on the service. Some have to keep certain records for a set time because the law says so, so not everything can go. If that applies to yours, the app tells you which parts have to stay, and who to ask about why.
Yes. Here is what that means in practice. No one at Socialheads has a screen that opens your conversations as part of their job. The account you sign in with is held in the United Kingdom, your conversations and files are held in Europe, and your personal information is encrypted.
We're registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK body that checks how organisations look after people's information. And the rules the company runs by say we have to think about everyone a decision affects, with young people's lives at the centre. If we ever get something wrong, we'll tell you.
The account you sign in with is held in the United Kingdom. Your conversations, your records and your files are held in the European Economic Area. Everything travels over an encrypted connection. Your personal information is encrypted on top of that.
Tell whoever supports you and ask for it to be corrected. A correction goes through the service, so it gets written down properly.
Jeremy Pitt, who started it, owns most of Socialheads. A few advisers own small amounts. There are no outside investors, so nobody else can change what it is for. You can check that on the public Companies House register.
Email [email protected] and tell us what happened, and we'll reply. If you'd rather not come to us, the Information Commissioner's Office takes complaints about us too. You can go to them if you're not happy with what we say.
Whoever supports you. That's the best place to start, and they won't mind. People ask about this all the time.
Do you actually ask young people what they want?
We ask young people what they need, and we change things because of what we hear. Young people saw the designs for this before anything was built. That's how we'd rather keep working.
Tell us what you think
If you've got a thought about how any of this works, we want to hear it. Email [email protected]. We read them all.
For parents and carers
If a service supporting your child has invited them to Socialheads, here is the same picture, in plain adult terms.
What is it, and who is responsible for my child's information?
Messaging software used by care, youth, education and support services. It gives a worker a professional channel to the young person they support, instead of a personal mobile number and WhatsApp. The conversation belongs to the service rather than to one member of staff, so it stays when that person moves on.
The service is the data controller and we are their processor. They decide what is collected and how long it is kept, and we hold it for them. Why your child was invited, who is in the conversation, and how long records are kept are all questions for the service. You are entitled to a clear answer to each.
Can staff read my child's messages?
The people in the conversation read it. A supervisor sees numbers rather than conversations. For safeguarding, or where the law asks it, the person at the service whose job that is can ask for what they need. It is switched on for one named person, they give their reason first, and their name and reason are recorded. There is more on how safeguarding works, and you are welcome to email us with anything this does not cover.
There is no parent account, and no screen that shows you everything your child has said. A young person who can make their own decisions is entitled to a conversation with the person supporting them, and that is deliberate.
What a service can do is bring you into a particular conversation, the same way it might bring in a teacher or a GP. You would see that conversation, because you are in it, and nothing else. Whether that is right is the service's decision rather than ours, so it is worth raising with whoever supports your child.
Is my child being tracked, profiled or advertised to?
None of the three. Your child's messages are never sent to an AI company and never used to train anything, and nothing profiles them or scores them. No analytics package, advertising identifier or third party tracker measures how they use it. Anything we build to help practitioners with their own work, such as drafting a write-up for them to check and correct, runs on our own computers and never sits between a worker and a young person. What we do record is a set list of events against the record itself, which is accountability rather than behaviour monitoring.
What can my child ask for?
From a screen in the app, your child can ask any organisation they're part of for a copy of their messages and the files shared with them, and can ask for their Socialheads data to be deleted from the same place. Records the organisation keeps outside Socialheads, such as case notes, are asked for from the organisation directly. Neither request goes through a member of staff first. Each one goes to that organisation's data protection officer. Some records have to be kept for a set time under safeguarding and record keeping rules, so not everything can be deleted. Your child is told when that applies.
Who do I go to if I'm not happy?
Start with your child's worker. After that, the service's manager or their data protection contact. If the service does not put something right, the Information Commissioner's Office takes complaints at ico.org.uk, free of charge. If your question is about the software itself, our privacy notice, trust and security and how safeguarding works cover it.
Work for a service and landed here by accident? Here is what Socialheads is for organisations.