1 Feb 2010, 09:00

The complainant applied for a job, and gave permission for her former manager to be contacted for a reference. She did not get the job, and believed that this was because her former manager had given a negative reference. She asked her former manager for details of the reference but they refused, saying that it had been a verbal reference, and nothing had been written down.

Under principle 6 of the Privacy Act individuals are entitled to have access to personal information that is held about them. ‘Personal information' is defined in the Privacy Act as ‘information about an identifiable individual'. It is not limited to information that is written down or recorded electronically, and can in certain circumstances include information that is held only in the mind of an employee.

An individual's right to access information under principle 6 is not an absolute right, and an agency can refuse to provide information if it can rely on one of the grounds set out in sections 27-29 of the Privacy Act. In terms of requests for information that is held in the mind, under section 29(2)(a) of the Privacy Act agencies may refuse such requests if the information is not ‘readily retrievable'.

Whether or not information that is held in the mind is ‘readily retrievable' will depend on the specific circumstances, such as the content of the information being requested, and how long ago any relevant conversation took place.

In this case, because the conversation between the complainant's former manager and the prospective employer took place relatively recently, we were of the view that it was reasonable to expect that the former manager would be able to recollect in general terms what the content of his reference had been. The agency agreed, and provided the complainant with a summary of her former manager's recollections of the reference.

We were satisfied that the agency had met its obligations by providing this summary, and decided to close our file.

June 2010

Access to personal information - employment - request for content of reference - principle 6 - section 29(2)(a) - readily retrievable - information held in the mind