1 Feb 2011, 09:00

A man complained that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry ('MAF') disclosed information about him to another person. The man considered that the information should have been anonymised.

Principle 11

Principle 11 of the Privacy Act states that an agency that holds personal information must not disclose the information unless the agency believes on reasonable grounds that one of the exceptions in principle 11 applies in the circumstances.

MAF was investigating alleged illegal importation and trading of certain types of animals. One of the people under investigation, a woman, had obtained a copy of allegations against herself. The information that was released included information about the man who complained to us.

MAF advised us that the information had been released as part of criminal disclosure to the woman's lawyer. As a result, MAF considered that the disclosure was required under section 13 of the Criminal Disclosures Act 2008.

Section 13 of the Criminal Disclosures Act requires the prosecutor of an offence to disclose certain information to a defendant after taking various procedural steps and as soon as is reasonably practicable. Section 13 contains a list of categories of information that should be disclosed. Here, the information complained about could have provided a basis for the woman's defence.

Section 7 of the Privacy Act states that the Privacy Act is subject to any law that authorises or requires the disclosure of personal information. This is commonly referred to as a statutory override.

We were satisfied that section 13 of the Criminal Disclosures Act required the disclosure of the information to the person's lawyer. To the extent that the Criminal Disclosures Act was inconsistent with the Privacy Act, our view was that it would override the Privacy Act.

MAF also sought to rely on principle 11(e)(iv) of the Privacy Act. Principle 11(e)(iv) states as follows:

An agency that holds personal information shall not disclose the information to a person or body or agency unless the agency believes, on reasonable grounds -
(e) that non-compliance is necessary -
(iv) for the conduct of proceedings before any court or tribunal (being proceedings that have been commenced or are reasonably in contemplation).

Given the circumstances we were also satisfied that principle 11(e)(iv) could apply to MAF's disclosure. This is because we were satisfied that MAF had a reasonable belief that disclosure of the information was necessary for Court proceedings.

We advised the man of our view and closed our file.

April 2011

Disclosure of personal information - Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry - Criminal Disclosures Act 2008 - conduct of proceedings - statutory override - Privacy Act 1993, section 7; principle 11; principle 11(e)(iv)