Confidentiality of information disclosed under the sexual harassment response policy

Information provided to Victoria University of Wellington will be treated as confidential and retained by the Student Interest and Conflict Resolution team.

Disclosures (as described in the Policy) will be retained securely by the University. The information will be accessible only to a limited number of staff in the Student Interest and Conflict Resolution team, Human Resources, and is restricted to those who need to have access to the information to carry out their functions under the Policy.

Information in disclosures will not be shared or disclosed without your knowledge and consent except in limited circumstances. For example, we may need to obtain advice (including specialist legal advice) on what actions are required to be taken in response to the information we have received. In such cases, measures will be taken to protect the confidentiality of the information supplied.

De-identified information about disclosures or complaints made under the Sexual Harassment Response Policy pdf272KB and Procedures pdf210KB are reported to the University's Senior Leadership Team.

If there are concerns about a serious and imminent threat of harm to any individual, we may be required to communicate or seek advice with external specialists or external stakeholders, or take other actions to protect you or other members of the University community. Wherever possible this will be done in a collaborative manner and in consultation with you.

To protect the safety and rights of everyone involved, and to ensure the integrity of any investigation (should one occur), we expect that you will also respect the confidentiality and privacy rights of others involved (including those of the person whose behaviour you are complaining about).

If a formal complaint is made and information needs to be provided to the subject of the complaint so they can have an opportunity to respond to it (whether or not as part of an investigation into the complaint), this will occur after consultation with the person who made the complaint (or the person who experienced the behaviour that has been complained about, if they themselves are not the complainant). If information is provided to the person who is the subject of a complaint (whether that is under a student conduct process or a staff conduct process), they will be required to keep the information confidential too, except to the extent that they wish to obtain professional support or advice on the complaint and how they wish to respond to it.