1 Feb 2009, 09:00

A Police employee applied for a promotion but was unsuccessful. The Police have an internal review process that unsuccessful applicants can elect to take, and the employee wanted to do so. Applicants have to request a review within 10 days.

To support his request for review, the man made an urgent request to the Police for personal information relating to his application and interview. In particular he wanted access to notes made by the short-listing panel.

There were no notes made by the short-listing panel, so the Police could not provide the employee with this information. The Police decided to release the other information they held to him, but they did not send it to him until 10 days after his request.

Principle 6

Principle 6 of the Privacy Act states that where an agency holds personal information in such a way that it can be readily retrieved, the individual concerned can ask the agency for access to that information.

Section 40 of the Privacy Act states that an agency that receives a request under principle 6 must, as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any case not later than 20 working days after the day on which the request is received, decide whether the request is to be granted and notify the requester of the decision.

The Police made their decision to release the information to the man within the section 40 timeframe and had provided the information to him within that time. However, the issue here was whether the Police had breached the Act because the employee's request was urgent.

Section 37 of the Privacy Act states that if a requester asks that his or her request be treated as urgent, that individual shall give reasons why the request should be treated as urgent.

An urgent request does not necessarily oblige the agency to treat the matter urgently. However, it does raise questions about how soon it is reasonably practicable to provide information (in terms of section 40) or whether the agency has unduly delayed in providing information that it has decided to release (section 66(4)).

It was clear here that the employee had provided reasons for requesting the information under urgency.

The Police did not hold the information that the employee particularly wanted, so they could not provide it. In the circumstances, it appeared that the Police had provided the remaining information as soon as was reasonably practicable. They had treated his request as urgent, and had supplied the information as quickly as they could.

We therefore considered that the Police had not breached principle 6.

It was evident, though, that the Police should have had systems in place to allow them to provide such information within the 10 day period set by their own policies. As a consequence of the complaint, the Police amended their internal process so they would better handle such requests.

We closed our investigation on this basis.

October 2009

Access to personal information - Police - urgent request - as soon as reasonably practicable - change of process - Privacy Act 1993, principle 6; sections 37, 40