The complainant asked me to investigate the actions of a firm of solicitors in disclosing information to his wife consisting of statements of the complainant's income and expenditure.

This information had previously been disclosed in the course of a Court hearing. The complainant also alleged that his former spouse had in turn disclosed this information to the Inland Revenue Department.

The disclosure by the solicitors took place prior to 1 July 1993 when the Privacy Act came into force. Therefore I did not have jurisdiction to investigate. Further, the solicitors gave an assurance that no further information would be disclosed.

With respect to the disclosure by the complainant's former spouse to Inland Revenue, I formed the view that the information held by her was held solely or principally for the purposes of or in connection with her personal, family or household affairs and was not therefore subject to the Information privacy principles by virtue of section 56 of the Act.

The complainant also requested that I direct the solicitors to hand over any of his documents that they held. The complainant had indicated that this was a matter which would be ruled upon by the Court in his case. In these circumstances it was not appropriate that I arrive at an opinion.

For these reasons I discontinued my investigation pursuant to section 71(2) of the Act on the basis that further action was inappropriate.

Disclosure of information - Information privacy principles 11 - section 56
Disclosure of personal information - Solicitor - Disclosure to client of information obtained in proceedings - Disclosure by client to IRD - Jurisdiction - Privacy Act 1993, s 56 - Information privacy principle 11