Socialheads
Who can see my
information, and why
Who holds your information, who can ask for it and why, and what you can do about any of it. This page stays here, so come back to it in a month or in a year.
The short answer
Your conversation is between the people in it.
For safeguarding, the person at your service whose job that is can ask for what they need. They give their reason first, their name goes with it, and your service keeps a record of both. The rest of this page is when that happens and who it is.
That is your service, not us. We are not part of your conversations, and there is more on where we fit further down.
How it works, step by step
Four steps. Most of the time only the first one happens.
- 1A conversation is between the people in it. You, whoever is supporting you, and anyone else who has been added.
- 2You can flag any message in your conversation. Including one from the person supporting you.
- 3Someone whose job is keeping people safe looks into it. It goes to them, never back to whoever wrote the message. The app keeps a note that they looked.
- 4For safeguarding, or where the law asks it, that person can ask for what they need. They write their reason first, and other people at the service are told straight away, so it can't happen quietly. This is rare.
Where we fit
Socialheads makes the software. Your service decides who is in your conversations and how long records are kept. We look after that information for them, and what we may do with it is set out in a written contract with your service.
The screen you can open yourself
You can see for yourself who's in your conversations. The app has a screen called Who supports me, on the You tab, and it lists them. You can open it whenever you like, and you don't have to ask anyone first.
Who else is around
That screen lists the people you talk to. A service also has a small number of named people looking after its records. Here is who they are and what they work with.
The people in your conversation
They read it.
Someone running the service
They work with numbers, so they know the service is running properly. How many people have a worker yet, that sort of thing.
The people who look after the records
Their job is keeping the service's records straight, so they work with dates and names rather than what anyone wrote.
Us, Socialheads
We hold the information for your service and look after it. No one here has a screen that opens your conversations as part of their job, and we do not look at messages unless the law requires it or you or your service gives us permission.
What you can actually do
Tap one to open it. Open as many as you like.
You can do this yourself, and it doesn't go through anyone supporting you first.
This covers what is 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.
Open your account and tap My data. There's a block for each organisation you're part of, with its name at the top, so you ask each one on its own.
Tap the button to ask for a copy of your messages. It checks with you before it sends, so a stray tap does nothing. Your ask then goes straight to that organisation's data protection officer, whose job this is.
The same card tells you where it has got to: Sent, then Being reviewed, then Getting it ready, then Ready. When it says Ready, a download button appears.
Your copy stays there for a while so you can download it more than once, and the screen tells you the date it goes. After that it's deleted, and you can ask for a fresh copy whenever you like.
Every message has an option to raise it with the service. Being in the conversation is all it takes to use it, so it works on a message from anyone in there, including the person supporting you.
It goes to the people at that organisation whose job is keeping people safe. It never goes back to the person who wrote the message, and they are not told you raised it.
Nothing happens to the message itself. It stays where it is and nobody is stopped from reading it. Raising it asks a person to look, and a person decides what to do.
If you can't put it into words, send it anyway. The words are optional.
You can ask from the same My data screen. Each organisation's block has a button for deleting your Socialheads data.
It checks with you first, and it says up front that some records have to be kept. Your ask goes to that organisation's data protection officer, the same person who handles a request for a copy.
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 some of yours has to stay, the screen tells you which parts, and the data protection officer can tell you more about why.
Almost certainly not. Most conversations are only ever read by the people in them.
If you want to know about yours, ask whoever supports you, or that organisation's data protection officer. It's a fair question and it has an answer.
Here's what would have to happen first. Nobody can read your conversation just because of their job, and being someone's manager doesn't do it either. It has to be switched on for one person by name, and they write down why first, in their own words. Their name, their reason and the time all go into a record that can't be edited or deleted from the app, only added to.
There's more to it than the writing down. When it happens, every administrator at that organisation is told at the time, and pointed to where the reason is kept. So it isn't only recorded, it's noticed.
Why the conversation is the record
Services have to write down what happened and why. What you and your worker say to each other is the record. Nobody has to remember it later and write it down from memory, so what's kept is what actually happened.
A conversation on somebody's own phone leaves when they do. Here it stays with the service, so it is still there for you.
It's free for you to use, with no adverts. Your information isn't sold or tracked. It's messaging with the people supporting you, and that's it.
If something isn't right
Three doors, so you're never stuck with one.
Your service
Start with the service's data protection officer. That's the person whose job is exactly this, and whoever supports you can tell you who they are.
The regulator
If the service doesn't put it right, the Information Commissioner's Office takes it from there, at ico.org.uk. That's your right, and it's free.
Us
If it's about us rather than your service, email [email protected] and tell us what happened. We'll reply.
Good things to ask
- Who is in my conversation?
- How long are my messages kept?
- Has anyone read my conversation, and can I see that?
- If my worker changes, do my messages stay?
Just been invited and wondering what this is? Start here.
Adults who want the full picture: how safeguarding works goes through it step by step.