34 U.S.C. § 50901 — Confidentiality of peer support communications

(a) Definitions.
(1) Law enforcement agency. Means a federal agency that employs a law enforcement officer.
(2) Law enforcement officer. Has the same meaning as "Federal law enforcement officer" in section 115 of title 18.
(3) Peer support communication. Includes: (A) a spoken or written communication made during a peer support counseling session; (B) a note or report from a peer support counseling session; (C) a record of a peer support counseling session; or (D) for something a participant said during a session, another communication about that first communication, made between a peer support specialist and (i) another specialist, (ii) staff of the counseling program, or (iii) the specialist's supervisor.
(4) Peer support counseling program. A program run by a law enforcement agency that provides counseling from a peer support specialist to the agency's officers.
(5) Peer support counseling session. Formal counseling provided through such a program between a specialist and one or more officers.
(6) Peer support participant. An officer who receives counseling from a specialist.
(7) Peer support specialist. An officer who (A) has been trained in peer support counseling and in giving emotional and moral support to officers who went through or witnessed a traumatic work experience, and (B) is designated by a law enforcement agency to provide that service.

(b) Prohibition. Except as (c) allows, a peer support specialist or participant can't share the contents of a peer support communication with someone who wasn't part of it.

(c) Exceptions. The rule in (b) doesn't apply if:
(1) the communication contains (A) an explicit suicide threat, where the person shares both an intent to die by suicide and a plan or means for a suicide attempt — not just that they're having suicidal thoughts; (B) an explicit threat of imminent, serious physical harm or death to someone else; (C) information about abuse or neglect of a child or of an older or vulnerable person, or information the law requires to be reported; or (D) an admission of criminal conduct;
(2) every participant involved in the communication, session, record, or referenced communication agrees to the disclosure;
(3) a court with proper jurisdiction orders or subpoenas the disclosure; or
(4) the communication contains information the law requires to be disclosed.

(d) Rule of construction. Subsection (b) doesn't stop an officer from sharing: (1) something they personally observed about a participant outside a counseling session; or (2) something they know about a participant that didn't come from a peer support communication.

(e) Disclosure of rights. Before a participant's first counseling session, the specialist must tell the participant, in writing, about the confidentiality rule in (b) and the exceptions in (c).