Office of the Privacy Commissioner | Case Note 212156 [2010] NZPrivCmr 8: Personal information on internet was publicly available
A polytechnic course that taught English gave students a paper which contained a photograph of a woman with lines of text beneath. The text consisted of basic sentences such as: 'My name is .. and I live in ......'. Students were asked to copy the text as part of their lessons.
The woman whose photograph appears on the paper complained that she did not consent to her photo being used by the polytechnic. The woman contacted the polytechnic. It apologised for using her image without consent and said it had removed her image from the paper. The woman was not happy with the apology.
We notified the polytechnic under principle 10 of the Privacy Act and asked how it had obtained the woman's photograph.
Use of personal information
Principle 10 provides that an agency that holds personal information obtained in connection with one purpose should not use the information for any other purpose unless the agency believes, on reasonable grounds, that an exception applies.
The polytechnic said that it did not have any photographs of the woman on its student administrative system. It had obtained the photograph from an overseas news website. At some time, the woman's photograph had been used for an article on this website. The photograph was still available on the website during our investigation.
Principle 10(a) allows an agency to use personal information if an agency believes, on reasonable grounds, that the source of the information is a publicly available publication.
Similarly, principle 2 of the Act will not be breached if the agency collects information that is publicly available (principle 2(2)(a)).
Information on the internet can usually be accessed, and copied, by anyone, anywhere, with an internet connection. Any personal information that is posted on an open website is therefore publicly available.
As the polytechnic had taken the photograph from a publicly available source, it had not breached principle 10. We also considered that the apology from the polytechnic, and the removal of the photograph, were appropriate responses to the woman's concerns.
May 2010
Use of personal information - photograph found on internet - used in education material - publicly available publication - principles 10(a) and 2(2)(a)