The Right to Private Life and Confidentiality. Ethical Operational Values in Administrative Systems

FORMAT | Presented paper

LANGUAGE | English

HOW TO CITE| Unguru, E., & SANDU, Antonio (2018). The Right to Private Life and Confidentiality. Ethical Operational Values in Administrative Systems. Prezentat în cadrul 10th LUMEN International Scientific Conference Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice (RSACVP 2018) | April 26-29th, 2018 | Suceava, Romania.

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ABSTRACT:

Social work acts both in the public and private spheres. From the ethical point of view, the former one is governed by the right of society to information and the obligation of transparency on the part of the social worker. The second one is the right to the private life of the beneficiary and the confidentiality obligation of the social worker. The two sets of competing rights and obligations define the dual nature of social assistance to act both in the public and in the private sphere. Starting from the Tarasoff case, the US courts have ruled that the therapist’s obligation to protect potential victims is a priority in the face of confidentiality. This paper follows the significance of this obligation in the practice of social work as well as the clarification of the importance and limits of the applicability of the principle of confidentiality to social practice in public services.

KEYWORDS:

Tarasoff case, confidentiality, obligation to protect the presumed victim.