Consultation on information sharing - Children's Action Plan

The Children's Action Plan is consulting on whether an Approved Information Sharing Agreement (AISA) is suitable for the work of the Children's Teams, the Vulnerable Kids Information System (ViKI) and The Hub.

The Children's Action Plan has developed ViKI, a way for "professionals and practitioners in Children's Teams and The Hub to access and share relevant information to support their professional judgment to get the best outcome for each child." ViKI is supported by The Hub, which is a central place for assessing referrals, calls, texts or emails about children who are, or at risk of, being abused or neglected.

The AISA is a legal framework designed to remove legal barriers to sharing information between professionals and practitioners in Children's Teams and The Hub. The agreement seeks to make it clear what information on vulnerable children and their families can be shared by who and when. Read Quick Facts on the AISA.

The AISA's purpose is to:

• Amend the privacy principles in the Privacy Act to remove any legal barriers to sharing information between those who have signed the agreement
• Clarify the existing rules on information sharing.

A Discussion Paper and Exposure Draft of the AISA are available on the Children's Action Plan website. The discussion document outlines how personal information will be shared and used by the Children's Teams and the Children's Action Plan Directorate, including ViKI and The Hub. The Exposure Draft shows who the parties to the Agreement are, which privacy principles will be modified, and what safeguards will be implemented to ensure privacy.

Consultation on the Children's Action Plan AISA closes at 5pm on 12 December 2014. Submissions can be made online, via email, or post.

Recommendations on whether to proceed with the AISA will be made to Cabinet in early 2015. Updates will be made available on the Children's Action Plan website.

Image: Puzzly sharing by Wikimedia Foundation. Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)