Counselors maintain records necessary for rendering professional services to their clients and as required by laws, regulations, or agency or institutional procedures.

Counselors are responsible for securing the safety and confidentiality of any counseling records they create, maintain, transfer, or destroy whether the records are written, taped, computerized, or stored in any other medium. (See B.I.1.)

Counselors obtain permission from clients prior to electronically recording or observing sessions. (See A.III.1.)

Counselors recognize that counseling records are kept for the benefit of clients, and therefore provide access to records and copies of records when requested by competent clients, unless the records contain information that may be misleading and detrimental to the client. In situations involving multiple clients, access to records is limited to those parts of records that do not include confidential information related to another client. (See A.VIII., B.I.1., B.II.2.)

Counselors obtain written permission from clients to disclose or transfer records to legitimate third parties unless exceptions to confidentiality exist as listed in Rule 1, Section B. Steps are taken to ensure that receivers of counseling records are sensitive to their confidential nature.