Privacy and data protection

The nature of the work we carry out with children and families means that we deal with a large volume of personal and often sensitive information. We have policies and procedures in place to ensure that all our processing of your information remains secure as set out below. Our privacy notice for adults in family court proceedings, and our privacy notice for children and young people also provides clear information about the information we collect about you and how / why it is processed by us.

Our staff should follow security standards set out in the Information Assurance policy and IT Policy and Procedures.

When you speak to our staff, you may be asked some security questions before we can discuss any information about your case with you. This enables us to verify who we are talking with, ensuring that individual rights to privacy are maintained.

Please note that we do not record telephone calls.

Text (SMS): We may contact you via text to reminder you about appointments with Cafcass or in response to a text message you have sent to us. We will never discuss case specific information via text as it is not a secure communications channel. This ensures that your personal information is not shared with anyone who should not have access to it. If you do not wish for us to contact you by text then please let us know as soon as possible and we will update our records.

If you are aged 16 or over, you can contact us securely via WhatsApp and our call centre team will help you with any questions you may have. Our call centre will never contact you directly over WhatsApp. However, if you prefer to contact us via WhatsApp, the call centre will respond.

When you use WhatsApp to contact us, you may be asked some security questions before any case related information can be discussed. This enables us to verify who we are communicating with, ensuring that individual rights to privacy are maintained.

We send a lot of information by email, as this is more secure, quicker and more convenient for the families and other agencies with whom we work.

When we are provided with your email address, we need to verify that it belongs to you before we send any private and confidential information electronically to that address. We will send a confirmation email to the address we have been given and ask you to confirm it belongs to you by confirming your identity. You will be asked to do this by emailing us at confirmmyemail@cafcass.gov.uk. You will be asked to provide two pieces of verification, such as your date of birth and your address. Once you have confirmed your identity to us, we will be able to send you information in the quickest and most secure way.

If for some reason you suspect that an email you have received is not from Cafcass, please refer to the following guidance:

All our official email addresses end in ‘@cafcass.gov.uk’

If you receive an email which claims to be from us that does not end in @cafcass.gov.uk, please contact us at Customerfeedback@cafcass.gov.uk to let us know.

If you receive an email from someone saying that they work for Cafcass but you do not know them, please contact our Call Centre on 0300 456 4000 and we can confirm things for you.

If you believe someone is pretending to work for Cafcass, please contact Customerfeedback@cafcass.gov.uk.
 

We use Egress which ensures any information sent by email is secure. You can safely and securely reply to emails sent to you via Egress for free by following a few simple steps.

The first time someone sends you an email using Egress email, you will receive a link that will enable you to set up your free Egress account. You only need to provide your email address and create a password – that is it. For each email you receive after this, you will need to sign in with that email address and password to view the email. You will receive an email notification in your inbox every time you are sent an email via Egress. This will prompt you to login into your Egress account to view the content of the email. 
A step-by-step guide on setting up and using an Egress account can be accessed here. How to read and reply to an Egress email.

Information on how a recipient can allow a family member or friend to access their emails on an Egress account can be found here. 

For help with any further questions, please see our Egress FAQs

For technical support with Egress accounts, please visit Egress support: https://www.egress.com/support/contact-support (live chat); support@egress.com (email); +44(0)844 8000 173 (phone). If you continue to have questions after viewing the website, please contact governance@cafcass.gov.uk.