The complainant wanted to transfer to another telephone toll service. He completed an interconnect agreement for Clear Communications' direct toll service. The agreement was passed to Telecom New Zealand Ltd (Telecom) to effect the transfer. The complainant alleged that Telecom used the information in the interconnect agreement for marketing purposes.

Telecom informed me that the information received as a result of an interconnect agreement with another carrier is segregated within the network division of Telecom.

Telecom's sales and marketing staff do, however, have access to billing records of Telecom customers - including customers like the complainant, who receive the local service only. Sales and marketing staff send out marketing letters to prospective clients from analyses of these records.

Information privacy principle 10 provides that an agency that holds personal information obtained for one purpose must not use the information for any other purpose. An exception to this principle is where the other purpose is directly related to the purpose for which the information was obtained (principle 10(e)).

Telecom sought to rely on this exception, and drew my attention to a clause in its standard residential contract which provides:

'We and other Telecom companies may hold the information and share it with each other, with Telecom employees and contractors and with credit reference agencies. This enables us to provide services for you and others, send you bills, recover money you owe and keep you informed of services available to you.'

To confirm the source of the information used by Telecom for marketing, I required Telecom to provide me with a statutory declaration to the effect that interconnect agreement information is segregated; sales and marketing staff do not have access to it; and the information used in marketing letters is based on a review of billing records and revenue trends of existing Telecom customers.

In my opinion the use of the billing information by Telecom was not a breach of principle 10: its use was directly related to the purpose for which the information was obtained, and so fell within the exception provided by principle 10(e).

Indexing terms: Using personal information - Telecom New Zealand Ltd - Interconnect agreement with another agency - Telecom marketing its own services - Directly related purpose - Information privacy principle 10(e)

June 2001