Ask Sam letter

Hi there,

When you call Childline you can choose how much you tell us and we’ll try to keep your call confidential and not sharing it with anyone else as much as we can. We won't use your phone number to call you and we don't give this number to anyone else, except when we have to break our confidentiality promise.

Calling Childline is free and the number won’t show up on your bill. This means if you want to hide from someone that you've called, they couldn't tell by looking at the phone bill. It does get saved in your phone when you call, so it's important to clear your recent calls history if you want your call to be hidden.

Your number is kept confidential and we would only use it to help find out where you are if we thought your life was in danger, or for any other reason mentioned in our confidentiality promise. If you hide your number and we need to tell someone that you're in danger, we can give the police details about what time you called and they can often find out the phone number and trace where you're calling from. However, it’s better not to hide your number if you want us to know where you are.

When you talk to us we don't record the audio of the call, so there isn't a way to listen back to what you said. We do keep notes though, so that if you call again we might be able to look at what you've told us before. These notes are the facts about what you've told us, as well as our assessment of how safe you are.

We take your confidentiality very seriously and it is one of the most important parts of what we do. Our counsellors will keep what you tell them and any details they know about you to themselves.

Thanks for your letter and I hope this answers your question.

Take care,

Sam