t people. It helps to build trust between people, organisations and businesses, and makes sure that people trust you to use and share their data fairly and responsibly. All agencies or organisations should have policies and procedures in place which set out clearly the systems and processes and the principles for sharing information internally. In addition, these policies should cover sharing information with other agencies or organisations and practitioners, including third party providers to which local authorities have chosen to delegate children’s social care functions, local safeguarding partners, and government agencies. Data sharing code of practice The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has produced a statutory data sharing code of practice27. The code is published on the ICO’s data sharing information hub28 which also contains a range of other data sharing resources. The code is designed to provide practical guidance for organisations in all agencies or sectors about how to share personal information in compliance with data protection law. It aims to give confidence to share data fairly and proportionately. The data protection principles Article 5 of the UK GDPR sets out seven key principles29 which lie at the heart of the general data protection regime. The UK GDPR principles are: • Lawfulness, fairness and transparency • Purpose limitation • Data minimisation • Accuracy • Storage limitation • Integrity and confidentiality (security) • Accountability If you work for a competent authority such as the police or certain other public bodies and specific officials, when sharing data for law enforcement purposes30 you need to consider Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Part 3, Chapter 2 of the Data 27 data sharing code of practice 28 data sharing informati