1 Feb 2011, 09:00

A woman complained to our office about a debt collection company contacting her place of work.

She advised that the debt collection company had called her workplace hoping to talk to her. When her manager informed the debt collector that she was unable to take the call, the caller informed the manager of its name and number and gave her the woman's reference number and asked the manager to pass on the message.

The complainant advised that news that a debt collector had been trying to contact her spread amongst her colleagues and she was ridiculed as a result. She said that she had been highly embarrassed and this had impacted on her work.

We formed the view that this complaint raised possible issues under principle 11 of the Privacy Act.

Principle 11

Under principle 11 an agency which holds personal information must not disclose that information unless it believes, on reasonable grounds, that one of the exceptions set out under principle 11 applies.

When the debt collector responded to our notification of the complaint it advised that it could not find any record that it had contacted the woman's workplace. It also said that it did not appear to have a contact number for the woman.

We sought further information from the woman, who subsequently advised that the alleged disclosure had taken place six years prior to her complaint to us.

Section 71(1)(a)

Under section 71(1)(a) of the Privacy Act the Privacy Commissioner has discretion to decide to take no further action on a complaint if, in the Commissioner's opinion, the length of time that has elapsed between the date when the subject matter of the complaint arose and the date when the complaint was made is such that an investigation of the complaint is no longer practicable or desirable.

In this case over six years had passed between the alleged disclosure and the complaint being made. In cases where so much time has passed it can be extremely difficult to establish the circumstances around such a disclosure. This is due to the fact that many agencies do not retain extensive records for such a long time, and it is unlikely staff members involved would recall such a conversation even if still employed by the agency.

On this basis we decided to exercise our discretion under section 71(1)(a) to decline to take any further action on this complaint. We notified the parties of our decision and closed our file.

April 2011

Disclosure of personal information - debt collection company - period of time elapsed; Privacy Act, section 71(1)(a)