Victims and Prisoners Act 2024

43 Information sharing and data protection

(1) An advocate may, to the extent the advocate considers appropriate, share information received in the exercise of their functions with—

(a) the standing advocate;

(b) any other advocate appointed in respect of the same major incident;

(c) the Secretary of State;

(d) any other person exercising functions of a public nature;

(e) a victim of a major incident in respect of which the advocate is appointed.

(2) A person exercising functions of a public nature may share such information as the person considers appropriate with an advocate for the purposes of the advocate exercising their functions.

(3) An advocate may use information received in the exercise of their functions only for the purpose of exercising their functions.

(4) The information referred to in this section may comprise or include personal data.

(5) This section does not limit the circumstances in which information may be disclosed apart from this Part.

(6) Except as provided by subsection (7), a disclosure of information under this Part does not breach—

(a) any obligation of confidence owed by the person disclosing the information, or

(b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).

(7) Nothing in this Part requires or authorises the processing of information if the processing would contravene the data protection legislation (but, in determining whether it would do so, the powers conferred by this Part are to be taken into account).

(8) In this section, “personal data”, “processing” and “the data protection legislation” have the meanings given by section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018.