A woman asked for access to information held by the Department of Social Welfare after allegations were made about the treatment of her children. After receiving some information, she discovered that someone had made an allegation about her to her doctor. She complained to me after the Department withheld from her the identity of this person. However, I considered that the complaint did not have substance.

The Department said that another patient of the woman's doctor had approached the doctor, who alerted a Plunket nurse, apparently with the intention of having the matter looked into informally. In the meantime, another person made allegations directly to the Department. The social worker assigned to the case approached the Plunket nurse, who alerted the social worker to the doctor's information.

The complaint raised issues under s 27(1)(c), which gives agencies good reason to withhold personal information if its release would be likely to prejudice the maintenance of the law.

The Department has a statutory function to maintain the law relating to the care and protection of children and relies heavily on concerned people to draw problems to its attention. If it was widely believed that the Department would not guarantee the confidentiality of informants, that supply of information would probably decrease. This would prejudice the Department's ability to detect instances where children were not receiving adequate care or were in need of protection and to prevent, investigate or detect offences. I accepted that this would prejudice the Department's ability to maintain the law as it relates to the care and protection of children.

I had to consider whether similar reasoning applied to situations where a person had not approached the Department directly, but raised concerns with a doctor and left it up to the doctor to decide whether or not to approach the Department. Would revealing that person's identity prejudice the Department's ability to maintain the law?

I considered a doctor could be seen as a conduit by which information about care and protection matters could be referred to the Department or to other appropriate agencies. Some people might not wish or know to contact the Department directly, and might prefer to take the matter up informally with a doctor or nurse and allow the professional to consider what, if anything, should be done. If the information made its way to the Department, it should be treated as if it had been received directly from an informant. If people could not approach a doctor secure in the knowledge that their identities would be held in confidence, that particular approach might not be made. The Department would then lose a source of information and that would prejudice its ability to detect instances where children were in need of care and protection.

For these reasons, I formed the opinion that the Department had a proper basis to withhold the person's identity from the complainant.

Indexing terms: Access to personal information - Department of Social Welfare - Refusal - Informant identity - Allegations made to doctor - Doctor a 'conduit' by which people may initiate investigation into care and protection of children - Releasing identity of source of allegations would be likely to 'prejudice the maintenance of the law' - Privacy Act 1993, s 27(1)(c) - Information privacy principle 6

May 1999