1 Feb 2010, 09:00

A woman resigned from her job and took a personal grievance against her former employer. The former employer posted on its website a copy of the personal grievance the woman had filed in the Employment Relations Authority. The former employer also posted a number of other statements from other employees rebutting the content of the personal grievance.

The woman complained to us about these actions. She said that she was having difficulty finding a new job, and she believed that this was because, when a potential employer carried out an internet search on her name, the first item that the search engines would bring up was the information posted by her former employer on its website.

Principle 11

Principle 11 places limits on the disclosure of personal information. An agency must not disclose personal information unless it has reasonable grounds to believe that one of the exceptions to principle 11 applies.

We did not consider that the former employer was able to rely on any of the exceptions to principle 11 in respect of the personal information it had disclosed about the woman on its website, and we formed a preliminary view that it had breached principle 11 as a result.

We notified the former employer of the complaint and our view that it had breached principle 11, and it immediately removed the personal information about the woman from its website. It also took steps to have the information removed from various search engine caches.

Adverse consequences

While we were satisfied that a breach of principle 11 had occurred, we were not satisfied that the woman had suffered adverse consequences of the type set out in section 66(1)(b) of the Privacy Act as a result of the breach. In particular she could not provide any evidence that her job prospects had suffered because of it. As a result we did not consider that the former employer had interfered with her privacy.

The former employer apologised to the woman, but declined her request for compensation. Although the woman was not satisfied with the apology, we did not consider it was necessary to continue our investigation, and closed our file.

May 2010

Disclosure of personal information - former employer - personal grievance details posted on website - principle 11, section 66