Office of the Privacy Commissioner | Case Note 210778 [2010] NZ PrivCmr 5 : Woman complains about Council refusing her request for an email
A woman requested a copy of an email about her which had been sent by a council's senior management to staff. The council refused the request on the basis that the email could not be found.
The woman made a complaint to our office that the council had refused her request.
Principle 6
Under principle 6 individuals have a right to request access to personal information held about them by an agency.
An agency cannot refuse a principle 6 request unless it has a proper basis to do so under sections 27 - 29 of the Act.
In this case the Council was seeking to withhold the information requested under section 29(2)(b). This section provides that an agency may refuse to release information where the information requested does not exist or cannot be found.
For an agency to rely on section 29(2)(b), it must be able to demonstrate that it has taken reasonable steps to attempt to locate the information, but that it has still been unable to find it.
In order to determine whether the Council was entitled to rely on section 29(2)(b) in this case, we asked it to provide us with details of the search it had undertaken for the email.
The Council conducted an extensive search of its electronic system for any correspondence which contained entries with the woman's name, or the subject matter of the email, for a period of several months around when the email was sent.
In addition the Council also searched its electronic system for any emails sent by the staff members in question for the same period of time.
The Council also advised that it had searched its hard copy files of correspondence between the woman and Council for the same time period.
Based on this we were satisfied that the Council had undertaken reasonable steps to search for the information which had been requested by the woman.
It was our view that the Council was entitled to refuse her request on the basis that the information requested could not be found.
We informed the woman that the Council had not breached principle 6. Our investigation was closed.
May 2010
Access to personal information - Local Authority - request for email which had been sent between staff - reasonable search made - information not found - Privacy Act 1993 s 29(2)(b) - principle 6