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On 1 November 2010 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner was integrated into the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a new website established at www.oaic.gov.au.

Note 1: Major changes to the Privacy Act 1988 will come into effect in March 2014. Agencies, businesses and not for profits need to start preparing for these changes. For more information go to our privacy law reform page at www.oaic.gov.au
Note 2: From 12 March 2013 content is no longer being added to, or amended, on this site, consequently some information may be out of date. For new privacy content visit the www.oaic.gov.au website.

Types

Topic(s): Compliance

Announcement: Federal Privacy Commissioner publishes case note 3 for 2004

24/03/04

The Federal Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton, has today released case note 3 regarding the disclosure of personal information, between financial institutions, collected prior to commencement of the National Privacy Principles.

In H v Financial Institution A and B [2004] PrivCmrA 3 the complainant alleged that there had been a disclosure of personal information (including name, address and financial details) between two financial companies that breached the Privacy Act.

As it was not clear whether the Privacy Commissioner had the power to investigate the complaint, preliminary inquiries were undertaken under section 42 of the Act to ascertain the date when the personal information in the portfolio valuation was collected. The portfolio valuation was dated 15 December 2001 and the Office was satisfied that both financial institution A and financial institution B collected the information prior to 21 December 2001.

Since National Privacy Principle 2 only applies to information collected after 21 December 2001, the disclosures between financial institutions did not come within the jurisdiction of the Privacy Commissioner. For this reason the Privacy Commissioner declined to investigate the complaint under section 41(1)(a) of the Act.

The Federal Privacy Commissioner publishes case notes of finalised complaints that he considers would be of interest to the general public. Not all complaints are recorded in case notes so the published notes only illustrate the types of cases resolved by the Office rather than giving a comprehensive account of them.

Most cases chosen for inclusion in case notes involve new interpretation of the Act or associated legislation, illustrate systemic issues, or illustrate the application of the law to a particular industry. The notes do not identify the parties to the complaint. Identities are kept confidential to maintain the privacy of the parties involved.

The Privacy Act makes it a function of the Commissioner to endeavour to resolve complaints by conciliation (s.27(1)(a)). As a result, the outcome in any particular case reflects a number of factors, including the applicable law, the facts of the matter and the approach to the conciliation process taken by both complainant and respondent. Please visit the Complaint Case Notes and Complaint Determinations page for more details.