Temporary consent

A client can give you or an agent temporary consent to act on their behalf as long as proper authorisation is given.

Consider the following examples:

If the client is in front of you and they give you consent to ring the power company for their personal information, you may do so. However, you must make a note on their file that consent has been granted.

• In this case temporary consent has lapsed as soon as the client walks out of the office. You cannot ring the power company again the following week unless the client has explicitly agreed to this.

A client comes in with a cousin to discuss their benefit. The client does not object to their cousin's presence and therefore has consented to the cousin hearing their personal information.

• The next day the cousin rings and asks to find out the client's benefit rate. You must not disclose this information without getting formal consent from the client first.

For more information, see:

• Responding to a request for personal information