Federal Act
on Support for the Victims of Crime
(Victim Support Act, VSA)

¹Per­sons who work for a coun­selling centre must treat in­form­a­tion that comes to their at­ten­tion as con­fid­en­tial in deal­ings with the au­thor­it­ies and private in­di­vidu­als. This duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity con­tin­ues to ap­ply on ter­min­a­tion of their em­ploy­ment. The duty to testi­fy un­der the Crim­in­al Pro­ced­ure Code re­mains re­served⁹.¹⁰

² The duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity may be waived if the per­son re­ceiv­ing coun­selling agrees to this.

³ If the phys­ic­al, psy­cho­lo­gic­al or sexu­al in­teg­rity of a minor or a per­son sub­ject to a gen­er­al deputy­ship is ser­i­ously at risk, the coun­selling centre may in­form the child and adult pro­tec­tion au­thor­ity or file a com­plaint with the pro­sec­u­tion au­thor­ity.¹¹

⁴ Any per­son who breaches the duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity shall be li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing three years or to a mon­et­ary pen­alty.